CFO Weekly What CFOs Need to Know for 2025 with Jim Benson, CFO at Dynatrace
Dec 23, 2025
Jim Benson, CFO at Dynatrace, boasts over 30 years of finance leadership, including roles at Akamai and Hewlett Packard. In this discussion, he reveals the evolving role of CFOs as strategic partners rather than just financial stewards. He emphasizes the importance of modernizing finance functions, leveraging data analytics for storytelling, and establishing succession strategies. Jim also highlights the need for CFOs to align closely with technology to set long-term goals and drive company-wide growth, focusing on talent development and future market opportunities.
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Three-Decade Career Path
- Jim described a 30-plus year path through Hewlett Packard, Akamai, retirement, then Dynatrace as CFO.
- Those varied roles shaped his emphasis on finance-business partnership and operational breadth.
Breadth Enables Better Go-To Models
- Broad operating exposure across sales, finance, audit, and controllership builds a CFO's ability to choose go-to-market models.
- That breadth lets finance learn from past models and apply lessons to current strategy.
Early Finance Rotations Shaped His View
- He recounted starting in a financial management program at Digital Equipment and learning the finance-business partner model early.
- Early mentors from operating roles taught him to map revenue and cost inputs, shaping his DuPont-style thinking.