The 2025 Hunter Campbell Mood of the CFO Survey has showcased the growing confidence in New Zealand's finance leaders.
Key findings from the second annual Hunter Campbell Mood of the CFO Survey indicated improved confidence among New Zealand finance leaders for company performance in the year ahead, although the level of uncertainty in the economy is heightened, and the vast majority of finance leaders expect to battle ongoing economic challenges.
“The 2025 Hunter Campbell Mood of the CFO Survey shows that 38 percent of CFOs expect modest to strong growth over the next 12 months, up from 31 percent last year,” said Infometrics Chief Executive and Principal Economist Brad Olsen.
“The proportion of CFOs who are pessimistic about their own outlook has fallen from 17 percent in 2024 to 5 percent in 2025, pointing to a more upbeat view of the economic recovery.”
“However, uncertainty over the global economic outlook has also increased, with 17 percent of CFOs reporting they are unsure about their expectations for the world economy over the next year, up sharply from five percent reporting the same in 2024,” said Olsen.
“Nearly a third of CFOs expect improved global economic conditions, and a third expect global economic conditions to be unchanged. These challenges around uncertainty are taking up an increasingly large amount of attention from CFOs, with 77 percent of CFOs saying that economic uncertainty or market volatility would be a key driver of company performance over the next year.”
The response when Informetrics launched the inaugural Mood of the CFO last year showed the importance of enabling the voices of New Zealand’s CFOs to be heard, according to Hunter Campbell Managing Partner, Lee Marshall.
“This year, we’ve taken that a step further, ensuring the 2025 Mood of the CFO is ‘for CFOs, by CFOs’, with the support of a working group of some of New Zealand’s top Accounting and Finance leaders. They helped to curate the themes and shape the questions that would add the most value to the community,” said Marshall.
“CFOs have made it clear that talent remains under pressure in the finance space. Succession planning is the weakest link, with just one in four CFOs confident their organisation is ready for leadership transitions. Internal pipelines are limited, and L&D options remain thin outside the Big Four. Younger CFOs prioritise ambition in hiring, while older peers place more weight on experience, indicating a growing generational divide. Hybrid work is still common, though many larger and older organisations are shifting back towards the office.”
Nicola Taylor, co-founder of Tax Traders and Taxi, said this year’s Mood of the CFO report offered a compelling snapshot of the opportunities, perspectives and complexity shaping finance across New Zealand. She said complexity continues to define the two-speed economy and the role of CFOs.
“Most CFOs anticipate ongoing macroeconomic challenges, call for policy reform to ease compliance and simplify tax, and face critical decisions around AI transformation, all in an environment where some are exceeding performance targets, and others are contending with stagnation or decline,” said Taylor.
“The role of the CFO has never been more important for business, for the flourishing of their team members and New Zealand.”
The 2025 Hunter Campbell Mood of the CFO Survey research was undertaken by Insights Exchange and was developed by Hunter Campbell, in partnership with Tax Traders, Infometrics, and Extraordinary. The Hunter Campbell Mood of the CFO was established to ensure the voice of CFOs was heard, with CFOs being pivotal figures in business strategy and performance, constantly considering economic factors and often the co-pilot to the CEO of the business. The 2025 Hunter Campbell Mood of the CFO Survey had 238 respondents, gained from senior finance professionals via an online survey that ran between 30 June and 28 July 2025, and captured around 600 verbatim responses.
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