EXCLUSIVE: “A Tech Tonic for CFOs” – Søren Westh Lonning, Pleo in ‘The Fintech Magazine’

Pleo’s new report reveals just how much stress finance leaders are under, a lot of it driven by great expectations created by too many tools! So how can the platform help?

Who’s the most stressed-out individual in your C-suite right now? According to a recent survey of 2,650 financial executives and decision makers across Europe, it’s probably your CFO.

And the sleepless nights, days of gut-clenching anxiety and round-the-clock indecision are taking their toll – not just on the officeholder, but also on the organisation, impacting its bottom line performance and team morale.

The irony is, in an age of being constantly told intelligent, labour-saving technology can improve our output and liberate us to be our best selves, many of the most important people in the room are, in fact, suffering tech shame. They’re struggling to realise the elevated expectations placed on them as a consequence of all these tools. And that, not surprisingly, is leading to a collapse of confidence. It’s a vicious and punishing cycle.

Søren Westh Lonning feels their pain.

He’s the CFO of Pleo, the fintech behind the report, The Power Of Better Business Decisions, and his peers have been telling him privately what the report makes public: ‘we’re in decision-making crisis’. “What I hear a lot is that the data availability is growing exponentially, as is the ability to record and track so many more metrics,” he says. “But turning that into insights that give you clarity of where to go as a business doesn’t match the data growth. There are higher expectations that you will be able to make informed decisions and faster
decisions, but you can’t.”

The Danish unicorn that built its success on being a pure-play expense management platform, has recently evolved to become more of a much-needed tech tonic for CFOs. Because, while their role has been transformed from number cruncher to strategic influencer in less than a working lifetime, they often don’t have the corresponding insight into the business to make crucial decisions that never used to be part of their job spec. Top of that list is (increasingly AI-driven) tech investment – which 32 per cent cited in the report as being the most difficult call they’re asked to make. And for good reason.

A report by Gartner in May 2025 revealed that 72 per cent of organisations are only breaking even or are losing money on their AI investments.

“For every AI tool organisations buy, they should anticipate 10 hidden costs plus the transition costs of training and change management,” said Gartner, adding, “If organisations don’t get the technical capabilities right, value returns will be fragile and prone to failure.“

No pressure, then, CFOs!

The honesty with which thousands of finance leaders responded to Pleo’s polite inquiries about their state of mind and management, indicates just how vulnerable they are feeling in the role. Nearly half felt stressed; around a third were losing sleep; a similar number admitted to suffering anxiety; and a quarter owned up to indecision. That last should set alarm bells ringing, because their naturally analytical, numerically predisposed natures then led them to make some stark observations. There was a direct line, they said, between poor financial decisions and lack of business growth (29 per cent), loss of revenue (28 per cent) and cashflow problems (24 per cent).

With brave self-awareness, they also admitted decision freeze had led to missed business opportunities (23 per cent), decreased business efficiency (22 per cent), and many felt bad about how their performance was affecting their teams, with 18 per cent pointing to high levels of employee frustration. So, what’s to be done about it?

Well, Pleo’s respondents were clear on that, too: better communication and information exchange across their organisations, with improved collaboration, real-time insights and visibility of the data, as well as something to boost their own professional self-confidence. The fintech has responded – with some clever artificially intelligent tools, yes, but also, respecting the candour with which finance leaders shared their deepest fears, an honest caveat.

“You have to be mindful of where a tool can make a real difference to you,” says Lonning. “That level of intention is critical. It’s difficult to say you should have ‘X’ number of digital solutions, but what you should look for is tools that can do multiple things and cut across departmental functions.

“So, keep in mind when you select a tool how well it integrates, because when these solutions flow seamlessly together, it makes things so much easier for the user. That’s high on our radar, too – Pleo’s solutions integrate well with HR and ERP systems, for instance.”

The fintech, which has just celebrated its 10th anniversary, can confidently claim to give the reliable insights CFOs crave, thanks to the critical mass of data it processes across 40,000 SMEs in 16 European countries. That’s not only helped it design a new, intelligent cash management solution, but it will also allow clients on its higher-tier plans to benchmark their performance against similar organisations, giving strategic context to a CFO’s advice.

The cash management tool, currently in Beta mode with select customers, is the latest, powerful addition to Pleo’s intuitive platform that already gives employees smart company cards, automates expense reports, and provides real-time tracking of all company spending.

“Cash management is more about managing the organisation’s funds and their availability,” says Lonning. “Even if you are operating in multiple countries with different banks, it allows you to automatically connect them in a single platform and provides a view of all the money a business has in one cockpit.”

It addresses one of CFOs’ key asks: for confidence and control.

“These are sensitive figures that treasury management doesn’t outsource to anyone, so automating them helps the most senior people in the finance team,” says Lonning. “They can create rules to automatically transfer funds from one account to another to take advantage of higher interest rates, for example. In effect, it’s optimising fund management.

“We’re excited to see how much time it’s saving CFOs and how it’s helping support their decision-making,”

Another key area creating strain for finance leaders is a simpler one for Pleo to solve – because it’s embedded in its DNA. While every organisation is different – and Pleo’s customer base ishugely diverse – its simplified approach to spend management is based on integrated, seamless flows, plugging HR into finance teams, and giving instant, real-time visibility of every expense and invoice.

“The way we can help with collaboration across the organisation (or lack of it!) is related to people using the same source of information,” says Lonning. “Many companies struggle with departments producing slightly different reports in a slightly different way. It’s a complicated area, but we try to make sure people operate on the same data source and follow the same rules for document making. And we’re continuing to bring even more innovation to address that need.”

While Pleo is working to solve current finance leaders’ frustrations, the good news is that Lonning believes the next-gen CFO won’t have anywhere near the same level of stress to deal with.

“Younger finance leaders are more savvy when it comes to understanding the tools, data and neural technology,” he says. “The profile and background of these leaders has shifted, too. I meet more and more CFOs who have not followed the classic audit background. They have a naturally strategic mindset… which is related to technology and AI.

“That’s not to downplay the traditional skillset of the CFO – you need to have that in your toolkit, or a strong team that covers the bases. You cannot replace a strong understanding of what’s going on under the hood – the data that’s being processed. But the overall balance [between these two skill sets] has changed.”

The CFOs today are making decisions that the CFOs of tomorrow will inherit. With Pleo, there’s a stronger chance they’ll be the right ones.

This article was published in The Fintech Magazine Issue #37, Page 6-7

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