Background: While technologies are progressing exponentially and inevitably becoming an essential as a means for business to adapt and survive, no exception is the finance division. Digitalization activities have become do or die tasks for many companies and have been a challenging process for finance departments. Yet, in the context of Finance 4.0 it is barely researched. Due to evolving understanding of how finance departments should look, the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) as the leader of the whole finance division is going through a lot of changes surrounded by uncertainty. The expectations for CFO and finance department are increasing and it becomes unclear what financial specialists should actually deliver for business. Hence, this paper aims to identify how CFO’s role is changing because of Finance 4.0, otherwise known as finance function digitalization, and what skills will be needed to successfully work as CFO in the new environment that seeks to become fully digital and automated.

Purpose: The purpose of this master thesis research is to identify and analyze how the CFO’s role is changing because of Finance 4.0 and what skills will be required in future for the CFO position. 

Method: A qualitative study with interpretivism philosophy, inductive approach and narrative inquiry strategy is taken as the best options for this particular study. Semi-structured interviews with Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) is a method for primary data collection as well as thematic data analysis for gathered data analysis are chosen in order to answer research questions.

Conclusion: This research investigates how Finance 4.0 is changing the role of CFO as well as explores what future skills are required for the profession. The research clearly reveals that digitalization is affecting CFO’s role significantly and brings more uncertainty. Research results show that fundamental responsibilities of a CFO will not undergo changes any time soon as well as the skills required for work will remain largely the same. This is because the professional skills of a CFO directly reflect the responsibilities and working tasks, and, moreover, the finance departments are not completely undigitized. However, even though the foundation of the CFO role remains the same, digital disruption causes expansion and increased complexity. While existing academic knowledge is focused mostly on the change process itself and the benefits of digitalization, CFOs revealed what is challenging for them during this digital journey and what negative effect they have experienced.