In an environment where volatility is unrelenting and risks extend well beyond finance, the remit of the CFO has become that of an enterprise risk leader. At a recent India CFO Forum session inMumbai, Rajeev Gupta, CFO of L&T Technology Services and Surendra Goyal, Global CFO of Birla Carbon, drew on decades of experience to examine how organisations can strengthen resilience. They highlighted that the real task for finance leaders today is not only to manage balance sheets but to anticipate shocks, eliminate known risks, prepare for the unknown and embed risk awareness deep into organisational culture.

The attached podcast summarises these discussions, but briefly:

• Today’s CFOs are enterprise risk leaders, tasked with anticipating and mitigating financial, operational, regulatory, ESG, cyber and reputational shocks.
• Known risks (compliance, forex volatility, credit exposures), can be eliminated or controlled. Unknown ones (pandemics, regulatory shocks) demand planning, contingency reserves and cultural readiness.
• Building resilience requires balancing speed and caution: when to respond instantly and when to pause, gather intelligence and avoid fuelling misinformation.
• Effective risk management is about mindset and culture as much as systems.
• Resilience stems from diversification—of supply chains, investors, financing structures, even information – allowing organisations to withstand disruption.
• CFOs hold a central role in shaping organisational culture, training frontline leaders and embedding risk awareness across teams.

In an age where volatility has become the default and hierarchies are flattening under the weight of technology, leadership must shift from command-and-control to collaboration and influence. At a recent joint session of the India CEO, CFO, CHRO and CMO Forums in Delhi, Shiv Shivakumar, Operating Partner at Advent International, drew on decades of experience leading some of India’s most recognised companies to outline how leaders, Boards and organisations must reinvent themselves. He emphasised that the future would belong not to managers who issue directives but to leaders capable of fostering collaboration, cutting through complexity and anchoring resilience.

The attached podcast summarises these discussions, but in brief:

• Leadership in the 21st century is being shaped by volatility, with uncertainty rising in both frequency and magnitude.
• Companies that anticipate change significantly outperform the laggards; agility and foresight are now the decisive differentiators.
• Organisations must move from vertical integration and over-management to flatter structures, horizontal careers and true leadership rather than instruction.
• CEOs face shorter tenures, greater regulatory oversight and rising pressure to build personal brands, making authenticity, courage and collaboration indispensable.
• Boards must shift from passive oversight to active value creation, aligning themselves with strategic pillars and contributing domain expertise.
• Sustainable leadership rests on self-accountability, honest conversations and building collaborative cultures where dissent fuels progress.

In an era where work is being reshaped by automation, AI and fluid workforce models, the role of leadership is no longer simply to manage people but to design the very architecture of talent. At a recent India CHRO Forum session in Delhi NCR, Antony Alex, Founder and CEO of Rainmaker, argued that the real challenge lies not in choosing between technology and talent, but in weaving them into a symbiotic whole. Drawing on his expertise in corporate governance and workplace ethics, he highlighted how the human cloud era demands organisations that balance efficiency with empathy, and algorithms with distinctly human strengths. His central message was clear: theCHRO is uniquely placed to architect the blueprint for the workforce of the future.

The attached podcast summarises these discussions, but briefly:

• AI will free up human capacity, but sustainable advantage will lie in creativity, empathy and purpose.
• The paradox is not tech vs talent, but how to design a symbiotic model where automation and human capability reinforce one another.
• Workforce structures are shifting: from headcount to capability architecture, static roles to fluid skills and full-time employees to blended ecosystems.
• Generational divides, digital-native impatience versus legacy-system experience, demand rethinking feedback, communication and social bonding.
• Efficiency must be balanced with well-being, autonomy with algorithm and dashboards with ‘human signals’.
• CHROs are uniquely placed to architect this future through transparent communication, learning cultures and co-creation.