A Frankfurt-based industrial company we work with recently cut their month-end close from eight days to three. The technology was straightforward: AI handling reconciliations, automated journal entries, predictive variance flagging. The surprise came when they tried to backfill the controller who had left mid-implementation. The role spec they handed us bore almost no resemblance to the one from two years prior.
The transactional skills that once filled 60% of the job description had dropped to a footnote. What replaced them was a list that read more like a business partner mandate: scenario modelling for the board, capital allocation advisory, M&A integration planning, investor-facing narrative work. The salary band had moved up accordingly, but the candidate pool had not kept pace.
We placed someone who had spent four years in a Big Four transaction advisory practice before moving into industry. She had the technical foundation but had never run a close process operationally. The client accepted that trade-off because the operational close was now a machine’s job. Her value was in the analysis that happened after the numbers landed.
This pattern is reshaping how we advise candidates who have built careers on technical excellence in transactional finance. The competencies provide useful context, and the candidates gaining ground are those who have already migrated their time allocation toward commercial decision support, even if their current title still reads Finance Manager or Senior Controller.
The talent pool for these reimagined roles is thinner than it appears. Many experienced finance professionals have not yet made the shift, and those who have are fielding competing offers. Companies need to start the search process earlier than they once did, and the job description needs to reflect what the role will demand in 18 months rather than what it demanded last year.
Prompted by reporting from CFO Dive.