• The State of Financial Intelligence in the Mid-Market

    A 2026 research study by the CEO Financial Intelligence Academy

  • This study measures how chief executives at $10 million to $500 million companies lead financial decisions, what infrastructure supports those decisions, and what separates the leaders who shape their financial results from those who explain them afterward. Your responses are confidential.

    The study takes 8 minutes. Every contributor receives a confidential personalized peer benchmark, the full report ahead of public release, and a free VIP seat at the 120-minute live masterclass that non-contributors pay to attend.

  • Your Company

    A short profile of your company. This is what allows your personalized peer benchmark to compare you against companies of your size, industry, and structure. About 7 minutes remaining.
  • **Time remaining: about 7 minutes.**
  • What is your company's annual revenue?*
  • What is your primary industry?*
  • Where is your company headquartered?*
  • How many full-time employees does your company have?*
  • How would you describe your company's current growth stage?*
  • Over the past 12 months, how did your company perform against its own plan?*
  • What is your company's ownership structure?*

  • Your Role

    Anchoring the findings in your experience and financial background. About 6 minutes remaining.
  • **Time remaining: about 6 minutes.**
  • What is your current role in the company?*
  • How many years have you held your current role?*
  • What was your professional background before your current role?*

  • Financial Decision Command

    How confident are you in anticipating the impact of your decisions, shaping your company's trajectory, and leading financial conversations? About 5 minutes remaining.
  • **Time remaining: about 5 minutes.**
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  • How often do you formally recalibrate your strategic financial plan against actuals?*
  • How long did the decision-making process take from first awareness of the issue to final commitment?*
  • Rows
  • When considering a significant strategic decision, how often do you model multiple scenarios with their cash flow, risk, and enterprise value implications before committing?*
  • Rows
  • Which statement best describes how financial information functions in your decision-making today?*

  • Financial Infrastructure

    The systems, teams, and sources that support your financial decisions today. About 4 minutes remaining.
  • **Time remaining: about 4 minutes.**
  • Where does your forward financial planning primarily live today?*
  • When you need forward-looking financial insight rather than bookkeeping, where do you currently turn?*
  • What financial infrastructure sits between your strategic plan (vision, objectives, SWOT) and your operational execution (budget, cash flow, actuals)?*

  • Strategic Decisions: A 24-Month Retrospective

    Real decisions, real outcomes, and where better financial intelligence would have made the difference. About 3 minutes remaining.
  • **Time remaining: about 3 minutes.**
  • Which of the following significant strategic decisions has your company made in the past 24 months?*
  • Thinking about the most significant strategic decision you made in the past 24 months, how would you describe your financial inputs at the time of the decision?*
  • For that same decision, how did the actual outcome compare to what you expected at the time?*
  • How long did the decision-making process take, from first awareness of the issue to final commitment?*
  • If you had access to better financial intelligence at the time of that decision, would it have changed the outcome?*
  • **Time remaining: about 2 minutes.**

  • Counterparty and Capital Exposure

    Whose reading of your business drives your decisions, and where counterparty moves have surprised you. About 2 minutes remaining.
  • When forward financial decisions get made in your business, whose financial perspective on your company carries the most weight?*
  • In the past five years, have you been caught off guard by a significant shift in posture from a banker, board, lender, or other major financial counterparty that was not anticipated by your own internal financial analysis?*
  • How well do you understand your company's current capital capacity, meaning what your balance sheet, cash flow, and existing counterparty relationships would actually allow you to do next?*
  • How well do you understand your company's current enterprise value and the specific operational and financial levers that drive it?*
  • **Time remaining: about 1 minute.**

  • Priorities and Outlook

    Where you would invest to strengthen your financial command over the next 12 months. About 1 minute remaining.
  • What would most improve your ability to lead financial decisions in your business over the next 12 months? Select your top three.*
  • Over the next 12 to 24 months, how important do you expect financial intelligence to be to your most significant business decisions? Financial intelligence here means the ability to translate strategic objectives into decisions that command cash flow, risk, enterprise value, and capital capacity over time.*
  • **Time remaining: under 1 minute.**

  • In Your Own Words

    The question behind the numbers. Under a minute remaining.
  • May we quote your written response in the published report?

  • Your VIP Access at Report Launch

    Contributors receive three deliverables at launch. All three require your contact details below — this is the only way we can deliver them to you.Your confidential personalized peer benchmark. Yours only, delivered directly at report launch, never shared, never published.The full research report and its frameworks. Delivered to contributors at launch, ahead of any public distribution.A free VIP seat at the 120-minute live launch masterclass with Oana Labes, MBA, CPA. This session teaches the most critical executive financial intelligence topics surfacing from the research — the frameworks that lift cash flow, contain risk, and grow enterprise value. Non-contributors pay $397 to attend the live session. Contributors attend free as a thank you for making the research possible.Contact details are stored separately from your survey responses and never appear in any published findings.
  • What would you like to receive at report launch?
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