Business

CFOs say AI is transforming finance—but only when strategy leads the way

Published

3 weeks ago

November 14, 2025

Good morning. On Thursday, during the Fortune Emerging CFO virtual event in partnership with Workday, leaders discussed how AI is reshaping finance and the evolving responsibilities of CFOs.

James Glover, principal and finance transformation AI leader at Deloitte, emphasized that AI must align with a company’s core strategy. CFOs should first define their objective—efficiency, control, effectiveness, or engagement—then target the finance areas that best support that goal. Companies deploying AI one use case at a time, without a broader plan, are struggling to capture meaningful enterprise value, Glover said.

CFOs are also assessing agentic AI platforms to drive efficiency. “But you actually have to train your people to use it, otherwise they’re going to sort of treat it like a Google search,” Glover commented. That means AI prompting skills are crucial. Implementations for these platforms often take six to 12 months. He advised companies to introduce simple AI productivity tools early to build comfort while planning more ambitious initiatives.

CFOs typically ask Deloitte three questions: What’s the ROI for AI? Where should they begin? And should they buy or build? Early adopters are starting to see “green shoots” of ROI, Glover said.

Developing use cases for AI

A panel of CFOs shared their experiences, emphasizing AI’s impact on accuracy, forecasting, productivity, and the importance of iterative learning and cross-functional collaboration.

Craig Mestel, CFO of Webflow, a website platform for marketing, design, and development teams, said his finance team spent significant time answering routine policy questions. Webflow now uses large language model applications to automate those queries, freeing his team for higher-value work. The company has also built chat-based access to its data. “Non-technical analysts on my team can use natural language to chat with the data and start to get insights,” Mestel said.

He added that Webflow’s CEO has mandated clear expectations around AI use. “We’ve partnered with HR to create a framework that ties into performance reviews,” Mestel said.

Thadd Stricker, CFO of INRIX, which specializes in transportation analytics and location-based data services, said AI is transforming the business in two major ways. It enables analysis of massive mobility datasets—more than 50 petabytes (a unit of digital storage equal to one quadrillion bytes) and 45 billion daily data points—allowing clients to draw actionable insights. And within finance, AI tools have significantly improved reporting and forecasting accuracy, including ARR, reaching up to 95% accuracy with greater transparency and less manual input. He expects those capabilities to expand as similar tools are integrated into platforms like Workday.

Michelle Cheung, CFO and COO of Greenlight, a consumer subscription fintech focused on family finance and safety, said AI strengthens risk management by analyzing transaction data, streamlines operations by automating contract reviews, powers educational content in the app, and improves collaboration by reducing siloed work. The company also conducts hackathons for a better understanding of AI, Cheung said.

‘Don’t give up’

The CFOs noted that not every AI use case succeeds, highlighting the importance of keeping human oversight in the process. Stricker shared that early attempts to use ChatGPT for legal research produced confident but incorrect case citations, underscoring the need to verify AI-generated information and prompt models to acknowledge uncertainty.

Mestel said early experiments using ChatGPT as a junior analyst also fell short. “It’s not ready for that yet; it’s not great at math,” he said. His team also struggled with automating variance analysis due to inconsistent results, but after iterating and testing, they achieved greater reliability and impact.

“The point I would share with CFOs is: if you fail the first time, that’s okay,” Mestel said. “Don’t give up—keep going.”

Have a good weekend.

Sheryl Estrada
sheryl.estrada@fortune.com

Leaderboard

Fortune 500 Power Moves

Hugh F. Johnston, senior EVP and CFO of The Walt Disney Company (No. 46), had his tenure extended through Jan. 31, 2029, according to an SEC filing. Johnston, a longtime PepsiCo executive, originally joined Disney on Dec. 4, 2023, for a term ending Dec. 31, 2026. The company raised his target annual long-term equity award to $16.5 million, while his base salary and bonus targets remain unchanged.

Brody Merrill was appointed CFO of Mutual of Omaha (No. 299), effective Dec. 1. Merrill recently served as CFO and treasurer for American National Group. With more than 24 years of financial leadership across the insurance, technology and asset management industries, he has experience in capital management, risk oversight and optimizing business performance. Merrill is a U.S. Marine Corps veteran.

Every Friday morning, the weekly Fortune 500 Power Moves column tracks Fortune 500 company C-suite shifts—see the most recent edition.

More notable moves this week:

Steve Fieler was appointed CFO of Waymo, an autonomous ride-hailing company. Fieler brings nearly 30 years of financial experience to Waymo, an Alphabet company. Most recently, he was a key member of Google’s CFO leadership team, where he served as VP of planning, BizOps, investments, and investor relations. He also previously held the role of business finance officer for Google’s platforms and ecosystems unit, responsible for products including Android and Chrome. Before his time at Google, Fieler served as CFO at HP.

Michael Nofi was appointed CFO of Edgewise Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: EWTX), a muscle disease biopharmaceutical company, effective Nov. 10. Nofi joins Edgewise after serving as chief accounting officer (CAO) at SpringWorks Therapeutics, Inc. He will succeed Edgewise CFO, R. Michael Carruthers, who is retiring. Nofi brings over 30 years of leadership experience. Before joining Edgewise, he served as CAO of SpringWorks Therapeutics. Before that, Nofi was CAO and VP of global accounting and corporate FP&A at The Nature’s Bounty Co.

James G. Mackey was promoted to CFO of BankUnited, Inc. (NYSE: BKU), effective Nov. 10. Mackey was hired on July 23 and served as the senior EVP of finance from Aug. 15 to Nov. 10. Leslie N. Lunak, who has served as the CFO of the company since 2013, will continue as an executive advisor through January 2026.

Martino Cadoni was appointed CFO of DeepL, a global AI product and research company. Cadoni brings more than 15 years of international finance and technology leadership experience. He joins DeepL from Klarna, where he held senior leadership roles including head of strategic finance and investor relations, and led the divestment of Klarna Checkout. Cadoni previously also held senior finance roles at HSBC and GE.

Big Deal

AuditBoard has released the findings of its 2026 Focus on the Future report. The internal audit profession is navigating an environment of hypervolatility defined by accelerating, interconnected risks. The profession is being challenged by three converging forces: persistently tight resources, the rise of AI, and a demand for role redefinition.

For example, only 28% of leaders express confidence in their teams’ ability to effectively audit AI risks, and 63% of organizations have not yet defined a formal risk appetite or governance framework for AI use, leaving internal auditors with little structure for oversight, according to the report.

The findings are based on a survey of 213 global internal audit leaders.

Going deeper

Here are four Fortune weekend reads:

“Ford CEO says he has 5,000 open mechanic jobs with 6-figure salaries from the shortage of manually skilled workers: ‘We are in trouble in our country’” by Marco Quiroz-Gutierrez

“After Elon Musk’s Boring Co. was cited for serious safety violations, the Nevada governor’s office stepped in. Then someone deleted evidence of that meeting” by Jessica Mathews and Leo Schwartz

“OnlyFans CEO will not tolerate ‘that squidgy layer of middle management’ and refuses to hire them” by Jim Edwards

“The rise of Yann LeCun, the 65-year-old NYU professor who is planning to leave Mark Zuckerberg’s highly paid team at Meta to launch his own AI startup” by Dave Smith

Overheard

“Replacing entry-level workers with AI is not an option — not unless business and society are willing to accept, as the older generation retires, that AI agents will be the sole practitioners in these crucial professions. Few people would settle for that future.”

—Steve Hasker, president and CEO of Thomson Reuters, writes in a Fortune opinion piece.

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Business

Nvidia’s CEO says AI adoption will be gradual, but we still may all end up making robot clothing

Published

38 minutes ago

December 6, 2025

Jace Porter

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang doesn’t foresee a sudden spike of AI-related layoffs, but that doesn’t mean the technology won’t drastically change the job market—or even create new roles like robot tailors.

The jobs that will be the most resistant to AI’s creeping effect will be those that consist of more than just routine tasks, Huang said during an interview with podcast host Joe Rogan this week.

“If your job is just to chop vegetables, Cuisinart’s gonna replace you,” Huang said.

On the other hand, some jobs, such as radiologists, may be safe because their role isn’t just about taking scans, but rather interpreting those images to diagnose people.

“The image studying is simply a task in service of diagnosing the disease,” he said.

Huang allowed that some jobs will indeed go away, although he stopped short of using the drastic language from others like Geoffrey Hinton a.k.a. “the Godfather of AI” and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, both of whom have previously predicted massive unemployment thanks to the improvement of AI tools.

Yet, the potential, AI-dominated job market Huang imagines may also add some new jobs, he theorized. This includes the possibility that there will be a newfound demand for technicians to help build and maintain future AI assistants, Huang said, but also other industries that are harder to imagine.

“You’re gonna have robot apparel, so a whole industry of—isn’t that right? Because I want my robot to look different than your robot,” Huang said. “So you’re gonna have a whole apparel industry for robots.”

The idea of AI-powered robots dominating jobs once held by humans may sound like science fiction, and yet some of the world’s most important tech companies are already trying to make it a reality.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has made the company’s Optimus robot a central tenet of its future business strategy. Just last month, Musk predicted money will no longer exist in the future and work will be optional within the next 10 to 20 years thanks to a fully fledged robotic workforce.

AI is also advancing so rapidly that it already has the potential to replace millions of jobs. AI can adequately complete work equating to about 12% of U.S. jobs, according to a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) report from last month. This represents about 151 million workers representing more than $1 trillion in pay, which is on the hook thanks to potential AI disruption, according to the study.

Even Huang’s potentially new job of AI robot clothesmaker may not last. When asked by Rogan whether robots could eventually make apparel for other robots, Huang replied: “Eventually. And then there’ll be something else.”

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Business

The ‘Mister Rogers’ of Corporate America shows Gen Z how to handle toxic bosses

Published

2 hours ago

December 6, 2025

Jace Porter

After two decades of climbing the corporate ladder at companies ranging from ABC, ESPN, and Charter Communications (commonly known as Spectrum), Timm Chiusano quit it all to become a content creator.

He wasn’t just walking away from high titles, but a high salary, too. In his peak years, Chiusano made $600,000 to $800,000 annually. But in June of 2024, after giving a 12-week notice, he “responsibility fired himself” from his corporate job as VP of production and creative services at Charter.

He did it all to help others navigate the challenges of a workplace, and appreciate the most mundane parts of life on TikTok.

@timmchiusano

most people are posting their 2024 recaps; these are a few of my favorite moments from the year that was, but i need to start reintroducing myself too i dont have a college degree, no one in my life knew that until i was 35 when i eventually got my foot in the door in my early 20’s after a few years of substitute teaching and part time jobs, i thought for sure i had found the career path of my dreams in live sports production i didn’t think i had a chance of surviving that first college football season but i busted my ass, stuck around and got promoted 5 times in 5 years then i met a girl in Las Vegas, got married in 7 months, and freaked out about my career that had me travelling 36 weeks a year i had to find a more stable “desk job”, i was scared shitless that i was pigeonholed and the travel would eventually destroy my marriage i crafted a narative for espn arguing they needed me on their marketing team because of my unique perspective coming from the production side i got rejected, but kept trying and a year i got that job the 7 years with espn were incredible, but also exhausting and raised all kinds of questions about corporate america, toxic situations, and capitalism in general why was i borderline heart attack stressed so often when i could see that my ideas were literally generating 2,000 times the money that i was getting paid? in 2012 i had a kid and in 2013 i got the biggest job of my career to reinvent how to produce 20,000 commercials a year for small business it took 12 rounds of interviews, a drug test i somehow passed, and a background check that finally made me tell my wife of 8 years that i didnt have a college degree they brought me in the thursday before my first day and told me what i told grace in that clip the next decade was an insane blur; i saw everything one would ever see in their career from the perspective of an executive at a fortune 100 i started making tiktoks, kinda blacked out at some point in 2019 and responsibly fired myself in 2024 to see what i might be capable of on my own with all the skills i picked up along my career journey now the mission is pay what i know forward, and see if i can become the mr rogers of corporate america cc: @grace beverley @Ryan Holiday @Subway Oracle

♬ original sound – timm chiusano

What started as short-video vlogs on just about anything in 2020 (reviews on protein bars, sushi, and sneakers) later transitioned to videos on growing up, and dealing with life’s challenges, like coming to terms when you have a toxic boss. Today, his platform on TikTok has over 1 million followers.

With the help of going viral from his “loop” format where videos end and seamlessly circle back to the beginning, he began making more videos as a side-hustle on top of his day-to-day tasks in the office.

“How can I get people to be smarter and more comfortable about their careers in ways that are gonna help on a day-to-day basis?” Chiusano told Fortune.

Today, he could go by many titles: former vice president at a Fortune 100 company, motivational speaker, dad, content creator, or as he labels himself, the Mister Rogers of Corporate America.

Just as the late public television icon helped kids navigate the complexities of childhood, Chiusano wants to help young adults think about how to approach their careers and their potential to make an impact.

“Mister Rogers is the greatest of all time in his space. I will never get to that level of impact. But it’s an easy way to describe what I’m trying to do, and it consistently gives me a goal to strive for,” he said. “There are some parallels here with the quirkiness.”

Firing himself after 25 years in the corporate world

Even with years in corporate, Chiusano doesn’t resemble the look of a typical buttoned-up executive. Today, he has more of a relaxed Brooklyn dad attire, with a sleeve of tattoos and a confidence to blend in with any trendy middle aged man in Soho. During our interview, he showed off one of the first tattoos he got: two businessmen shaking hands, a reference to Radiohead’s OK Computer album.

“This is a dope ass Monday in your 40s,” began one of his videos.

It consisted of Chiusano doing everyday things such as eating leftovers, going to the gym, training for the NYC marathon, taking out the trash, dropping his daughter off at school, a rehearsal for a Ted Talk, eating lunch with his wife, and brand deal meetings. Though the content sounds pretty normal, that’s the point.

“The reason why I fired myself in the first place was to be here,” he says in the video while picking his daughter up from school.

Today, Chiusano spends his days making content on navigating workplace culture, public speaking, brand deals, brand partnerships, executive coaching, writing a book, and the most important job: being a dad to his 13-year-old daughter Evelyn.

“I’m basically flat [in salary] to where I was, and this is everything I could ever want in the world,” he said. “The ability to send my kid to the school she’s been going to, eat sushi takeout almost as much as I’d like, and do nice things for my wife.”

In fact, when sitting inside one of his favorite New York City spots, Lure Fishbar, he keeps getting stopped by regulars who know him by name. He points out that one of his favorite interviews he filmed here was with legendary filmmaker Ken Burns.

Advice to Gen Z

In a time where Gen Z has been steering to more unconventional paths, like content creation or skill trades rather than just a 9-to-5 office job, Chiusano opens up a lens to what life looks like when deciding to be present rather than always looking for what’s next—a mistake he said he made in his 20s.

Instead, he wants to teach the younger generation to build skills for as long as you can, but “if you are unhappy, that’s a very different conversation.”

“I think some people will make themselves more unhappy because they feel like that’s what’s expected of a situation,” he said.

“I would love to be able to empower your generation more, to be like somebody’s gonna have to be the head of HR at that super random company to put cool standards and practices in place for better work-life balance for the employees.”

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Business

Mark Zuckerberg says the ‘most important thing’ he built at Harvard was a prank website

Published

3 hours ago

December 6, 2025

Jace Porter

For Mark Zuckerberg, the most significant creation from his two years at Harvard University wasn’t the precursor to a global social network, but a prank website that nearly got him expelled.

The Meta CEO said in a 2017 commencement address at his alma mater that the controversial site, Facemash, was “the most important thing I built in my time here” for one simple reason: it led him to his wife, Priscilla Chan.

“Without Facemash I wouldn’t have met Priscilla, and she’s the most important person in my life,” Zuckerberg said during the speech.

In 2003, Zuckerberg, then a sophomore, created Facemash by hacking into Harvard’s online student directories and using the photos to create a site where users could rank students’ attractiveness. The site went viral, but it was quickly shut down by the university. Zuckerberg was called before Harvard’s Administrative Board, facing accusations of breaching security, violating copyrights, and infringing on individual privacy.

“Everyone thought I was going to get kicked out,” Zuckerberg recalled in his speech. “My parents came to help me pack. My friends threw me a going-away party.”

It was at this party, thrown by friends who believed his expulsion was imminent, where he met Chan, another Harvard undergraduate. “We met in line for the bathroom in the Pfoho Belltower, and in what must be one of the all time romantic lines, I said: ‘I’m going to get kicked out in three days, so we need to go on a date quickly,’” Zuckerberg said.

Chan, who described her now-husband to The New Yorker as “this nerdy guy who was just a little bit out there,” went on the date with him. Zuckerberg did not get expelled from Harvard after all, but he did famously drop out the following year to focus on building Facebook.

While the 2010 film The Social Network portrayed Facemash as a critical stepping stone to the creation of Facebook, Zuckerberg himself has downplayed its technical or conceptual importance.

“And, you know, that movie made it seem like Facemash was so important to creating Facebook. It wasn’t,” he said during his commencement speech. But he did confirm that the series of events it set in motion—the administrative hearing, the “going-away” party, the line for the bathroom—ultimately connected him with the mother of his three children.

Chan, for her part, went on to graduate from Harvard in 2007, taught science, and then attended medical school at the University of California, San Francisco, becoming a pediatrician.

She and Zuckerberg got married in 2012, and in 2015, they co-founded the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, a philanthropic organization focused on leveraging technology to address major world challenges in health, education, and science. Chan serves as co-CEO of the initiative, which has pledged to give away 99% of the couple’s shares in Meta Platforms to fund its work.

You can watch the entirety of Zuckerberg’s Harvard commencement speech below: