The battle for CFO talent isn’t slowing down with the economy

The job of CFOs has changed dramatically in recent years. As the keepers of metrics, they’ve had to adjust to both an explosion in data and data analytics, and also to a proliferation of goals measuring environmental and social as well as financial outcomes. That was the topic of a lively dinner conversation held in Chicago last night by the Fortune CFO Collaborative, in partnership with Workday and Deloitte. Most of the discussion was off-the-record. But Clem Johnson, president of the search firm Crist/Kolder, made some opening remarks to spark the conversation. Some excerpts:

On whether the battle for financial talent will continue, even if the economy slows:

“I certainly think we will be living with this demand pace that we’ve seen for at least the next five years…The increase in the sophistication, the complexity, the bandwidth of the CFO role, I don’t have to tell this group how incredibly demanding the role has become.”

On the background needed to be CFO:

“Something like 51% of sitting CFOs have MBAs while only 37% have CPAs…That’s a sea change for sure.”

On CFOs increasingly overseeing the technology function:

“I don’t have a statistic on it, but I’d say at least 50% of them do.”

Separately, two new reports out today show that Latinos are rapidly rising in their importance to the U.S. economy, but not in their influence in the board room. The U.S. Latino GDP Report—published by the Latino Donor Collaborative and Wells Fargo, calculates that the total economic output of U.S. Latinos was $2.8 trillion in 2020—slightly larger than the GDP of the U.K., and up dramatically from $1.7 trillion in 2010.

Yet Latinos remain drastically underrepresented in corporate boardrooms, according to a study by the Latino Corporate Directors Association, with only 1% of board seats in Fortune 500 companies.

More news below. And if you are wondering when the stock market will bottom, check out Lucy Brewster’s piece on why it may do so twice.

Alan Murray
@alansmurray
alan.murray@fortune.com

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This edition of CEO Daily was edited by David Meyer.