Vahura Insights

AY 2025-26 marked a meaningful reset in how finance roles are designed and valued. The function moved decisively away from being a downstream reporting unit to becoming a core driver of business decisions. CFO agendas expanded from cost discipline to capital allocation, growth strategy and risk foresight. As a result, hiring patterns across finance changed in both shape and depth.

What we saw this year was not just more hiring, but more specialised hiring. Organisations showed a clear preference for finance professionals who could combine strong fundamentals with commercial judgment and data-backed insights.

AY 2025-26 marked a meaningful reset in how finance roles are designed and valued. The function moved decisively away from being a downstream reporting unit to becoming a core driver of business decisions. CFO agendas expanded from cost discipline to capital allocation, growth strategy and risk foresight. As a result, hiring patterns across finance changed in both shape and depth.

What we saw this year was not just more hiring, but more specialised hiring. Organisations showed a clear preference for finance professionals who could combine strong fundamentals with commercial judgment and data-backed insights.

Five roles stood out consistently across corporates, financial institutions and private capital platforms:

• FP&A and Strategic Finance professionals, as businesses doubled down on forecasting accuracy, scenario modelling and margin optimisation.
• Treasury and working capital specialists, driven by interest rate volatility, tighter liquidity management and global cash visibility.
• Private credit and alternative investment professionals, reflecting the continued shift of capital into private markets.
• Wealth management and HNI relationship roles, particularly within private banks and family office ecosystems.
• Finance analytics and automation-focused roles, where domain knowledge was paired with data, dashboards and predictive tools.
  

Several forces converged during the year:

• The growth of private capital, private credit and family offices, creating demand for investment, structuring and fund operations expertise.
• Digital transformation of finance functions, including cloud ERPs, automation and AI-driven forecasting.
• A shift in CFO priorities toward revenue visibility, profitability and capital efficiency, not just financial control.
• Increasing regulatory and compliance complexity across markets and products.

Candidates who stood out were rarely those with linear career paths. The strongest profiles showed:

• Cross-skilling in analytics, automation and visualisation tools alongside finance expertise.
• Targeted specialisation through certifications, deal exposure or niche mandates.
• Evidence of impact, such as building forecasting models, supporting fund launches, improving cash cycles or enabling pricing decisions.

Insights published by Deloitte and KPMG repeatedly highlighted a widening capability gap in finance teams, especially where analytics and technology adoption were concerned. Coverage by Reuters also reflected how banks and funds responded by hiring specialists rather than expanding generalist teams.

• Nearly 75 percent of Indian CEOs consider AI and advanced analytics a top investment priority. This widening capability gap has directly translated into higher demand for finance professionals who combine domain expertise with analytics and automation.
• Finance functions increasingly sit at the strategy table, with over 70 percent of CFOs globally now directly involved in business decision-making
• Global private credit assets have crossed USD 1.6 trillion, with Asia seeing one of the fastest growth rates. As capital increasingly moves into private markets, hiring has followed, particularly across private credit and alternative investment roles.
• Over 50 percent of large organisations in India and Asia Pacific plan to increase investment in ESG reporting, sustainable finance or climate risk over the next two years.

The coming year is likely to see rising demand for AI-enabled finance professionals, ESG and sustainable finance specialists, private markets and fund accounting talent, and finance business partners embedded within commercial teams.

The takeaway is simple. Finance careers are no longer defined by titles alone. The most valuable professionals will be those who combine strong fundamentals with adaptability, technology fluency and sound commercial judgment.