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Why the UAE’s New CFO Playbook Starts with Alignment, Not Allocation
An exclusive Transformance Forums insight from the 4th Middle East CFO Vision & Innovation Summit 2025, Dubai.
The Room Where the Future of Finance Shifted
You could feel the anticipation before the session even began. It was one of those moments that quietly tells you — this conversation will set a new benchmark.
Those words set the tone for one of the most compelling sessions at the 4th Middle East CFO Vision & Innovation Summit — a discussion that captured the pulse of a region reimagining financial leadership under the UAE’s Vision 2030.
Conceptualised and curated by Transformance Forums, this year’s theme — Data-Driven, Digitally-Determined Finance — explored how technology, agility, and purpose are shaping a new generation of finance leaders.
The New Era of Clarity
At the 3rd Middle East CFO Vision & Innovation Summit in Riyadh, finance and governance leaders gathered for one of the most thought-provoking sessions of the day — “Leading with Clarity: How Saudi CFOs Are Turning Compliance into Competitive Edge.”
The conversations in Riyadh didn’t just explore finance — they redefined it. Every insight revealed how the modern CFO is evolving from custodian to co-creator of enterprise transformation.
Here are the next 10 learnings that shaped the future of finance leadership across the Middle East.
The 10 Actions Every Middle East CFO Should Take Now
At the 4th Middle East CFO Vision & Innovation Summit & Awards 2025, one thing became crystal clear — CFOs are no longer the custodians of numbers. They’re the architects of enterprise transformation.
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Saudi Arabia’s economic story has always been one of scale — from oil revenues to giga-projects, from Vision 2030 to the digital public-sector revolution. But as capital markets expand and transformation accelerates, one word has become the silent cornerstone of that ambition: liquidity.
The discussion brought together leading CFOs from across sectors — manufacturing, banking, retail, construction, and insurance — to explore how finance leaders are re-coding the DNA of the modern finance function under Vision 2030.
“The next decade belongs to those who can turn financial insight into impactful design.” — Karim Elheddiny Group Chief Financial Officer at Ressan Holding With that line, Karim Elheddiny set the tone for the 3rd Middle East CFO Vision & Innovation Summit in Riyadh.
At the 3rd Middle East CFO Vision & Innovation Summit in Riyadh, one session stood apart — not for its technical depth, but for its emotional resonance. It wasn’t about automation, liquidity, or compliance. It was about legacy.
A New Kind of CFO Is Emerging Across the Middle East, a quiet revolution is reshaping the role of the CFO. What was once a function of reporting and control has become a center of vision, velocity, and value creation. The old CFO managed liquidity as a safeguard. The new CFO manages it as a strategy.