This year has been a rocky, uncertain one for many members of the business community. Many CFOs are glad to put 2025 behind them, and quite a few are also taking a proactive, if not positive, approach to 2026. Here’s what finance heads have on tap in the new year:

Growth with focus and discipline:

“In 2026, our primary focus is driving profitable growth amid a dynamic macroeconomic landscape. Achieving this requires focused execution and disciplined capital allocation to ensure every investment aligns with long-term value creation for our stakeholders.

“Employee development continues to be a critical priority. We recently launched our Finance Leadership Development program. Additionally, by enabling internal mobility and creating new opportunities, we are fostering a culture of growth that benefits both our employees and the business.”

—Anshooman Aga, CFO of Vontier

Building on growth with innovation:

“In 2026, I’m looking forward to building on an incredibly strong year for Gong. We surpassed $300m in ARR this year and are continuing to grow rapidly. As a point of reference, if we look at public market comparables, we are operating at a growth rate that would put us in the top decile of public SaaS companies. That momentum is being fueled by real shifts in how revenue teams operate, especially with AI. Over the next 12 months, our goals are to continue leading the way in this new category by launching new products, driving innovation at pace, and delivering even greater value to customers across industries and around the world.”

—Tim Riitters, CFO of Gong

Keep reading for more candid CFO prognostications.—CV

It’s like the old line attributed to Mark Twain: “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.”

Ask a CFO what parallels they see between the uncertainty of 2025 and the staggering economic collapse of 2007–08, and you’ll get some variant of that famous Twainism.

In the worst way, we’re so back. 60% of CFOs expected a recession by the end of 2025, according to a Q1 CNBC CFO Council survey, while Goldman Sachs recently upped the likelihood of a recession in the next 12 months to 35%.

And yet, everything’s different. To truly understand the potential dangers of our current moment, you have to look back. For starters: 2008 didn’t start like this. It started with a bang.

Here’s CFO Brew’s oral history of the 2008 crash, as told by finance and accounting professionals. Click here to see the rest of CFO Brew’s Quarter Century Project.

Interviews have been edited and condensed for length and clarity.

Hard and fast

Ari Shwayder, lecturer of business economics and public policy at the University of Michigan, who worked at McKinsey before and after the 2008 crash: When things crashed, it was one of those classic [scenarios] when all of a sudden it happened all at once. It felt like everything was fine; there was very little uncertainty. And then, all of a sudden, the banking system blew apart over the course of a couple of months.

Shari Freedman, CFO for literacy nonprofit Room to Read: In 2008, it was immediate. Once [Lehman Brothers] collapsed, the whole market collapsed.

Kelly Bargabos, CFO and COO of San Diego Theatres: I was in the diamond jewelry industry when 2007–2008 hit. We were a wholesaler, and we sold to [high end] retail jewelry stores. We were hit really hard and really fast, [as] one of the first sectors to really be impacted by the real estate bubble that burst and the beginning of the economic downturn.

The reason we were hit so hard and so fast is because we were a luxury diamond jewelry brand, and the people who bought our products in the retail stores were the hedge fund managers. They were the Wall Street traders, all those people who lost their jobs, lost their income, lost their retirements. That was our customer base, those people with high disposable income.

Keep reading (if you dare).—NP

As we reflect on a wild 2025, let’s revisit some of our favorite profiles on companies and business leaders from the year.

Read: As 2025 comes to close, so might the era of lunchtime slop bowls. This deep dive into the major slop bowl peddlers like Chipotle, Sweetgreen, and Cava asks what’s next for these companies? (Bloomberg)

Read: Remember the comfort of a Friday night family dinner at Chili’s in the late ’90s and early 2000s? Well, it looks like Gen Z has discovered it too. The company had a spectacular turnaround—customer visits were up for the first time in two years. (Wall Street Journal)

Read: How a giant green owl became the most beloved mascot on the internet, and skyrocketed its company, Duolingo, to success. (Fast Company)