Will Workiva's (WK) New CFO Shift the Balance Between Growth Ambitions and Profit Discipline?

• In early January 2026, Workiva highlighted softer U.S. labor data and confirmed that Barbara Larson will assume the CFO role on January 20, with leadership emphasizing her experience in supporting a focus on profitable growth ahead of the February 24 earnings release.
• This combination of macroeconomic developments and a finance leadership transition has sharpened investor attention on how Workiva balances growth ambitions with improving profitability and operating discipline.
• With Barbara Larson set to guide Workiva’s financial strategy, we’ll examine how this leadership change could influence the existing investment narrative.

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Workiva Investment Narrative Recap

To own Workiva, you need to believe its cloud platform can keep winning compliance and reporting workloads while the company moves closer to consistent profitability. The softer labor data and incoming CFO do not materially change the near term focus on the February 24 earnings call, where subscription momentum and operating margins remain the key catalyst, and macro driven budget pressure for digital transformation projects is still a central risk.

Among recent developments, the appointment of Barbara Larson as CFO stands out as most relevant here, given Workiva’s ongoing path toward narrower losses and improved operating discipline. Her background in large enterprise software finance will be front of mind as investors watch upcoming results for evidence that revenue growth and margin improvement can coexist, particularly if customers become more cautious about new software commitments in response to macro uncertainty.

Yet for investors, the bigger question is how Workiva might be affected if customer budgets for digital transformation were to...

Read the full narrative on Workiva (it's free!)

Workiva’s narrative projects $1.4 billion revenue and $37.9 million earnings by 2028. This requires 20.6% yearly revenue growth and a $104.5 million earnings increase from $-66.6 million today.

Uncover how Workiva's forecasts yield a $106.90 fair value, a 17% upside to its current price.

Exploring Other Perspectives

Three fair value estimates from the Simply Wall St Community span a wide range of US$53.57 to US$167.33 per share, underscoring how differently investors can view the same stock. Against that backdrop, concerns about customer spending on digital transformation projects could become a key lens for interpreting these contrasting views on Workiva’s potential performance.

Explore 3 other fair value estimates on Workiva - why the stock might be worth as much as 83% more than the current price!

Build Your Own Workiva Narrative

Disagree with existing narratives? Create your own in under 3 minutes - extraordinary investment returns rarely come from following the herd.

• A great starting point for your Workiva research is our analysis highlighting 2 key rewards and 2 important warning signs that could impact your investment decision.
• Our free Workiva research report provides a comprehensive fundamental analysis summarized in a single visual - the Snowflake - making it easy to evaluate Workiva's overall financial health at a glance.

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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.

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