Boards Under Pressure: Can CFOs Cut Through the Noise…and the Egos?

Across corporate Australia, board packs have quietly ballooned. In many large public companies, they now run well over 200 pages – and once committee materials are included, the total can reach 600 pages or more in a single month.

Few directors – no matter how diligent – can realistically digest that volume in full.

The result? Directors skim.

Key insights get buried in appendices. Risks lurk in footnotes. And boards, legally responsible for oversight, too often mistake volume for transparency.

This creeping “pack inflation” is not trivial. In an environment where ASIC has sharpened its focus on director duties, and regulators increasingly demand proactive risk oversight, information overload is itself a governance risk.

The CFO as Curator-in-Chief

This is where the modern CFO comes in. The finance leader has always been the chief numbers officer. Increasingly, they must also be the chief editor.

The role is not to shrink every pack to 20 pages – some technical detail is unavoidable. But the CFO can make sure the first 20 pages tell the story the board actually needs:

• A concise executive financial summary – three to five pages covering cash flow, capital allocation, forecast variances, with clear risk signposts.
• Scenario dashboards – concise visual tools that show possible outcomes, not just historical performance.

Done well, this transforms board packs from bloated encyclopaedias into navigational charts. The CFO isn’t cutting out the detail; they’re making sure the important points stand out.

When the Pack Isn’t the Problem

But sometimes, the problem isn’t the paper – it’s the people.

A board can be impeccably briefed and still be ineffective if it lacks the courage or capability to act. The Tesla board offers a high-profile example. Elon Musk’s erratic leadership and relentless vision have frequently tested directors’ resolve. Critics argue that Tesla’s board has too often functioned as a support act rather than a check and balance.

Closer to home, many directors will recognise another familiar challenge: the boardroom monopoliser. Every board has seen it – the director who insists on dominating airtime, often straying into detailed operational matters, and continuing even after being counselled by the Chair. The result is that other directors are squeezed out of the conversation. Debate narrows. Governance becomes distorted.

I have also seen boards where discussions circled around the wrong issues: clean stores, Gantt charts, and the mechanics of rolling out new sites. What was missing was any meaningful debate about the real driver of success – how to get people into the stores. The board’s energy was spent on operational minutiae, while the bigger commercial question barely rated a mention.

Here again, the CFO can play a quiet but critical role by presenting clear data on customer behaviour, foot traffic, or unit economics. Structured, decision-ready information anchors the discussion, redirects attention to the key issues, and gives quieter directors the confidence to weigh in with substance. Facts, presented clearly, cut through operational detail, personality, and distraction – bringing the board back to the strategic levers that matter for long-term value.

The CFO as Counterweight

How does a CFO exert influence when boards falter?

1. Anchor in facts: Vision may dominate strategy sessions, but cashflow does not lie. A CFO armed with evidence can shift discussion from personality to reality.
2. Equip the board: Directors may lack the confidence to challenge. A CFO who supplies clear data, “what-if” scenarios, and financial guardrails gives directors the backbone to speak up.
3. Carry the culture: In personality-heavy companies, or personality-heavy boards, the CFO often embodies restraint and professionalism. How they communicate – calm, measured, credible – becomes the cultural counterweight to hype, distraction, or monopolisation.

Australian Lessons

At Fortescue Metals, tensions around climate targets, governance structures, and the influence of Andrew Forrest have kept the spotlight on its board. Investors often look to the CFO to provide reassurance that, beyond the headlines and personality clashes, the company’s numbers are sound and its capital discipline intact. The finance function becomes the ballast – signalling that accountability extends deeper than any one individual.

Meanwhile, Optus has once again been hit by a triple-zero outage. On 28 September 2025, a mobile tower fault in Dapto, NSW disrupted emergency call services for hours, leaving around 4,500 customers unable to connect. Multiple failed calls triggered welfare checks and renewed public outcry. 

This follows a major outage earlier in September, during which technical errors in a firewall upgrade blocked hundreds of emergency calls across multiple states, linked to multiple deaths. 

In both instances, the CEO has been in the spotlight, but the CFO’s role becomes critical – to quantify the exposure, map remediation costs, and structure investments to prevent recurrence. In crisis, culture is judged by decisions. The CFO is the one who turns those decisions into credible financial commitments.

Both case studies highlight the same truth: when governance is strained, the CFO often holds credibility in the room.

The Limits of Influence

It would be naïve to suggest a strong CFO can always save a weak board. Structural weaknesses – directors who see their role as supporting management instead of questioning it, conflicted interests, an overpowering CEO, or a disruptive monopoliser — may ultimately overwhelm even the best finance leader.

At some point, resignation becomes the only line of defence.

But short of that, CFOs can and do hold the line. They buy time. They enforce controls. They provide regulators and investors with confidence that someone is “minding the store.” In many cases, the mere presence of a disciplined CFO curbs excess – slowing reckless spending, exposing hidden risks, forcing accountability into the conversation.

Why This Matters in Australia

Directors here face increasing scrutiny over governance quality. Regulators are less tolerant of claims that “management didn’t tell us.” Activist investors are more willing to call out underperforming or passive boards. And the public has less patience for governance failure, particularly after high-profile collapses and catastrophic outages.

For CFOs, this means two things:

• Curator role: The ability to shape board information is no longer an administrative task – it is a governance function. Clarity is compliance. Confusion is risk.
• Counterweight role: Where boards are hesitant, distracted, or dominated by personalities, the CFO’s independence and credibility may be the only real check in the system.

The Takeaway

Board packs today risk overwhelming directors rather than empowering them. And some boards, even when informed, still fail to govern with courage. In both scenarios, the CFO is pivotal.

By curating decision-useful information, CFOs help boards cut through noise. By standing as a counterweight to egos, monopolisers, or dominant personalities, they give boards the confidence – and sometimes the conscience — to act.

A strong CFO cannot always save a weak board. Without one, a weak board is not just vulnerable – it is exposed.

3 Questions Every CFO Should Ask Before Sending the Next Board Pack:

1. If Directors only read the first 10 pages, would they know what really matters?
2. Have I highlighted the two or three biggest risks since the last meeting, in plain language?
3. Does the board pack enable decisions – or just describe activity?

About the Author: Jon Brett

Jon Brett is a Non-Executive Director of Corporate Travel (CTM) and Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee. He also serves as a Non-Executive Director of Raiz Invest (RZI).

Jon is also the author of the very successful podcast  series The Taking of Vocus, chronicling the extraordinary rise of Vocus, what went wrong with the M2 merger, and the eventual privatization of Vocus. The podcast is accessible via his LinkedIn profile Jon’s book The Taking of Vocus, is available on Kindle. Connect with Jon – LinkedIn Profile