It’s been a wild summer, what with stock market volatility (to put it mildly), concerns over interest rates and the state of the economy, and upheaval in the presidential race. Set that against the backdrop of AI, wars, supply-chain slowdowns, and climate-related disasters and you’ve got what some historians call a “polycrisis”: a state of affairs when multiple threats or disruptions happen at the same time. (More colorful terms spring to mind, though our editors won’t let us use them.)

In this environment, the challenge CFOs face is maintaining their organizations’ focus on the long term while facing short-term crises, and distinguishing what’s truly relevant from the “noise,” according to Myles Corson, global and Americas strategy and markets leader at EY. Corson shared his thoughts with CFO Brew on how finance leaders can best navigate the polycrisis.

Use your vision as a navigational tool: CFOs, Corson said, need to have a clear vision for their companies that can act as a “compass” guiding them through difficult times. Such a vision, he said, can help them “to make informed decisions in a proactive way about how [things] line up with longer-term strategy, versus reacting to events.” It can also help you prove to external stakeholders “that you’re staying true to the path you’ve previously communicated” and to enable staff to “interpret and react appropriately to events as they occur,” he added.

Don’t let uncertainty keep you from making big bets: Sometimes, Corson said, companies hold off on making long-term investments in the face of short-term events, opting instead for “shorter-term, incremental projects.” But this strategy, he feels, can be overly cautious. “If you’re not able to make big bets because of this uncertainty, is that detracting from your ability to achieve your long-term goals?” he asks, noting that “incrementalism” might not be the best approach to issues such as AI and sustainability.

For more on how CFOs can guide their companies during multiple crises, click here.—CV

As CFOs juggle budget management, strategic planning, and digital transformation, they are becoming the Simone Biles of finance—balancing it all with finesse. Join CFO Brew and top industry leaders to explore the evolving role of the CFO with insights on harnessing AI, navigating economic challenges, and staying ahead in a rapidly changing world. Plus, don’t miss the discussion with Mark Floisand from Sage on how AI can elevate the modern CFO’s workflow.

Dynamic pricing’s reputation has taken a drubbing in 2024. Headlines have decried the practice: “Welcome to pricing hell,” The Atlantic grimly stated, while Vox asserted that “Uber-style pricing is coming for everything.” In March, Wendy’s canceled plans to implement “surge pricing” on its food after consumer backlash. And, in July, the FTC began investigating a hyper-targeted type of dynamic pricing called, as the agency dubbed it, “surveillance pricing.”)

In such a climate, can companies still get away with using dynamic pricing? Arnab Sinha, co-author of the book Game Changer: How Strategic Pricing Shapes Businesses, Markets, and Society, thinks they can, as long as they do so in a way that customers perceive as fair.

Sinha, managing director and senior partner at Boston Consulting Group, told CFO Brew that dynamic pricing works when it’s a means of sharing value with customers. Consumers will accept dynamic pricing, he said, as long as they “understand the inherent logic” behind it and agree that the rationale for it is “fundamentally fair.”

They also want there to be predictability in why prices change. For instance, he said, consumers expect to pay more for an airline ticket they book the day before a flight versus one they buy a few months out. And they also want to see prices both rise and fall and reward-specific behaviors, he added.

Click here for more on getting dynamic pricing right.—CV

In the first half of 2024, CFO turnover at public companies around the world hit a three-year high “after slower starts to the year in 2022 and 2023,” according to the Russell Reynolds Global CFO Turnover Index.

In the first half of this year, the CFO turnover rate hit 8.9%, with a total of 163 CFOs appointed at public companies on 12 major stock indexes, including the S&P 500 and FTSE 100. The report’s authors note the climb suggests that “as economic uncertainty becomes the new normal for organizations, previous trepidation to replace CFOs has dissipated.”

In any case, the turnaround speed is increasing: Average tenure for an outgoing CFO dropped to a five-year low of 5.7 years in the first half of 2024. Retirement is a common reason for departure: 54% of CFOs who left in the first half of 2024 left their roles to retire or move exclusively to board roles, marking a 15 percentage point year over year jump and a five-year high.

More than half (56%) of incoming CFOs around the world in the first half of 2024 were internal hires. But the trend isn’t evenly distributed worldwide: “The Nikkei 225 and Hang Seng’s CFO appointments were almost exclusively internal,” the report’s authors noted, but in stock exchanges with a more Western bent, “there was a greater reliance on external appointments.”

Click here to keep reading about CFO turnover.—NP

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