Budgets were designed to create control. Yet for many CFOs today, they do the opposite. They create illusions of control. Plans break faster than reporting cycles. Targets become outdated before the year has even started. Rigid detailed cost budgets prevent fast responses. And the gap between what the numbers say and what the business actually needs keeps widening.
In this keynote, Bjarte Bogsnes does not argue for less discipline, less accountability, or financial looseness. He challenges something more fundamental: whether traditional management through fixed annual budgets are still the right instrument in a world defined by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity.
Drawing on (nearly) thirty years of experience with Beyond Budgeting in complex, global organizations, Bogsnes explores how CFOs can regain better control by shifting focus from static plans to adaptive decision-making.
From compliance to confidence.
From prediction to preparedness.
From fighting uncertainty and ambiguity to accepting and embracing it.
From managing performance to enabling performance.
This is a session for CFOs and finance leaders who feel the tension between structure and reality every day.
Who know that tighter rules do not automatically lead to better outcomes. And who are ready to rethink what financial leadership looks like when certainty is no longer guaranteed.
Not a plea to abandon control, but an invitation to redefine it.
