Finance insights based on real conversations with leaders between July 2026 and September 2026
After several years of cost reduction, many finance functions have emerged leaner, sharper and genuinely high performing. Roles are clearer, duplication has been removed and the strongest teams are operating with impressive precision. Yet that efficiency carries a hidden cost: there is often very little slack left in the system. When one person leaves, the impact can travel much further and faster than leaders expect.
Cost-out programmes have removed layers, duplication and excess capacity across finance. In many cases, that was the right decision: functions needed simpler structures, clearer accountability and a closer connection between cost and value. The result is often a smaller team of highly capable people, each owning a critical part of the close, reporting, forecasting or business-partnering cycle.
The trade-off is that the natural cover which once absorbed change has also been stripped away. Work that might previously have been shared across several roles now sits with one individual. Informal knowledge, stakeholder relationships and judgement built over years can become concentrated in a handful of people, even when the formal organisation chart suggests otherwise.
At the same time, strong finance talent remains visible and regularly approached. High performers who have helped deliver transformation, improve control or raise commercial capability are attractive to the market. For CFOs, the risk is not simply that these people may leave. It is that a team designed around their reliability can be destabilised before a replacement is even identified.
The paradox is that stability can create fragility. A team in active transformation is accustomed to movement: responsibilities flex, interim leaders arrive, processes are redesigned and people expect the operating model to evolve. A departure is disruptive, but it is absorbed within an existing rhythm of change.
A dialled-in lean team is different. Its strength comes from trust, continuity and each person knowing exactly what the others do. That interconnectedness improves pace and quality while everyone is in place, but it also increases dependency. When one link is removed, the rest of the team must compensate immediately.
Key-person risk is often invisible because it is masked by strong performance. The close happens on time, forecasts are reliable and stakeholders receive what they need. Beneath that consistency, however, knowledge of how the numbers really work may sit in individuals rather than systems, process notes or a genuinely cross-trained team.
The ripple effect is the greater concern. Remaining colleagues absorb additional workload, often during close, audit or planning. Quiet overload builds, development is postponed and the next strongest person may begin to question whether the model is sustainable. Morale can dip because the team’s identity was tied to working brilliantly together. One unexpected resignation can therefore become two or three over the following months.
Leaders are often too close to a high-performing team to see this exposure. When a function “just works”, resilience planning can feel unnecessary or even inefficient. In reality, the best time to test resilience is while performance is strong, not once a critical departure has exposed the gaps.
Backfills in lean teams are more urgent and less forgiving. There is no meaningful buffer while a three-month notice period plays out, and the pressure to hire quickly can conflict with the need to find someone who will work effectively within a close, established group.
This is where the “like-for-like” trap often appears. Businesses try to recreate the person who has left rather than reassessing what the function now needs. The brief becomes overly specific, the search slows and internal pressure rises. A departure can be a useful point to redesign responsibilities, but only if leaders create enough stability to make that decision thoughtfully.
Cultural and working-style fit also matters more than usual. In a small, highly interdependent team, the wrong appointment can cause more damage than a short-term vacancy. Technical capability remains essential, but so do judgement, adaptability and the ability to build trust quickly with colleagues who may already be carrying additional work.
Interim talent is consequently playing a growing role as a shock absorber. An experienced interim can stabilise delivery, protect the permanent team and create time for a proper search rather than a rushed one. This is not simply vacancy cover; used well, it is a way to preserve momentum while the role, structure and longer-term requirement are reset.
Counteroffers are also becoming more common in these situations, often because the true scale of dependency only becomes clear when notice is handed in. They may solve the immediate problem, but they rarely address the structural issue. If resilience depends on one person staying, the underlying risk remains.
Resilience as a design principle
Stronger CFOs are beginning to treat resilience as an explicit design choice. That means accepting a degree of overlap, cross-training and succession cover, even when it appears to reduce pure efficiency on paper. The objective is not to rebuild unnecessary layers, but to ensure that critical work can continue without heroic effort from the people who remain.
Retention before resignation
There is also more focus on acting before notice is handed in. Regular stay conversations, realistic workload reviews and visible development routes can surface pressure or ambition early. In lean teams, retention cannot be treated as an annual engagement exercise; it needs to be part of ongoing leadership discipline.
Interim as insurance
Finally, businesses are placing more value on trusted interim relationships established before they are needed. Knowing which capabilities can be accessed quickly gives leaders options when a departure, transformation milestone or reporting deadline creates sudden pressure. The most effective response is usually the one prepared in advance.
For finance leaders, the starting point is to map key-person dependencies honestly. Ask who, if they left tomorrow, would materially disrupt the close, the forecast, the audit or a critical stakeholder relationship. The answer may not be the most senior person in the team.
Critical processes should then be documented at the level needed for someone else to operate them, rather than simply recorded as a list of tasks. Cross-training should be deliberate and tested. It may feel inefficient when workloads are already stretched, but it is far less costly than discovering during a live deadline that no one else can complete the work.
Leaders should also watch the second-order effect of any departure. Recruitment activity naturally focuses attention on the vacancy, but the more immediate retention risk may sit with those absorbing the gap. Protecting workload, communicating the plan and recognising additional contribution are essential to preventing a single exit from becoming a wider loss of confidence.
The deputy and CFO-minus-one layer should be treated as the function’s resilience layer. Their readiness, breadth and exposure determine how well the function can absorb disruption, sustain decision-making and protect the CFO’s capacity. Investing in that layer is not only succession planning; it is operational risk management.
Lean and high performing is an achievement. Lean and fragile is a risk. The distinction lies in whether performance depends on a few individuals continuing to carry knowledge, relationships and workload that the wider system cannot readily absorb.
The businesses that protect their best finance teams will be those that plan for disruption while things are going well. They will build resilience without recreating bureaucracy, invest in the people who provide continuity and use interim support strategically when pressure rises. In the current market, that preparation may be the difference between an isolated departure and a much wider loss of momentum.
Written by Matt Gunn, Director within BIE’s CFO & Financial Leadership Team.
If any of the themes explored in this quarter’s insights resonate with your organisation’s priorities, challenges or transformation agenda, we’d be pleased to continue the conversation.
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