Gartner CFO & Finance Executive Conference

May 20 – 21, 2024 | National Harbor, MD

2023 Executive Summary

The World’s Most Important Gathering of CFOs & Finance Leaders

At the Gartner CFO & Finance Executive Conference 2023, attendees explored new research and actionable insights on topics such AI, autonomous finance, digital growth, and finance talent.

The top 5 priorities that CFOs and finance leaders met on included:

  1. Advancing digital leadership to prepare for the future of the finance function.
  2. Utilizing AI to unlock more value from finance data and processes.
  3. How to hire, engage and retain finance talent.
  4. Createing a cohesive and tailored technology roadmap across the finance function. 
  5. Uncovering best practices for how to support your organization through complexity and times of slow growth.

We hope you enjoyed the 2023 Gartner CFO & Finance Executive Conference!  If you missed it, be sure to explore what was covered at the conference.

The program for the 2024 Gartner CFO & Finance Executive Conference is underway and we look forward to sharing details soon!

CFOs and finance executives came together to learn how to build an autonomous finance function

The most important gathering of CFOs and senior finance executives offers strategic guidance on the trends shaping the finance function, company performance and personal effectiveness. Through an intersection of peers, thought leaders, Gartner expert and practitioner research, and technology providers, attendees explore new ways to approach critical challenges and make decisions with confidence.

CFOs gain strategies to build the finance organizations of the future. Attendees learn:

  • Top strategies to attract and retain top finance talent and evaluate digital competencies across the function
  • How to incorporate agility into the planning and budgeting processes, especially during times of disruption
  • Best practices in embedding analytics into business processes and strategic decision making
  • Top priorities and the best use cases for automation

Chief accounting officers and corporate controllers learn to leverage automation for increased accuracy and efficiency.

  •  Learn best practices in reducing effort in the close and building the foundations for a digital close. 
  • Stay up-to-date on business process outsourcing (BPO) trends and familiarize yourself with the BPO vendor landscape.
  • Learn how hyperautomation and blockchain can accelerate finance transformation and shape the future of finance.
  • Learn what good data governance looks like and how it can facilitate finance analytics and insights that are most relevant for the business. 

Financial planning and analysis leaders learn how to provide more actionable and valuable finance data, for example:

  • Learn how to leverage predictive analysis and AI to improve decision making.
  • Learn how to improve the flexibility of budgeting and planning to respond to unplanned changes quickly and effectively.
  • Learn how to better support business decision making with realistic and trustworthy projections that inspire a clear plan of action, even without reliable recent historical data.
  • Learn new methods to overcome challenges related to manual processes, outdated data and technologies, and lack of data standardization.

VPs of finance transformation learn how to better partner with the larger organization and develop a strong business case for finance transformation.

  • Access forward-thinking trends and research-backed data to inform finance transformation priorities.
  • Gain best practices in people management for stronger, digitally competent teams that can rise to transformation challenges.
  • Learn how to better leverage technology innovations to increase automation and efficiency.
  • Develop a transformation roadmap to set the organization up for success in the future.

Network with experts and peers

At Gartner CFO & Finance Executive Conference, attendees have the opportunity to connect with Gartner experts and industry-leading CFOs and finance executives. Meet one-on-one with Gartner experts for tailored guidance to help you achieve your mission-critical priorities.

Build new relationships, broaden your perspectives and uncover ways to solve problems alongside other finance leaders. When you engage with like-minded peers, you’ll find opportunities to share your ideas and experiences.

Highlights

  • Roundtable sessions:* Attendees join CFOs and finance peers from leading organizations and various industries to discuss relevant topics inspired by the latest research in these small-group sessions, moderated by a Gartner expert.
  • End-user case studies: Detailed and documented case studies, by Gartner invitation, reveal lessons from peers during their own organization’s implementations.
  •  Social engagements: Attendees have fun and build new business relationships with peers as they engage in welcome receptions and special evening events in varied settings.
  • Peer conversations: Join peer-to-peer discussions organically throughout the conference. Discover how others are tackling every day challenges.

*Preregistration is required. These sessions are available to end users only; space is limited.

Prioritize what to accelerate, unlock resources for digital investments, make meaningful cultural changes and so much more. No matter where you are on your digital business acceleration journey, we’re here to help you get to your destination faster — with confidence.

Lean back and listen

Expect the best speakers, brightest minds and the latest big ideas. These sessions provide the inspiration and actionable insight to transform your most critical priorities into business results.

Highlights

  • Guest speakers: Hear firsthand experience from keynote speakers and guest speakers from top organizations.
  • Solution Provider sessions: When you’re looking to address a specific issue, these strategic roadmap presentations and user-case studies provide real-world advice.

Lean in and engage

Facilitated by Gartner experts, these sessions challenge you to solve problems together, exchange viewpoints and get to the core of the business imperatives that drive you and your peers.

Highlights

  • Workshops:* In these small-scale and interactive sessions, collaborate with peers by taking the most important topics and learning how to apply them to your business.
  • The CFO Circle:* An exclusive program within the overall agenda, it’s designed for chief finance officers to explore new strategies, share innovative ideas and grow their community of peers.

*Preregistration is required. These sessions are available to end users only. 

Our objective Gartner experts help you advance your mission-critical priorities through industry-leading insights, guidance and tools. Tap their unique expertise to make faster, smarter decisions. 

Gartner one-on-one meetings:* Meet one-on-one with Gartner experts for tailored advice to help you achieve your most critical priorities. These popular meetings offer you the undivided attention of a Gartner expert who listens and guides you on the matters most critical to your success.

Ask the Expert sessions:* Topic-driven sessions provide a more intimate discussion forum, featuring one Gartner expert and end-user peers posing questions.

*Preregistration is required. These sessions are available to end users only; space is limited.

CFOs are seeking faster insights and more predictive capabilities. This conference lays the groundwork to build a digital finance function that helps you unlock the power of data, technology and innovation to drive profitable growth in the years to come.

Alex Bant

Conference Chair and Chief of Research for CFOs, Gartner

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    2023 Tracks at a Glance

    Attendees had access to over 50 Gartner research-backed sessions specifically designed to help CFOs and finance leaders build their finance transformation roadmaps. Each track had a particular area of focus to help attendees consume insights most relevant to their roles within the finance function.
    Track A

    CFO: Drive Hard Trade-Offs Across the Business

    Returning to profitable growth is a career-defining opportunity for CFOs. To get this right, CFOs must avoid making blanket decisions and focus instead on strategic and deliberate reallocation of resources. Attendees learned how leading CFOs are placing bets to reduce risk while maintaining the pace of innovation and transformation.

    Track B

    FP&A: Navigate Planning Complexity

    Financial planning and analysis’s (FP&A’s) success will be defined by how effectively it is able to drive business performance during volatility and disruptions. Attendees learned how to enhance FP&A’s predictive and preparedness capabilities to turn uncertainty into opportunity for thrie organization.

    Track C

    Controller: Remove Friction From Finance

    The finance function’s ability to deliver on its data and analytics promise to drive improved business decision making is being constrained by the slow pace of digital transformation in the controllership. Attendees learned how to quickly advance the controllership’s digital maturity.

    Track D

    Finance Transformation: Maximize Digital ROI

    In uncertain times, organizations are focusing attention on activities that will bring immediate and short-term impact. This track provided guidance on building a technology roadmap, picking the right vendors, identifying the proper skills and sequencing change to provide a steady stream of value throughout an organization’s financial transformation journey.

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