Many CFOs are struggling to plan effectively in today’s unpredictable environment. Leaders can create the most detailed plan of action, but throw in one wrench and all that work goes out the window. The key is to trade some precision for adaptability.
So says John Frank, founder and CEO of Third Road Management, a fractional financial services firm based in Chicago. Frank shares how CFOs can better navigate uncertainty by resisting the urge to be “exactly right.”
What are the most common financial planning mistakes you see, and how should CFOs build more resilient plans?
A lot of teams still plan as if stability is the default and disruption is temporary. In reality, it’s the opposite. That mindset shows up in plans that are highly detailed but not very flexible. They look solid upfront, but don’t hold once conditions shift, which they inevitably do.
The more effective approach is to trade some precision for adaptability. Instead of trying to be exactly right, strong finance leaders focus on being prepared. If assumptions change, what’s the next move? That leads to more frequent forecasting, more scenario planning and a clearer understanding of what’s actually driving performance—not just the outputs, but the inputs behind them.
In our experience, the companies that navigate this best are the ones that keep that focus simple. They’re not tracking everything, just the few things that really matter. At that point, finance stops being about defending a plan and starts helping the business adjust in real time.
As the CFO role expands beyond reporting and compliance, how can finance leaders balance their core responsibilities while also acting as strategic partners to the CEO and leadership team in practice?
It’s less of a balancing act and more about getting the foundation right first. If the core finance function is inconsistent, everything else becomes reactive. The priority is building processes and a team that can handle reporting, controls and cash visibility reliably without constant oversight. Once that’s in place, the strategic piece becomes more natural.
The CFOs who are effective here are already part of the conversation. They understand how the business operates day-to-day, not just how it shows up in a report, and they can connect decisions to financial outcomes in a practical way. That often means thinking like an operator, not just a finance leader.
Having worked around both operators and finance teams, there’s often a gap in how each side sees the business. Bridging that gap is where finance becomes valuable. It’s not about adding more to the role. It’s about being embedded in how decisions get made.
As organizations scale and financial complexity increases, what are the most common breakdowns you see, and how should CFOs create the right structure and discipline to support growth?
Growth tends to expose whatever was loosely held together early on. In the early stages, companies run on speed and instinct. That drives momentum, but as the organization grows, those same habits can create confusion, especially when teams are working from different data or measuring success in different ways.
The breakdown I see most often is a lack of alignment. It’s a pattern that shows up consistently as companies grow, and that is different teams working toward different definitions of success. Finance can help solve that by bringing clarity, not complexity.
It starts with defining the few metrics that actually matter and making sure everyone understands them the same way. From there, you build the systems and processes to support that shared view. There’s always tension between structure and speed in growing companies. The goal isn’t to slow things down. It’s to make sure everyone is moving in the same direction.
With evolving technology and business demands reshaping the role, what major shifts do you see impacting CFOs in the coming years, and how should finance leaders prepare?
Technology is changing how finance teams operate. A lot of the manual work is going away, which creates more capacity. The bigger question is how that capacity gets used, and most importantly, whether it is actually improving decision-making.
There’s an increasing expectation that finance will help shape decisions, not just explain results after the fact. That pulls the CFO into conversations around strategy, capital allocation and operating trade-offs much earlier. At the same time, decisions are happening faster, often without perfect information. That puts more weight on judgment.
Preparation isn’t just about tools. It’s about perspective, which means understanding how the business really works, asking the right questions and being comfortable making decisions without having every data point.
The CFO role is becoming more central, but also less defined. That’s where both the opportunity and the challenge are, and also where judgment starts to matter more than just process.
