The CFO as Value Architect: Holcim Finance Leaders

June 19, 2026 at IE Business School, Madrid, Spain (invitation)

How is value created in markets of accelerating change, technological disruption, and sustainable impact? What is the changing role of finance leaders in driving the business forwards, and delivering value creation?

Creating Value in a Fast-Changing World

We explore how megatrends are reshaping the foundations of value creation across industries. It focuses on decarbonisation and climate regulation, circular economy dynamics, digitalisation and AI-driven productivity, urbanisation and infrastructure renewal, and evolving investor expectations around ESG, risk, and resilience.

We consider the shift from linear value chains to dynamic ecosystems, from cost advantage to carbon and system advantage, and from product-level margins to solution and lifecycle value. Also, the emergence of new value pools and the increasing risk of stranded or re-rated assets, alongside the importance of S-curve dynamics and continuous reinvention as core strategic capabilities.

Examples include SpaceX, Nvidia, Jio, and BYD, each demonstrating how value is increasingly created through platform logic, vertical integration, infrastructure ownership, and exponential scaling effects rather than incremental efficiency improvements.

Driving Futures with Purpose and Innovation

How can organisations can build growth strategies that are resilient, adaptive, and aligned with long-term value creation in a resource-constrained world? Purpose becomes a structural driver of strategy rather than a narrative layer, shaping innovation, capital allocation, and ecosystem expansion.

We focus on the three horizons of innovation: strengthening and decarbonising the core business, expanding into adjacent low-carbon and circular solutions, and developing new platform-based ecosystems. It emphasises that sustainable innovation is increasingly a source of competitive advantage rather than a constraint, enabling premiumisation, new revenue models, and system-level growth.

Examples including Schneider Electric, Haier, Interface, and Ping An illustrate how companies are leveraging digital platforms, organisational redesign, circular economy principles, and ecosystem convergence to unlock new forms of value creation.

The Modern CFO as Value Architect

We focus on the evolving role of finance leadership in shaping enterprise strategy and transformation. We map the transition of the CFO from a function primarily focused on reporting and control to one centred on foresight, capital orchestration, and enterprise-wide value creation.

We discuss how finance is becoming the integrator of strategy, capital allocation, sustainability, risk, and data-driven decision intelligence. This includes the shift from efficiency optimisation to value creation, and from retrospective reporting to real-time, forward-looking decision support.

Examples such as DBS, Amazon, Unilever, and Microsoft illustrate how leading organisations are embedding finance into strategic decision systems, portfolio transformation, and capital allocation disciplines that directly shape growth trajectories and organisational reinvention.