By Ben Adcock, Senior Consultant, Finance Transformation, Stanton House

Over the last few years, I've spent a significant amount of time speaking with CFOs, Finance Directors, Transformation Leaders and Programme Sponsors who are navigating complex change programmes. Whether they're implementing a new ERP platform, improving reporting capability, introducing automation, exploring AI or redesigning finance processes, one challenge comes up more consistently than almost any other.

It isn't a shortage of talent.

It's role design.

More specifically, organisations are increasingly trying to solve multiple business problems through a single hire. What starts as a requirement for a Finance Transformation Lead often evolves into a brief that includes ERP delivery, process redesign, reporting, stakeholder management, automation and change leadership.

At some point, one role quietly becomes a combination of two or three specialist capability areas.

That's usually the moment hiring becomes significantly harder.

In our analysis of 207 client conversations, we found that 61% of Finance Transformation roles combined multiple disciplines, while role definition was often a bigger challenge than candidate availability. We also found that 47% of organisations were unsure what capability they actually needed before recruitment began.

For many finance leaders, that observation should prompt an important question: are we struggling to find talent, or have we designed a role that no longer reflects how transformation programmes are really delivered?

Why Finance Transformation Roles Are Expanding

The expansion of Finance Transformation roles is understandable.

Finance functions today are under pressure to deliver more than ever before. Organisations are modernising ERP platforms, improving data quality, streamlining processes, introducing automation and evaluating how AI can create practical business value. At the same time, boards and investors are demanding stronger governance, better reporting and measurable returns on transformation investment.

Recent Deloitte research highlights the scale of this challenge. In its latest UK CFO Survey, 96% of CFOs expect investment in digital technology to increase over the next five years, while optimism around AI's ability to improve business performance continues to rise.

As investment increases, expectations increase alongside it.

The problem is that many organisations attempt to concentrate those expectations into a single position.

A role originally created to lead ERP implementation becomes responsible for process redesign. Process redesign expands into reporting improvement. Reporting improvement leads to conversations around automation and AI. Before long, the individual is also expected to manage stakeholders, drive adoption and provide programme leadership.

The logic behind each addition is entirely reasonable.

Collectively, however, they often create a brief that is difficult to recruit for and even harder to succeed in.

The Real Problem Often Starts Before the Job Description

What I see most often is that organisations don't deliberately create unrealistic hiring briefs.

Instead, multiple stakeholders have different business challenges they want solved.

The CFO may be focused on reporting, controls and forecasting. A Transformation Director may be focused on programme delivery. A Head of Finance Systems may be concerned with ERP implementation and optimisation. Technology leaders may want to introduce automation or AI capability.

Individually, those priorities all make sense.

The challenge emerges when those stakeholders haven't aligned on the most important business outcome before defining the role.

As a result, each stakeholder adds their own requirements to the brief. The role gradually grows until the organisation is searching for someone who can satisfy several different agendas at once.

I've seen situations where one interviewer believes a candidate is exactly what the programme needs because they bring strong ERP leadership experience, while another interviewer dismisses the same candidate because they lack deep process redesign expertise. Neither perspective is necessarily wrong. The issue is that the organisation has not collectively agreed what success for the hire actually looks like.

Before discussing candidates, the most successful organisations spend time answering three questions:

• What business problem are we trying to solve?
• What outcome matters most?
• Which capabilities are genuinely essential to achieving that outcome?

Once those questions have been answered, role design becomes significantly easier.

The Risks of Hybrid Roles

Role inflation creates several risks, many of which only become visible after recruitment begins.

The first is a shrinking talent pool.

The Finance Transformation market increasingly values professionals who can bridge finance, technology and programme delivery. These individuals already sit in high demand and limited supply. When organisations add further requirements around AI, automation, reporting, change management and leadership, the available candidate market becomes progressively smaller.

The second risk is misalignment between capability and expectations.

One of the most common themes from our client conversations is that organisations often describe a collection of responsibilities rather than the capability they actually need. A request for a Finance Transformation Manager can represent programme leadership, ERP expertise, business change, reporting improvement or several of those capabilities combined.

The third risk is programme delivery.

McKinsey's research on the future of finance highlights the growing importance of capability development, operating model design and finance talent evolution as organisations adopt automation and AI. Sustainable transformation depends on combining the right capabilities across the programme rather than relying on a single individual to solve every challenge.

In practice, the issue is not simply whether somebody possesses the required skills. It is whether one person can realistically deliver all of them at the level expected.

Why AI Is Making Role Definition Even Harder

AI has become part of almost every Finance Transformation conversation.

Increasingly, organisations include AI experience as a requirement within transformation roles. Yet when we explore what that actually means, the answer is often less clear.

Do they need someone to identify automation opportunities?

Improve forecasting?

Support governance?

Lead adoption?

Work with technology teams on implementation?

Those are very different capability requirements.

Our client intelligence analysis found that AI was mentioned in 38% of client conversations, but the expected outcome was often undefined. This creates another layer of complexity within already broad job descriptions.

The question should not be whether AI belongs in the role.

The question should be what business outcome AI is expected to improve.

How to Prioritise Capability

One of the simplest questions we ask clients is often the most valuable:

If you could only prioritise three capabilities, which would create the biggest impact?

That question forces a conversation many organisations have not yet had internally.

The Finance Transformation Capability Diagnostic Workbook encourages leaders to start by identifying the business problems they are trying to solve before discussing job titles. It then maps those challenges to the capabilities most likely to deliver successful outcomes.

For example:

• An ERP programme running behind schedule may require programme leadership.
• Poor reporting may require data and insight capability.
• Low adoption may require change leadership.
• Fragmented finance processes may require process redesign expertise.

Separating essential requirements from desirable experience often transforms a hiring brief.

The most successful searches typically focus on the two or three capabilities that will create the greatest impact, rather than attempting to capture everything that might be helpful in the future.

When Should Responsibilities Be Split Across Multiple Hires?

This is often the question that unlocks the best outcome.

Sometimes one hire genuinely can solve the problem.

Sometimes the programme is broader than the role.

I regularly see organisations begin with a requirement for one individual to lead ERP implementation, reporting transformation and business change. After reviewing programme objectives, they realise the requirement is better served through a combination of capabilities.

That might involve:

• An interim transformation leader to define scope and stabilise delivery
• A permanent Finance Transformation Lead
• Specialist ERP expertise
• Dedicated change management support

In other situations, a phased hiring strategy is more effective than attempting to recruit every capability at once.

The important point is that teams should be designed around programme requirements rather than job titles.

Final Thoughts

Finance Transformation hiring has become harder, but not necessarily because talent has become scarcer.

More often, organisations are trying to solve several business challenges through a single role while multiple stakeholders are looking for different outcomes from the same hire. ERP delivery, process redesign, reporting, AI, automation, stakeholder management and change leadership are all important. The challenge comes when they are combined into one brief before the organisation has agreed which outcomes matter most.

The most successful organisations start somewhere else. They align stakeholders around the business problem first, identify the capability required to solve it and agree what success looks like before launching a search.

When that happens, recruitment becomes easier, candidate quality improves and transformation programmes are significantly more likely to deliver the outcomes they were designed to achieve.

A Practical Framework for Defining Capability

One of the most common mistakes we see is organisations starting with a job title before fully understanding the problem they are trying to solve. In our experience, that often leads to over-scoped roles, prolonged hiring processes and unrealistic expectations for both the organisation and the individual hired.

That's why we've developed the Finance Transformation Capability Diagnostic Workbook.

The workbook helps CFOs, Finance Directors and Transformation Leaders take a structured approach to defining capability before going to market. It provides a practical framework for:

• Identifying the business challenges driving transformation
• Distinguishing essential capabilities from desirable experience
• Assessing whether AI is genuinely central to the role
• Determining whether the requirement is one role or multiple capability needs
• Defining what success should look like
• Choosing the most effective route to capability, whether permanent, interim or advisory support

If your Finance Transformation brief now includes ERP, automation, AI, reporting, controls, data and change management, it may be worth taking a step back before launching a search.

The earlier you clarify capability requirements, the greater your chances of building the right team, accessing the right talent and delivering a successful transformation programme.

To request a copy of the Finance Transformation Capability Diagnostic Workbook, or to discuss how your organisation is approaching Finance Transformation hiring, please feel free to contact me.