Evolution of Financial Controllers: From Gatekeepers to Growth Drivers

The Controller’s Evolution: From Compliance Gatekeeper to Strategic Growth Driver

For decades, the image of the Financial Controller has been remarkably consistent: the guardian of the ledger, the enforcer of controls, the purveyor of historical accuracy. They were the stewards of value protection and optimization, ensuring the ship was watertight and sailing efficiently. But what happens when the sea itself changes? When new currents of data, artificial intelligence, and sustainability redefine the very nature of the voyage? A profound transformation and evolution of financial controllers is underway.

According to the seminal EY Global DNA of the Financial Controller Survey (September 2024), a staggering 86% of controllers expect their role to change significantly within the next five years. This isn’t a minor course correction; it’s a complete recalibration of purpose. The controller is shedding its traditional, reactive skin and emerging as a proactive, strategic partner essential for shaping the future.

At NeoForm, we understand that this shift is not just inevitable but desirable. It represents the culmination of finance’s journey from a back-office function to a core strategic engine. This blog post delves deep into EY‘s research to unpack the future of financial controllership, exploring the forces driving this change and providing a roadmap for controllers and CFOs alike to not just adapt, but to lead.

The Age of “And”: The New Mandate for Controllers

EY perfectly frames the modern business environment as the “Age of And.” This is an era where there is no longer a choice between competing priorities. Organizations must be efficient and innovative, compliant and agile, profitable and purposeful.

For the financial controller, this means their role is fundamentally additive. The traditional responsibilities—ensuring accurate books, robust internal controls, and regulatory compliance—are now the “table stakes.” They are the non-negotiable foundation. On top of this, controllers are now expected to create value actively.

“The controller of the future will be a trusted partner to the CFO right across the transformation spectrum. They will create value in their capacity as analysts, collaborators, innovators, storytellers and leaders of talented teams, as well as in their capacity as accounting and compliance experts.”
— Mike Verbeck, EY Global Deputy Vice Chair – Assurance

This evolution of financial controllers from a focus solely on value protection and optimization to a triad that includes value creation is the single biggest takeaway from the report. But what does “value creation” actually mean in this context? It moves beyond qualitative soft skills to measurable impact:

Developing and funding business strategy.
Ensuring business decisions are grounded in sound financial criteria.
Providing insight and analysis to support the C-suite.
Leading key strategic initiatives like finance transformation.
Communicating organizational progress to external stakeholders.

The controllers surveyed recognize this paradigm shift. When asked how their role would evolve, the most common response (39%) was that it would shift “from being largely focused on value protection and optimization to also embracing value creation.”

Future of Financial Controllers Are Value Creators

The question is no longer if this change will happen, but how controllers and their organizations can navigate it successfully.

The controller’s role is becoming a multifaceted engine for growth, powered by data, technology, and strategic insight.

The Three Transformational Levers of Value Creation

EY’s research identifies three critical areas where controllers can seize the initiative and drive transformational change: data, AI, and sustainability. These are drivers of evolution of financial controllers.

1. Data: The Controller as Chief Storyteller

Controllers have always been stewards of data, but traditionally, this data was used for backward-looking reporting. Today, that same data is the organization’s most valuable strategic asset.

“The data that the controller is collecting to comply with statutory obligations is the same data that companies are using to drive value.”
— Deirdre Ryan, EY Global Finance Transformation Leader

The survey confirms that controllers are aware of this power: 89% say using data insights to recommend strategic opportunities is already an important part of their role. However, there’s a gap between finance-level and enterprise-level influence. While 73% lead on data analytics within finance, only 32% do so at the enterprise level.

The Opportunity: Controllers must break out of the finance silo. By collaborating with operations, marketing, and sales, they can combine financial data with operational and external data to generate powerful, holistic insights. This transforms the controller from a reporter of numbers into a storyteller who can narrate the company’s past performance and, more importantly, illuminate its future path.

2. Artificial Intelligence: The Co-Pilot of Finance

The hype around AI is real, and controllers are already enthusiastic adopters. The survey found that 89% of controllers have adopted AI, with 64% using it frequently. This isn’t about replacing humans; it’s about augmenting them.

AI and automation handle the manual, transactional tasks that have long consumed controllers’ time—data entry, reconciliations, report generation. This liberation of capacity is game-changing. It allows controllers to focus on higher-order activities like:

Using GenAI to predict market trends and monitor competitors.
Running sophisticated scenario analyses to stress-test strategies.
Assessing the optimal use of R&D tax credits.
Identifying process improvements and control enhancements.

The Opportunity: Controllers are in a unique position to build confidence in AI. They can vet AI tools for reliability, transparency, and explainability, ensuring the outputs are trustworthy. As Tamara Schock, Chief Accounting Officer at MetLife, notes, technology will enable a shift “from day-to-day report production and compliance toward supporting the business with more analysis and advice – driving value versus just protecting it.”

3. Sustainability (ESG): The Unclaimed Frontier

Perhaps the most significant gap—and therefore the greatest opportunity—lies in sustainability. While investors are demanding robust ESG disclosures (99% consider it in decision-making), controllers have been slow to claim this space. Only 13% see long-term sustainability goals as a top area for value creation.

Evolution of Financial Controllers to Value Creators

Currently, many controllers view ESG as a compliance burden. But this is a limited perspective. The shift to mandatory sustainability reporting is a chance to innovate: sourcing new data, building new systems, and establishing new controls. Controllers can take responsibility for communicating the organization’s total value story—financial and non-financial—to investors, analysts, and the board.

The Opportunity: Controllers can integrate ESG factors directly into financial planning and strategic decision-making. This isn’t just about reporting carbon emissions; it’s about understanding how climate risk, social factors, and governance issues impact financial performance and long-term resilience. As Juan Uro, EY Americas Leader, EY Center for Executive Leadership, states, controllers can “drive a lot of value through supporting the total shareholder position by describing the company’s performance against its financial and sustainability goals.”

Getting “Future Ready”: The Mindset and Skillset Shift

Embracing these three levers requires more than just new tools; it requires a fundamental shift in mindset and skillset. The future controller is a blend of technologist, strategist, and people leader.

Cultivating an Innovation Mindset

Despite recognizing the need to create value, controllers have a surprisingly narrow view of how to do it. A overwhelming 73% define value creation as “directly driving company growth,” while only 21% rank “seeking technological opportunities” in their top three.

This suggests innovation is still not a core priority. Furthermore, organizations are not fully supporting this shift. While 59% encourage controllers to become value creators, few provide the necessary resources: only 20% get additional budget, and a mere 10% are provided with staff who have an innovation mindset.

The Path Forward: Controllers must consciously carve out time to experiment and challenge existing processes. As Dalton Smart, Senior Vice President Finance and Global Controller at Merck, advises, “It’s incumbent on controllers, as leaders, to create space to innovate. If you don’t create a little space, you’ll never innovate.”* This requires bravery and a willingness to sometimes fail fast and learn faster.

Mastering the Art of “Teaming” Toward Evolution of Financial Controllers

The lone-wolf accountant is an extinct model. The future is collaborative. The EY vision for controllership is characterized by “seamless cross-functional collaboration.”

This means controllers must move beyond their finance teams and build bridges with commercial, operational, and IT functions. The rise of ESG reporting, for example, forces collaboration with sustainability officers, HR, and risk management. Controllers add value in these teams by helping identify the right metrics, establish controls, and prepare accurate disclosures.

The survey shows room for improvement: only 34% of controllers frequently devote time to team building and mentoring. This must become a priority, as developing talent is crucial for sustaining transformation.

Building a Personal and Team Brand

The modern controller must also be a talent magnet and a communicator. This involves actively building a personal brand, both internally and on platforms like LinkedIn, to attract skilled data scientists, analysts, and technologists to the finance function.

Andrew Barakat, Head of Finance (Australia) at Goodman, provides a brilliant example. His team worked with marketing to “rebrand finance within the business,” ditching long, number-heavy emails for user-friendly, branded templates with key messages and clickable links. This small innovation elevated the finance team’s perception and demonstrated a commitment to creating value for internal customers.

The Confident Controller: A New Archetype by Evolution of Financial Controllers

Within the survey data, EY identified a cohort leading the charge: the “Confident Controller.” This group, making up the top quartile of respondents, emphasizes qualities aligned with technology, data analytics, sustainability, and innovation.

These individuals are not waiting for the future; they are building it. The data reveals striking differences:

72% of confident controllers frequently promote data-driven decision making (vs. 65% of others).
52% devote significant time to team development (vs. 28%).
47% are already integrating sustainability into planning and reporting (vs. 32%).
They are 1.7x more likely to lead enterprise-wide analytics and reporting.

Surprisingly, these confident controllers are often more focused on mastering and evolving the controllership role itself than on becoming CFOs. 32% see the controller role as their ultimate career ambition, compared to 21% of other controllers. They find ample challenge and impact in redefining the position within large, complex organizations.

A Call to Action: For Controllers and CFOs

This transformation cannot happen in a vacuum. It requires a concerted effort from both controllers and the CFOs who empower them for evolution of financial controllers.

For Controllers:

Embrace the “And”: Stop seeing value protection and value creation as mutually exclusive. They are two sides of the same coin. Use your compliance foundation as a springboard for strategic influence.
Become Data Fluent: Go beyond Excel. Learn to manipulate, analyze, and visualize data. Learn the language of your IT and data science colleagues.
Seek Cross-Functional Exposure: Volunteer for projects outside of finance. Understand the operational levers of the business to provide more meaningful insights.
Invest in Your People: Dedicate real time to mentoring and building a team with diverse skills—data architects, visualization experts, and systems thinkers.

For CFOs and Finance Leaders:

Redefine Success: Update job descriptions and performance metrics for controllers to include innovation, value creation, and business partnership.
Provide Resources: Encourage innovation by providing not just permission, but also budget, dedicated time, and the right talent.
Articulate a Vision: Paint a compelling picture of the future of finance. As Myles Corson of EY notes, to attract top talent, CFOs must outline a vision of the controller as “a dynamic and strategic force within the organization.”
Break Down Silos: Actively create opportunities for your controller to engage with the C-suite, the board, and operational leaders.

Conclusion: The Time to Shape the Future is Now

The message from the EY survey is clear and urgent. The role of the financial controller is at an inflection point. The forces of technology, data, and sustainability are not threats to be managed but opportunities to be seized for evolution of financial controllers.

The controllers and organizations that succeed will be those that move beyond seeing controllership as a technical, compliance-based function. They will embrace it as a strategic, value-creating partnership that is essential for building resilient, adaptable, and purpose-driven organizations.

The future of controllership is not a predetermined destination. It is a path being forged by the confident, the curious, and the collaborative. The question is, will you be a follower, or will you help shape it?

🔗 Links for More:

Download and read the full survey report from EY website or NeoForm LinkedIn page.

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Is your finance function ready for this transformation? At NeoForm, we help financial leaders build future-ready teams, implement transformative technology, and develop the strategies needed to turn the finance function into a value-creation powerhouse. Contact us today to start your journey.