The dominant CFO challenge in Australia in 2026 is leaner teams carrying more, after 2025's headcount cuts left finance leaders absorbing work that should sit across several roles. Cost pressure blocks hires even where the case is clear, and expectations keep rising faster than resourcing.
Leaner teams carrying more than they should
This is the one that comes up most. Headcount cuts have left finance leaders carrying more of the workload themselves , managing stakeholder expectations, firefighting and absorbing responsibilities that should sit across several roles. The downstream effect of 2025's cuts is that teams are running leaner with higher workloads , which makes every remaining hiring decision more deliberate. The scale of it is worth stating plainly: a survey I ran found 55% of businesses made a headcount cut of some kind in finance over the last twenty-four months, across the board rather than in a few exposed industries.[1]
The risk here is misread as a capacity problem. It is a continuity problem. Strong finance leaders can carry the load for a while , but if they are stretched too far, the risk is not only losing them to burnout, it is losing the stability of the whole function. When the person holding it together leaves, everything they were personally holding leaves with them. That is a governance exposure as much as an operational one, because ASIC requires financial records that correctly record and explain the company's transactions well enough for a true and fair report to be prepared and audited, and records held in one overloaded person's head do not meet that test.
If the answer is restructuring rather than adding heads, I set out what an effective finance team structure looks like by stage.
A clear business case that still does not get funded
The second challenge follows directly from the first. Cost pressures frequently limit hiring for finance roles even when the business case for the hire is clear. Finance leaders end up in the odd position of being able to model the return on their own hire precisely, and still not getting it.
What works is changing the argument from capacity to risk. A request for another pair of hands competes with every other department's request. A case built on what breaks if the hire does not happen, and when, is a different conversation with a board. Salary benchmarking helps here too, because a case built on the wrong number gets rejected for the wrong reason.
If you need to build that case properly, here is how to construct one a board will actually approve.
Expectations rising faster than resourcing
Rising stakeholder expectations are a significant and growing challenge for finance leaders to manage. Part of that is AI. Based on conversations with CFOs and senior finance leaders, I expect finance teams to get leaner while expectations grow . If AI tools can generate reports, flag variances and draft commentary, leaders will opt for smaller teams with stronger commercial influence. Our guide to getting started with AI in finance goes through the workflows that actually absorb some of that load.
That is a genuine strategic challenge rather than a complaint. It means the value of your function shifts from producing information to producing decisions. The functions that do this well look different: the best leaders build finance teams that are commercially minded enough to pivot quickly and resilient enough to handle volatility without burning out. Both halves of that sentence matter.
Being promoted into the seat from inside
Less discussed and worth naming. Promotion into a CFO role is a good outcome, but there are specific challenges when somebody is elevated into that seat from within the business. You inherit relationships formed when you were a peer, a founder who remembers you in the previous role, and a team you used to sit alongside.
The technical part of the transition is the easy part. The hard part is renegotiating how you are treated, which nobody will do on your behalf. In my experience this is where an external mentor earns their keep, because internal advice on this is compromised by definition. Most finance professionals do not have access to mentors with experience of major career trigger events such as capital raises, IPOs or a listed business entering administration. If you can find one before you need one, do.
What the challenges look like at each stage
The pressure is not the same everywhere, and the mistake is applying a large-company answer to a startup problem or the reverse.
Common questions
What are the biggest challenges facing CFOs right now?
In the Australian market the dominant one is leaner teams carrying more work. Headcount cuts have left finance leaders absorbing responsibilities that should sit across several roles, while managing stakeholder expectations and firefighting. Alongside that: cost pressures blocking hires even where the business case is clear, expectations rising faster than resourcing as AI raises what a smaller team is expected to deliver, and for internally promoted CFOs, the specific difficulty of renegotiating relationships formed when they were a peer.
Why is a stretched finance leader a risk to the business?
Because it is a continuity problem rather than a capacity one. Strong finance leaders can carry an unreasonable load for a while, but if they are stretched too far the risk is not only losing them to burnout, it is losing the stability of the whole function. When the person personally holding the reporting, the controls and the relationships leaves, all of that leaves with them, and rebuilding takes far longer than the hire that was declined.
How do you get a finance hire approved when costs are constrained?
Change the argument from capacity to risk. Cost pressures frequently block finance hires even when the business case is clear, because a request for more hands competes directly with every other department's request. A case built on what specifically breaks if the hire does not happen, and when, is a different conversation at board level. Benchmark the salary properly too, because a case built on the wrong number gets rejected for the wrong reason.
What is difficult about being promoted to CFO from within?
The technical transition is usually the easy part. What proves hard is renegotiating relationships formed when you were a peer, with a founder who remembers you in your previous role and a team you used to sit alongside. Nobody does that renegotiation on your behalf. An external mentor helps more than internal advice here, because internal advice is compromised by definition, though most finance professionals do not have access to mentors who have been through major trigger events such as capital raises or an IPO.
References
- A survey I ran at Story Recruitment: 55% of businesses made a headcount cut of some kind in finance over the last twenty-four months, across the board rather than only in specific industries.