Growth remains the top strategic business priority for both CFOs and CEOs, according to a survey by Gartner, Inc. Forty-five percent of CEOs surveyed ranked growth in their top 3 strategic priorities, down from 53% in 2022, while 62% of CFOs put it in their top 3, up from 59% in 2022.
While CFOs and CEOs agree on growth as their top priority, their emphasis on this and other priorities differ, according to the Gartner survey of 422 actively employed CEOs, CFOs, and other senior executive business leaders conducted through December 2022 (see Figure 1). For instance, CFOs’ second top priority is corporate action such as M&A and restructuring (41%), which ranks fourth for CEOs (27%).
“Balancing future growth investments and CEO expectations, while still tightly managing cost and cashflow, is the tightrope CFOs must walk in the back half of 2023,” said Alexander Bant, Chief of Research with the Gartner Finance practice. “The top questions CFO should be educating the CEOs and the board of directors on as the business cycle begin to turn more positive include: How should we sequence funding for organic and inorganic growth bets? How best do we secure capital? What does it look like when we model out the impact on margin and ROIC?”