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As last month's AI for Finance Forum in New York City (co-hosted by AWS and CFO Leadership) drew to a close, the closing keynote uttered an unpleasant analogy: “Finance is like a duck.” On the water, he is calm, collected and delivers on time. Behind the scenes, you're frantically working on manual adjustments, spreadsheet gymnastics, and low-value tasks that take up the bulk of your team's time. After spending a full day learning about AI partners and their use cases, the room full of financial industry leaders knew exactly what was going to happen next. The AI ​​gives you the…

David Eslick is feeling pretty good about today’s M&A environment. A dealmaker extraordinaire, the CEO at Marsh McLennan Agency (MMA) has closed 131 acquisitions since 2009, six of them since November. Although unsettled by the uncertain impact of President Trump’s sporadic and unfolding tariffs on the economy, he’s hopeful the chaos has calmed. “The tariffs seem to be settling in, seem fairly balanced and less significant. That’s what our middle-market clients have been telling me,” Eslick says. While high interest rates and concerns over regulatory interference have disrupted the dealmaking of many companies, the provider of insurance solutions has a…

How can CFOs build a “future-proof” financial organization? Patrick Villanova has some ideas, and it starts with letting go of fear. “There has never been a time in history where there hasn't been some degree of macro headwinds, geopolitical instability, or exogenous disruptive forces for businesses,” he told CFO Leadership. “Company leaders must prepare for these issues, but they also need to recognize that ultimately they have no influence or control over them.” Villanova was promoted to Los Angeles-based Blackline's CFO earlier this year, following the retirement of longtime CFO Mark Partin. Mr. Villanova previously served as chief accounting officer…

I've been in business at a senior level for a long time, so I understand how other members of the C-suite view the chief marketing officer. No one sits as far across the table from the CMO as the CFO. It's not difficult to understand why. Because marketing is expensive, creative, and difficult to quantify. CFOs control the purse strings and like numbers that line up neatly. And all smart people (and CFOs usually are) seem to think that if they're given a marketing job, they can do it too. So start by liberally leveraging the Dunning-Kruger effect, mix in…

Howard Wilson, CFO of PagerDuty operates in the realm of digital operations and incident response, where efficiency and resilience are paramount. A company that serves as a vital “safety net” for over half of the Fortune 500, especially as they explore new technologies like generative AI, PagerDuty focuses on anticipating disruptions and safeguarding against costly incidents. Wilson spoke with host Jack McCullough to share PagerDuty’s mission and his personal story—from growing up in South Africa and his early career in software engineering to his unconventional path to the CFO role. Listen by clicking below. The Q&A, lightly trimmed and edited…

2025 has been a very volatile year for U.S. businesses, hit by geopolitical instability, legal confusion, and headwinds from Trump-era tariffs. While these stressors have had a negative impact on the CFO outlook quarter after quarter, recent developments appear to be creating renewed optimism about the future. New data from CFO Leadership's Q4 CFO Confidence Index (conducted Nov. 6-12 among 106 U.S. CFOs) shows current business conditions are rated 6.0 out of 10, with 1 being “poor” and 10 being “excellent.” This is up 9 percent from the previous quarter and almost reverses the plunge in confidence observed in March.…

As artificial intelligence reshapes marketing and communications, boards are facing important governance questions. How aggressively should companies invest in AI implementation, and who should be held accountable if the implementation goes awry? Steve Netzley, Global CEO and Director of Prosé on Pixels, addresses these questions directly. At the helm of the world's largest full-service performance marketing group, Netsley is looking for ways to harness the potential of AI while protecting his company from new risks. This is a challenge that goes far beyond your own boardroom. In the following Q&A, Netsley shares how boards are changing their composition and focus…

There is growing speculation that President Trump will issue an executive order restricting proxy advisory firms such as Institutional Shareholder Services and Glass Lewis. The Wall Street Journal suggested that the executive order “could include a broad ban on shareholder recommendations or an order blocking recommendations for companies that hire proxy advisers for consulting work.” The question is why board members and company management would want this. Several news reports have pointed to long-standing complaints from conservatives that proxy advisors and large institutional fund managers “often oppose board decisions and directors, or recommend votes.” Conservatives also argue that proxy advisers…

Volatility is the new normal, and successful CFOs are embracing it. said Mukshit Ashraf, group chief executive officer of Houston-based Accenture Strategy. Based on the findings of his firm's research report, Redefining Resilience: From Readiness to Reinvention, Ashraf explains how high-performing companies are using disruption as a catalyst for innovation. Please tell us more about the mindset shift you think CFOs and other executives need to make to help companies become more proactive. Volatility is no longer temporary, but structural. In this new era, the most successful companies are not only absorbing shocks, but also using them to rewire themselves…

Most CEOs live and die by quarterly revenue, market share, and efficiency metrics. But the very tools we use to measure progress often erode it. Traditional KPIs prioritize the easy to track over the things that truly drive resilience, creating a dangerous illusion of progress. Companies hit numbers, but lose their long-term advantage, misalign their teams, and overlook the dependencies that sustain growth. Even a good-looking scorecard and short-term wins can hollow out your long-term advantage. The recent debate over Fed interest rates has shown how a single data point can move from fact to question that sends debatable signals…