For CFOs in the mid-market sector, many of whose organizations are serving a function or producing a product for supply chains and procurement efforts, challenges like the impact of tariffs and market uncertainty are piggybacking on the unpredictability of political impacts on the business and the changing demands of talent.
In his travels through 15 U.S. cities in Q1 to host the CFO Alliance’s quarterly roundtables, Nick Araco Jr., CEO and founder of the CFO Alliance, says he believes mid-market CFOs are taking the unpredictability with a sense of “calmness.” Though the challenges are adding up faster than solutions can be found, he said he was “pleasantly surprised” during his meetings about how CFOs are talking about things like geopolitics, volatility, talent and the economy.
With Q1’s roundtables complete, Araco highlights many takeaways, including that calm sentiment he found, how there are “dramatic” pullbacks around human capital, less of a positive sentiment around the potential of the CFO job market and what CFOs actually care about regarding new CPA pathways toward licensure.
Tariffs and human capital
Araco said the impact of tariffs is on the minds of CFOs in his network around the country and was a popular theme throughout Q1. “Our members are finance leaders from emerging and mid-market enterprises, so they are predominantly a part of the supply chain,” he said. “CFOs across the country consistently said they don’t have enough information to make accurate decisions around the impact of tariffs — they know all of this can be thrown out the window very quickly and that’s their biggest challenge.”
When asked about CFOs increasing prices or nearshoring production as a way to combat tariffs, Araco, like the viral video of Ronald Reagan sent around by JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, said his membership believes the long-term impact of tariffs is the most concerning part. “In areas like packaging, for example, there is too much of a gap between the cost differences of production overseas and in the U.S. we’re seeing,” he said.
Araco also noted many CFOs are reducing their spend on human capital across the board. Their economic predictions are likely weak for the remainder of the year, as in line with the Fed, and as a result, previous plans to expand headcount, particularly in finance, have been widely abandoned.
“Across the country, we started our roundtables by asking ‘How many of you started this year with a mandate to hire within your finance and accounting teams?’ and all of the hands always went up,” Araco said. “But then, we asked if they had the same budget and mandate, and those hands all disappeared.”
He said reports about the job market becoming bleaker are also resonating among his CFO membership. “There’s been a major pullback in hiring across the board, there’s a wait-and-see for interviews, and ghosting is back again,” Araco said. “CFOs are pulling back on widespread human capital spend and looking to focus those resources into initiatives around AI efficiency, process re-engineering and upskilling their best talent.”
This idea of shifting human capital budgets for 2025 this early in the year is something Araco said he noticed become more popular toward the end of his roundtable tour. “This has been something we’ve noticed in particular becoming more of a phenomenon over the last four to six weeks,” he added.
CPA requirement changes
As the creation of 120-hour pathways toward CPA licensure is in the works across the country, Araco said the shortage of accountants, a trend that saw some upside in 2024, is a multifaceted problem that needs to be addressed with a similar type of solution.
“While AICPA’s proposed changes may help address some pipeline challenges, they won’t fully solve the profession’s perception problem,” Araco said. “What’s needed is a fundamental rebranding of accounting — showing the next generation that it’s not just a job but a springboard to leadership.”
He said accounting needs to be treated as a marker on the journey, not the destination for a career. Elsewhere, CFOs have done this by encouraging finance team members to change roles, focusing on upskilling accounting talent with automation supplementation in mind and, at smaller companies, delegating responsibilities completely to a controller to help collaborate on strategic decision-making.
“Rather than treating accounting as a fixed linear career track, we need to recognize it as a gateway competency, one that unlocks opportunities in sales, marketing, HR, technology, operations, supply chain and beyond. Accounting isn’t just about compliance; it is the language of business and those who master it are positioned to lead across industries,” he said.
Araco said there’s a narrative that although the role of accountants is changing, the value they bring to the business is not. “To be clear — there is no debate among finance leaders, every company must have a strong, competent and consistent accounting function,” he said. “Without it, businesses cannot execute the strategic work of financial planning, forecasting and driving growth. The issue we face is not just the diminishing supply of accountants, [but] it’s how we position and define the career path itself.”
CFO turnover and D.C.’s confidence
Although previous survey data from the CFO Alliance showed more than a third of their members wanted to leave their roles this year, that mindset has shifted a bit, Araco and his team have found. “What a lot of CFOs thought was that the administration was going to unleash the capital markets and M&A and private equity were going to start working very fast,” he said.
“There have not been many signs of those ideas materializing yet, and this time around what CFOs are saying is along the lines of ‘I will listen if a recruiter calls, but I am not going to actively seek out recruiters right now.’ That was a direct quote from a CFO in our group yesterday,” he said.
When asked about what city’s roundtable stood out the most, Araco brought up the area most impacted by the new administration’s cuts. Despite Washington D.C.’s CFO saying the city is in dire fiscal straits, the D.C. beltway roundtable was the most surprising to Araco and his team. “I thought I was going into a graveyard, but it was nothing of the sort,” he said. “The words they were using were anticipation, metamorphosis, modernization, ambiguity, crisis and push.”
Araco highlighted one member, which he referred to as “CFO number 25,” giving an inspiring talk that was unlike any he heard in other cities. “He said that in today’s volatile social and economic climate, hope is not naive but a strategy,” Araco explained. “He talked about architecting the future with pragmatic realism and talked about how good practices around data utilization and technology implementation can help bring meaningful optimism.”
He said CFO number 25 perfectly balanced optimism with realism in his talk. “He wasn’t painting a pretty picture, but he said they are in a position of hope because right now they are at the point of time where they can address the challenges and have an impact on the outcome.”