Good morning. If you’re a Fortune 500 CFO and your remit is steadily increasing while you take on an additional title and learn new skills, you’re not alone.
C-suite dynamics of the biggest companies in the U.S. are rapidly changing, according to research by Deloitte’s Executive Accelerators Sensing and Insights and Center for Integrated Research groups. The researchers examined the C-suite composition of Fortune 500 companies between 2018 and 2023. Top leadership teams grew 23% on average (from 6.7 executives to 8.2).
“This reflects both the addition of new executive roles and the expansion of existing ones,” said Elizabeth Moore, a senior manager and a data-sensing leader in Deloitte’s U.S. Executive Accelerators organization. “The shift is driven by increasing business complexity, regulatory demands, and the need for specialized leadership.”
New roles like chief communications officer have been introduced, for example. But there’s also a rise in dual-title executives, Moore said. That dynamic certainly pertains to CFOs. I previously reported that finance chiefs are taking on the COO role or even a newly combined finance chief and COO role, like at PayPal and Salesforce. And CFOs are increasingly becoming company presidents.
More skills wanted
Deloitte’s report includes an analysis of publicly available C-suite job posting data in the Lightcast Open Skills Taxonomy database, which shows the number of skills executives are asked to bring to the table is increasing. From 2018 to 2023, the average number of skills listed in a CFO job posting—at companies of all sizes—went up 19% (from approximately 12.5 skills to 14.9), according to the report. And oftentimes, these skills are in areas outside of the position’s historical mandate.
“For CFOs, business strategy is a rapidly rising skill reflected in role postings,” Moore told me. “In 2019, 32% of CFO postings included business strategy, by 2024 that number increased to 58% of postings.”
Other skills growing in demand are data and financial analysis, risk management, and regulatory and legal compliance skills, she said. “In a recent Deloitte CFO Signals survey, we also asked CFOs what three traits, skills or experience are most important when identifying their possible successors,” she explained. “Operational experience was the most-cited answer, followed by familiarity with new technologies and network leadership.”
Although the scope of the role has expanded outside of number crunching, that’s still a necessary foundation. The top two skills represented in CFO job postings every year are general accounting and general finance, Moore said.
“The changes we observed in the C-suite from 2018 to 2023 are among the most significant shifts in executive leadership we've analyzed,” she said. It marks a “fundamental transformation in how companies structure their leadership,” she added.
The convergence of rapid digital transformation, evolving regulatory landscapes, and heightened business complexity makes this five-year period particularly profound, Moore said. Companies had to rethink traditional leadership models.
“While past shifts have been driven by specific trends, such as globalization or financial crises, this transformation is broader and touches nearly every function,” she said.
Another key finding is an “overwhelming consensus” among executives that human skills, such as adaptability, collaboration, and strategic thinking, will remain essential for leadership success, Moore said.
Sheryl Estrada
sheryl.estrada@fortune.com
