Protecting Value vs Creating Value: What Leadership Really Wants From Tax

Over the years, I’ve spent a lot of time speaking with CFOs, CEOs, Boards and Heads of Tax about the role tax plays within an organisation.

The trigger for those conversations varies – rapid growth, international expansion, an acquisition, succession planning, a transformation programme, increasing regulatory complexity. More recently, technology, digitisation and growing reporting requirements have added another layer of pressure.

Different businesses, different challenges. But one theme comes up again and again: the most influential Heads of Tax spend their careers navigating two very different leadership priorities. One centres on protecting value. The other on creating it.

A CFO is typically focused on confidence in the numbers, governance, compliance and risk. The CEO and Board are more likely focused on growth, investment, transformation and future value creation. Those priorities aren’t mutually exclusive, but they aren’t always viewed through the same lens, and that’s where tax leadership gets interesting.

Leadership doesn’t need tax to choose between growth and risk. It needs tax to help navigate both. The Heads of Tax with the greatest impact are usually the ones comfortable contributing across both.

Influence Is Earned Before The Tax Question Is Asked

Not every technically strong Head of Tax becomes a trusted adviser. Within the same organisation, two people can have similar technical capability, yet one is involved at the start of important discussions while the other is brought in after key decisions have already been made. The difference is rarely technical expertise alone.

Looking across the tax leaders we’ve worked with, a pattern emerges: they’re often part of broader business discussions long before a specific tax question is raised. By the time the tax implications come up, they’re already in the room. Over time, that changes how they’re viewed – the business stops seeing tax as a function that reviews decisions and starts seeing it as one that contributes to them.

Protecting Value

One side of the role is about protecting value – usually the conversation happening with the CFO, centred on risk, governance, compliance, reporting, controls, and confidence in the numbers. The questions tend to be familiar: What are the risks? What are we missing? Can we stand behind this position? Is there anything that could concern auditors, regulators or shareholders?

At its core, this conversation is about confidence – not just in the tax position, but in the organisation’s ability to manage risk and withstand scrutiny. This is where tax provides assurance, clarity and perspective. Done well, it helps leadership understand issues before they become problems.

Creating Value

The other side looks very different, and it’s usually the conversation happening with the CEO and Board – growth, expansion, acquisitions, transformation, capital allocation, investment decisions, strategic opportunities.

The questions shift too: Can we do this? What’s the best way of doing it? How does tax support the strategy? What are the implications for value creation?

This is where tax is sometimes misunderstood. The role isn’t simply to identify tax consequences – it’s to help leadership understand how those consequences should shape the decision itself. Explaining the tax position is only part of the contribution. Helping shape the route forward is where the real value gets created.

The Balancing Act

A Head of Tax can spend the morning discussing controls and governance with the CFO, then the afternoon discussing acquisitions or growth plans with the Board. Both conversations matter. Both require credibility. Both require a different perspective.

Push too hard on risk, and tax starts to be seen as a blocker. Focus exclusively on opportunity, and credibility begins to erode. The tax leaders with the greatest impact are the ones comfortable operating in that tension, because protecting value and creating value are rarely opposing objectives. More often, they’re two sides of the same decision.

Many tax teams are trying to support both conversations with finite resources. Reporting obligations keep increasing, scrutiny keeps growing, stakeholder expectations keep rising, yet team sizes don’t always move in the same direction.

As we explored in our previous article, Tax Doesn’t Have an AI Problem. It Has a Data Problem, technology, automation and AI all have a role to play here – not because they replace judgement, but because they create more capacity for it. For many Heads of Tax, the challenge isn’t finding enough work to do. It’s finding enough time to focus on the work that creates the greatest value.

Influence Comes From Context, Not Expertise

When people talk about influential Heads of Tax, the conversation rarely centres on technical expertise alone. What stands out is a broader understanding of the business – how value is created, where risk sits, what matters to investors, the Board and the wider leadership team.

Tax rarely exists in isolation; it sits within almost every significant decision a business makes. That broader perspective changes the nature of the contribution. Rather than reacting to tax consequences, influential Heads of Tax help leadership understand the wider implications of a decision before it’s made.

This shows up clearly in how business discussions actually unfold. Most of them don’t start with a tax question – they start with an objective: acquiring a business, entering a new market, restructuring operations, raising capital, launching a product, accelerating growth. Leadership is then trying to understand how those objectives can be achieved while managing risk, complying with regulation, and avoiding unnecessary leakage.

The tax leaders with the greatest influence are usually the ones who can help leadership understand both the implications and the available options. The issue was never whether tax identifies the problem – it’s what happens next.

This Was Never About Being More Commercial

Commerciality, business partnering and influence are often presented as new requirements for tax leaders. They’re not. The best Heads of Tax I’ve worked with have always advised CFOs, supported transactions, balanced opportunity and risk, and helped shape important business decisions.

What’s changed isn’t the role – it’s the environment around it, with more regulation, more reporting, more scrutiny, more data and more complexity. As expectations have increased, organisations have simply become clearer about recognising leadership capabilities that were already there alongside the technical expertise.

Technical capability and organisational influence don’t always move in line with one another. Most senior tax leaders are technically strong; influence tends to be linked to a broader set of capabilities – communication, judgement, business understanding, stakeholder management, the ability to simplify complexity, and the ability to help leadership make better decisions. These are often what turn credibility into influence.

Final Thoughts

When leadership teams talk about their best Heads of Tax, the conversation rarely starts with technical expertise. More often it centres on judgement, perspective, and somebody they trust to help navigate important decisions.

That’s really what sits behind protecting value and creating value: not a choice between the two, but an understanding of how they work together. Neither sits above the other, which is perhaps why tax has never fit neatly into a single category – described as either a control function or a strategic function, when the reality is far more nuanced.

The environment is more complex than it was a decade ago, and the spotlight on tax is brighter than ever, but the underlying challenge remains consistent: confidence matters, perspective matters, and so does having people around the table who can help navigate important decisions.

Ultimately, the role isn’t about choosing between protecting value and creating it. It’s about understanding how the two work together. And perhaps that’s what leadership has always wanted from tax.