Good morning. CFOs are at the center of making the big strategic AI investments that many boards and CEOs want.
A new report released by Cisco finds that 97% of CEOs surveyed are planning AI integration. Similarly, 92% of companies recently surveyed by McKinsey plan to invest more in generative AI over the next three years.
To that end, many companies are seeking tech-savvy finance talent, according to a new report by software company Datarails. The researchers analyzed 6,000 job listings within the CFO’s office—CFO, controller, financial planning and analysis (FP&A), and accountant—advertised on job search websites including LinkedIn, Glassdoor, Indeed, Job2Careers, and ZipRecruiter.
Of the 1,000 job listings for CFOs in January 2025, 27% included AI in the job description. This compares to 8% mentions of AI in 1,000 CFO job listings at the same time last year. Take, for example, Peaks Healthcare Consulting which required a CFO candidate to “continuously learn and integrate AI to improve financial processes and decision making,” Datarails notes in the report.
Regarding FP&A professionals, in January 2025, 35% of analyst roles mentioned AI competency as a requirement, compared to 14% in January 2024, according to the report.
The topic of companies seeking tech-savvy CFOs brought to mind Salesforce’s latest strategic hire. Robin Washington was appointed to the newly created position of president and COFO—chief operating and financial officer—effective March 21, the company announced on Feb. 5. Washington was previously EVP and CFO of Gilead Sciences, CFO of Hyperion Solutions, and chief accounting officer of PeopleSoft. She has been a member of the Salesforce board since 2013, and lead independent director since 2022.
Marc Benioff, chair and CEO of Salesforce, said in a statement that Washington is a key architect of the company’s strategy to “accelerate the rise of Agentforce—the first digital labor platform.” She is COFO at “this incredible moment when Al agents are redefining the workforce,” he said.
CFOs being knowledgeable about AI can also support C-suite collaboration. For example, cybersecurity is top of mind for finance chiefs, and they’re working with chief information security officers to identify well-researched and supported practices that will meaningfully reduce cyber risk.
“At the very least AI has become a skillset that CFOs must have familiarity with,” Didi Gurfinkel, CEO and cofounder of Datarails said in a statement. Meanwhile, some CFOs are “being charged to lead the AI initiative across the company as part of their leadership and management of strategic goals within the organization,” he said.
How are you keeping up to speed with AI? Message me at the address below, I’d love to hear about your experiences.
Sheryl Estrada
sheryl.estrada@fortune.com
Leaderboard
Joe Elebash was appointed CFO of Pinnacle Technology Solutions, a provider of hybrid IT solutions. Elebash most recently served as CFO of Mainline Information Systems. Before that he held senior financial leadership positions at Tui Marine and e-Security, Inc.
Adam Siskind was appointed CFO of Spectrotel, Inc., a provider of managed network solutions, effective January 2025. Siskind succeeds David Zahka who will be retiring as CFO. Before joining Spectrotel, Siskind served as SVP of finance at Astound Broadband.
Big Deal
Gallup has released its Global Leadership Report: What Followers Want. Across 52 countries and territories, Gallup asked two questions:
1. What leader has the most positive influence on your daily life?
2. List three words that best describe what this person contributes to your life.
The data reveal that followers seek four aspects from their leaders: hope, trust, compassion, and stability. These needs are consistent across countries and demographics, according to the report.
Going deeper
Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup, xAI, released its updated Grok-3 model in a presentation on the X social media platform on Tuesday.
In a video call on Feb. 13 addressing the World Governments Summit in Dubai, Musk mentioned his startup’s AI chatbot, which is a ChatGPT challenger, Reuters reported.
“Grok 3 has very powerful reasoning capabilities, so in the tests that we've done thus far, Grok 3 is outperforming anything that's been released, that we're aware of, so that's a good sign,” he said.
Overheard
“The way to communicate with me is almost entirely by text message.”
—Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky, age 43, told Fortune in an interview about his daily routine. Chesky’s schedule of meetings tends to wind down after 6 p.m., but his work day seldom ends at the close of business, and he rarely stops communicating with his colleagues. However, Chesky says he almost never sends emails. Instead, emails are reserved only for serious or nuanced topics, and he replies “with as few words as possible.”
