CFI at 10 Years: How Finance Skills Evolved & What’s Next

Written by Kelly Bailey

Reviewed by Jeff Schmidt

Published January 27, 2026

Read Time 6 minutes

10 Years of CFI

A decade ago, CFI set out to make practical finance skills accessible to professionals everywhere. Ten years later, learners from 200 countries have trained on CFI’s platform. Annual certifications for our flagship Financial Modeling & Valuation Analyst (FMVA®) program have grown 14x, approaching 100,000 total certification holders worldwide.

Those numbers tell a story, not just about CFI’s growth, but about how the finance profession itself has changed. What did it take to succeed a decade ago? What does it take now? And what will set professionals apart in the years ahead?

To mark CFI’s 10-year anniversary, we brought together CEO Tim Vipond and expert CFI instructors Meeyeon Park, Jeff Schmidt, Duncan McKeen, and Ryan Spendelow to answer exactly those questions. Here’s what they had to say.

Then: What Success Looked Like 10 Years Ago

Ten years ago, executional excellence defined success in finance. The professionals who stood out were the ones who could produce flawless work, fast, under pressure.

“The core skill was being able to produce outputs very fast under a lot of pressure, make sure the numbers all made sense and reconciled, and there was a story you could defend,” says Jeff Schmidt, VP, Financial Modeling.

In investment banking, that meant perfect pitch books, reliable valuations, and fast turnarounds. In FP&A, it meant reliable reporting, tight variance analysis, and fast closes. Across the board, the skills that mattered most were Excel mastery, attention to detail, and speed.

Communication mattered too, but primarily in service of getting the numbers right and defending them to stakeholders.

Elite training out of reach for most

The challenge was access. Universities taught finance theory, but employers needed practical skills, such as financial modeling in Excel. Unless you were hired at a bank with its own training program, you had few options. Duncan McKeen, EVP, Content, explains, “If you weren’t lucky enough to be in that room, you didn’t get the training.”

That gap between academic theory and real-world application is exactly what CFI was built to fill. CFI’s online platform enabled professionals to build practical skills and prepare for real-world situations they would face at work.

“We launched CFI with the mission to ensure that anyone, anywhere, with the ambition to learn, can build a world-class career in finance,” says Tim Vipond, CFI’s Co-Founder and CEO.

These foundational skills haven’t disappeared. Attention to detail still matters. Speed still matters. But they’re no longer enough on their own.

Now: What Employers Expect Today

The skills that defined success a decade ago haven’t gone away. But today, they’re the baseline — the minimum you need just to be considered.

Employers now assume you arrive with strong technical foundations because the training and tools to build them are widely accessible. The question is no longer whether you can build a clean financial model. It’s what you do with it.

From transactions to strategy

The biggest shift? Finance roles have moved from purely transactional to strategic. Professionals who once sat in a separate office, validating decisions after the fact, are now embedded in teams and shaping strategy from the start.

Ryan Spendelow, Senior VP, Training & Curriculum, comments: “You’re not just measuring a deal or a department after the fact. You’re actually helping shape that organization’s strategy from the very start.”

Ryan points to corporate financial planning and analysis (FP&A) as a clear example. Ten years ago, FP&A was largely backward-looking — variance reports, descriptive analytics, and telling the business what happened last period.

Today, FP&A is about a forward-looking business partnership. The value has stretched beyond reporting financial performance to helping the business decide what to do next.

Investment banking and equity research have evolved, too. The work is still rigorous, still detail-oriented. But now you’re expected to deliver judgment alongside an analysis. Anticipate what your managing director will ask for next and offer a point of view, not just a spreadsheet.

AI is a tool, not a replacement

AI and automation have accelerated this change. Much of the manual data work that once consumed an analyst’s time is now largely handled by technology. What remains is the human element: judgment, nuance, and knowing how to separate noise from what’s really important.

That said, AI isn’t replacing finance professionals anytime soon. Jeff cites a recent study showing a 40% hallucination rate across major AI models: “You can use AI for assistance, but you need to be able to audit, fact-check, and review its work,” Jeff says.

Technical skills are now the expected baseline. Strategic thinking and judgment set you apart. So how do you build a career that stays relevant as expectations continue to rise?

Next: Building a Durable Career in Finance

Looking ahead, the professionals who thrive won’t be those who master a single tool. They’ll be the ones who own outcomes.

“Tools have a shelf life. If your value is tied to a specific software or workflow, your career is only as durable as the technology,” says Ryan Spendelow.

Ten years ago, being the fastest person in Excel felt like job security. Today, workflows change quickly, and they’ll change even faster in the decade ahead.

So what actually creates lasting career success? Ryan introduces the concept of career durability, which means the ability to remain valuable and relevant as the industry around you changes. It’s about building a foundation that holds up no matter how workflows evolve.

He outlines the three pillars of career durability as:

Pillar 1: Decision support

This means moving beyond “here is the data” to “here is my recommendation.” It’s about owning a point of view — taking a stance on what should happen next, not just presenting options for someone else to choose.

Pillar 2: Influence and business partnership

A data-driven recommendation only matters if people act on it. This pillar is about persuasion — convincing stakeholders with competing priorities to trust your insight and change course. Durable careers require the ability to move people, not just numbers.

Pillar 3: Adaptability

Tools and workflows will keep changing. What feels essential today may be obsolete in five years. This pillar is about mental flexibility: staying curious, learning new systems quickly, and letting go of “that’s how we’ve always done it” before it holds you back.

As Ryan explains it, no single pillar works alone. Decision-making power without influence means being ignored. Strong partnerships without adaptability can create a bottleneck. Career durability lives at the intersection of all three pillars.

Act like the role you want

Duncan offered practical advice for building these skills: start acting like the role you want next. “If I wanted to advance to the next level, I would start doing the things that a higher-level person was doing.”

Form opinions and communicate them as recommendations. Test whether you’d actually enjoy that responsibility before you get there.

The mindset shift is clear. Technical skills won’t carry you all the way anymore. You need to balance them with interpersonal skills and a commitment to continuous adaptation.

Key Takeaway: What to Invest in Next

The fundamentals of finance haven’t changed. You still need to build accurate models, understand the numbers, and communicate your findings clearly. But employer expectations for how you apply those fundamental skills have evolved.

Ten years ago, the challenge was access. Practical, job-relevant training was hard to find unless you landed at a firm that provided it. Today, elite finance training is accessible, and employers assume you’ll arrive prepared. The question is whether you can go beyond the numbers to deliver insight, context, and recommendations that drive decisions.

The bottom line? Your technical skills get you in the room, but strategic thinking, judgment, influence, and adaptability determine how far you go.

Want the full webinar? Watch the replay on CFI’s YouTube channel.

Industry-Recognized Certifications That Set You Apart

Corporate Finance Institute (CFI) provides online courses and certification programs in financial modeling, valuation, and corporate finance. Our programs — including the Financial Modeling & Valuation Analyst (FMVA®) and the Financial Planning & Analysis Professional (FPAP™) — are designed to give corporate finance, banking, and investment professionals practical, real-world skills they can apply immediately.

With flexible, self-paced learning taught by expert instructors, CFI helps professionals at every stage of their careers build the skills that matter most.

Explore our certifications to learn more.