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How EY can help
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Through enhanced corporate reporting, EY can support finance teams to meet demands for high-quality enhanced financial and nonfinancial information.
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While finance leaders have built a hard-earned reputation for protecting and optimizing value, they should also set out a plan to drive value and growth over the long term. In short, they share a strategic responsibility for the future of the company.
This evolution is reflected in the 2024 EY Global DNA of the Financial Controller Report, which shows finance leaders focused on driving long-term value. The research found that 86% of financial controllers expect their roles to change by 2030, with 40% anticipating a heightened focus on value creation. Similarly, the 2023 EY Global DNA of the CFO Report found that more than three-quarters (78%) of respondents said that “effectively balancing trade-offs between short-term and long-term priorities is an important challenge for finance leaders.”
As part of that broad responsibility, finance leaders are recognizing the need to embrace nonfinancial data as a long-term driver of high performance. This addition to the CFO’s scope is reflected in the questions that investors ask. More than two-thirds of finance leaders surveyed (69%) say investors ask more questions about nonfinancial drivers of value now than two years ago.
Sustainability is the most prominent area of focus, and CFOs can play a central role in integrating sustainability risks and opportunities into decision-making, and the allocation of resources and capital against key priorities.
CFOs should use their experience and expertise to detect and interpret investor interest in sustainability. Stakeholder engagement could be important, not least because, as investors admit, they are not always clear on how they assess companies against material priorities and on the information they want for their investment decision-making.