Grant Thornton launches new CFO Solutions offering
The UK wing of Grant Thornton has rolled out a new CFO service designed to provide finance leaders with tailored advisory, shaping solutions around the specific needs of individual finance teams and the ambitions of their organisations. CFO Solutions has emerged shortly after the firm also announced a “multi-year investment to redesign how an audit, tax and advisory firm works”.
Delivery-lead Sarah Hughes commented, "The CFO role has never been more pivotal, or more demanding. Finance leaders are expected to deliver growth, resilience, and transformation at speed, whilst also navigating unprecedented complexity. We believe CFOs deserve more than generic advice. They need a partner who can anticipate challenges, unlock opportunities, and help them lead with confidence. CFO Solutions is our answer: a market-leading service built to empower CFOs to set the pace, shape the future, and turn ambition into measurable impact."
Newly recruited as a partner, financial reporting specialist Hughes will head up the roll out of ‘CFO Solutions’. Joining the firm from KPMG, she brings over 25 years of experience advising clients on the challenging and complex issues arising from transactions, business decisions and regulatory change. She will now collaborate with the wider CFO Solutions leadership team, which includes Ros Murphy, Simon Davidson, Pinkesh Patel, Alex Mumford and Varun Dewan.
Davidson added, “Finance functions are evolving fast. Forecasting, talent development, ESG reporting and AI adoption are all very high priorities for 2026. Yet with limited capacity, achieving these goals demands a new way of working.”
According to Davidson, many chief financial officers have previously told the firm that they encounter a “lack of the constructive challenge they need for change”. In particular, only 46% see “healthy” tension within their wider leadership teams, while 40% report “insufficient debate”.
He continued, “That’s a barrier to progress. Our role, and the purpose of CFO Solutions as a service, is to be a trusted partner and sounding board, creating the space and confidence for CFOs to deliver their full agenda.”
To that end, CFO Solutions uses Grant Thornton’s CFO Scorecard: “a practical framework” focused on the four dimensions of the CFO role; value creation, stakeholder management, operational delivery and business protection.
The resulting model is said to be “flexible to fit the needs of finance leaders from businesses of all sizes and sectors”, who can choose “five stages of the service as a stand-alone engagement”, or combine them for “a seamless, end-to-end experience”. These stages include ‘assessment’, to diagnose root causes of challenges; ‘design’, to create or co-create practical solutions; ‘fix’, to implement changes in partnership with finance teams; ‘run’, for hands-on support to run core finance operations through outsourcing solutions; and ‘connect’, providing a programme of insight, events and peer connection for CFOs.
Changing firm
Grant Thornton’s UK member firm is led by more than 200 partners, and powered by 5,500 staff. The news comes a day after Grant Thornton also announced a £500 million multi-year investment, as it looks to “redesign how an audit, tax and advisory firm works, putting people, data and digital tools at the heart of an altogether better client experience”.
The £500 million investment will be made through a series of defined milestones, with new tools and platforms going live within weeks and months rather than years. Amid a growing amount of criticism for large consultancies offering ‘one-size-fits-all’ services to their clients, this will see Grant Thornton try to distance itself from the way other “firms have historically organised themselves”, by “introducing a new operating model designed around how clients actually need to make their decisions”.
“There’s a hard truth our profession has to face,” said Malcolm Gomersall, UK chief executive officer at Grant Thornton. “Professional services has become too slow, too complex and too inward-looking for the pace of modern business. It has prioritised process, not decision-making. This investment is about taking responsibility for fixing that… Digital technology can add layers of complexity to businesses – but it can also make life simpler, smarter and more human. This investment is Grant Thornton’s commitment to that future, and to a better way of working for clients and advisors alike.”
