Why corporate strategy is moving to the CFO’s office

Good morning. The corporate strategy playbook is increasingly landing on the CFO’s desk.

McKinsey recently held its 24th annual Global CFO Forum, an exclusive gathering that brought together about 100 finance chiefs from over 30 countries representing some of the world’s largest organizations. I spoke with Andy West, a senior partner at McKinsey and global co-leader of the firm’s Strategy and Corporate Finance practice, who shared key insights from the forum.

West did a straw poll asking the CFOs if the strategy function now reports into them—about two-thirds raised their hand. Five years ago, it would have been less than a third, he said.

“We are definitely in a new era,” West said. Beyond org charts, CFOs are increasingly central to navigating shifting competition, macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty, and rapid technological disruption.

Market competition itself has intensified. McKinsey tracks what it calls a “shuffle rate,” or how frequently companies gain or lose market share within industries, he said. That rate has risen by about 50% across all industries since the mid-1990s, signaling faster turnover among winners and losers.

Against that backdrop, CFOs are taking a leading role in capital allocation, investor communication, and long-term strategic bets—areas once more squarely in the CEO or strategy chief domain.

AI is accelerating that evolution. “We’ve been talking about AI at this conference for a........

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