A Letter from the Event Director, Jim Carlton

To the Australian finance community,

2026 feels different.

Every CFO and finance leader I've spoken with over the past twelve months has described a version of the same year: more scrutiny, faster cycles, and a board mandate that's expanded well beyond the boundaries of traditional finance. AI ROI questions. Cost-out programmes that can't compromise service. Forecasts challenged in real time. Transformation roadmaps under audit. And quietly, the growing realisation that the answers from twelve months ago aren't quite enough anymore.

The Future of Finance Summit was built for moments like this.

Now in its 15th edition, the Summit has become Australia's most trusted platform for senior finance leaders — not somewhere you come to be talked at, but somewhere you come to think together. To pressure-test ideas. To borrow from a peer's win, or learn from their mistake. To leave with conviction about the calls you need to make next quarter, and the people to call when you get stuck.

We've made some deliberate changes for 2026.

Day Two is now dedicated to agentic AI and the autonomous finance function — because the question every CFO is wrestling with isn't whether AI belongs in finance, but how to move from pilot to production responsibly, and what it means for the shape of the team that comes out the other side.

We're introducing Problem-Solving Labs: high-intensity, scenario-based working sessions on the exact situations playing out in your inbox right now. Ransomware on AP and payroll. Failed forecasts. Headcount mandates without service impact. You'll have 30-45 minutes with a room of peers to align on a response and pitch it back.

The CFO Boardroom returns, expanded — a Chatham House setting where Australia's most senior finance chiefs discuss what can't be said in their own boardrooms. By invitation only.

And our Interactive Discussion Groups are back by popular demand, with six peer-led streams covering the issues that consistently top the priority list: AI, data, shared services, ESG, ERP modernisation, and transformation execution. We're delighted to be hosting finance leaders from SONY, Fisher & Paykel, QBE, IAG, BlueScope, IKEA, Endeavour Energy, Boral, Domain, Komatsu, OTIS, Lion, News Corp and many more — across enterprise, government, and regulated industries.

Whether you've been part of the Future of Finance community for years or this is your first edition, I'd like to personally invite you to be part of the conversation in Sydney this September.

Bring your sharpest questions. Bring your most stubborn challenges. Leave with a network, a perspective shift, and a few ideas you didn't have on the flight in. I look forward to seeing you there. 

Regards,
Jim Carlton
Event Director