Dr Neema Kiure, assurance partner at EY and former Diamond Trust Bank Tanzania finance director , knows a CFO’s true influence is often revealed during moments of stress. As a judge for the 2026 CFO Awards, she is on the lookout for finance leaders who do bring clarity and disciplined recommendations to the board when tradeoffs get hard.
What drew you to become a judge for the CFO awards?
As an auditor and board member, I was attracted by the opportunity to recognise finance leadership that genuinely moves organisations and communities forward. In East Africa, the CFO role is becoming central to strategy, resilience, governance, and long-term value creation. I view this award as a platform where such leadership is visible, celebrated, and benchmarked. I appreciate that these awards include CFOs from listed companies, large corporations, state-owned entities, and government institutions, elevating the profession and enforcing expected standards.
I am also motivated to learn what exceptional CFOs are doing differently in execution, transformation, governance, and talent. Furthermore, I was drawn by the integrity and structure of the judging approach. The process, which combines interviews, confidential dossiers, and a scorecard-based voting system, supports objective evaluation and reduces bias. Emphasising interviews to understand a nominee's drive, motivation, vision, and results aligns perfectly with how I believe leadership should be assessed. Ultimately, this disciplined assessment signals that the awards are not a popularity contest, making it a worthwhile contribution.
You have had experience in audit, academia, and international standard-setting. What will that combination of experience bring into the evaluation process for the awards?
My background brings thoroughness in examining documents and forming conclusions. Additionally, my time on the IFAC nominating committee provides extensive experience in interviewing aspiring board members. Having chaired public sector audit committees and served as the Director of Finance at Diamond Trust Bank Tanzania, I have dealt directly with CFOs. I have seen how trust is strengthened or broken by the quality of financial governance; clear, credible information improves decision-making and organisational resilience.
Over the years, I have learned that a CFO's true influence is often revealed during moments of stress, such as audits or tight deadlines. When tradeoffs are hard, the strongest CFOs do not hide behind complexities; they bring clarity, options, and disciplined recommendations. My perspective focuses on what is structurally sound and repeatable, helping me recognise leadership that endures. Overall, my 12 years on international boards and my role as an EY partner give me a unique perspective blending strategic understanding, governance discipline, and a focus on measurable impact.
The CFO role has evolved. What competencies or distinguishing qualities will you be looking for throughout the awards process?
The CFO role has moved far beyond being a traditional numbers custodian to a multi-dimensional leadership position. Today's CFOs are strategic partners to the CEO and board, risk leaders, and transformational sponsors. They are connectors who align strategy, performance management, investment decisions, and stakeholder expectations. With advancing technology and rising ESG standards, CFOs must deliver insights faster and help measure sustainability.
he evolution is clear: from reporting to leadership, and from compliance to value creation. I will look for evidence that a nominee leads across the award's core themes: strategy execution, high-performance teams, compliance and governance, and finance transformation. Because sustainable performance is a product of good leadership, I will assess both the outcomes and how they were achieved. Ultimately, I will favour CFOs who translate strategy into measurable results, demonstrate integrity, and model exemplary leadership.
How can CFOs get better at these skills, such as translating strategy into value, translating the numbers into a compelling narrative, and developing leadership skills that are not exactly technical skills learned in school?
While everyone has basic qualifications, succeeding requires emotional intelligence and ensuring your actions are relevant, measurable, and embedded in governance. Decisions should act as value drivers affecting risk, capital, and resilience, rather than being treated as side projects. CFOs should modernise finance to be faster, more predictive, and insight-driven by sponsoring data and analytics capabilities.
They must create space for experimentation, align budgets to innovation, and bring the board along with a clear narrative on the business case and risks. When CFOs lead with this discipline, initiatives like sustainability or innovation become durable. Finally, while upgrading technical skills in technology and data analytics is crucial, CFOs must not forget to develop emotional intelligence to effectively manage diverse and challenging teams.
What emerging risks or challenges do you think CFOs should be prioritising in 2026, and particularly in East Africa?
As custodians of funds in both sectors, CFOs face converging financial, operational, and reputational pressures. They must deliver performance amid volatility in markets, currencies, and supply chains while managing rising stakeholder expectations for transparency and ethics. Accelerating regulatory demands also require strong controls and proactive risk management. Furthermore, CFOs are expected to digitise finance to improve data quality and protect against cyber risks.
Simultaneously, they must navigate real talent constraints, retaining capable teams while transforming ways of working. The ultimate challenge is supporting strategy execution at speed and balancing multiple mandates without losing focus. When evaluating nominees, we consider not only their achievements but the difficulty of the landscape they navigated. The best CFOs do more than survive; they build resilient systems and teams that perform through these challenges.
