Good morning. For finance chiefs, how they delegate isn’t just an operational choice—it can shape the course of their entire career.
CFOs who delegate financial reporting to a strong chief accounting officer are significantly more likely to stay in their roles—and more likely to eventually become a CEO.
The new research finding is part of a study co-authored by Adrienne Rhodes, an assistant professor of accounting at the University of Iowa’s Tippie College of Business. The paper, “Delegation and Chief Financial Officer Retention: Evidence from Chief Accounting Officers on the Executive Team,” published in Management Science, examines what prevents CFO turnover and how delegation shapes executive career paths.
When CFOs shift accounting responsibilities to a chief accounting officer (CAO) who sits on the executive team, they are not only less likely to leave but also less likely to make lateral CFO moves. Instead, they are more likely to advance to the CEO role.
“A chief financial officer who aspires to be a CEO needs experience in strategy and investor-facing tasks,” Rhodes told me in our conversation on Monday. Delegating financial reporting frees CFOs to focus on enterprise leadership skills that boards expect in CEO candidates.
In the recently released paper, researchers analyzed S&P 1500 firms from 2004 to 2019, tracking voluntary CFO departures while stopping before the pandemic to avoid COVID-era distortions. Using financial disclosures, they identified when a CAO served on the executive team and developed a method to distinguish voluntary departures from forced exits.
The central question was straightforward: Does shifting day-to-day financial reporting to a CAO help companies retain their finance chiefs?
According to Rhodes, the answer is yes. Firms with a CAO clearly responsible for financial reporting are about 19% less likely to lose their CFO, after controlling for other factors.
The findings come as demands on finance leaders continue to grow. There’s record CFO turnover in part due to heavier workloads and rising expectations from boards and investors. Drawing on social psychology and burnout research, Rhodes and her coauthors hypothesized that offloading time-consuming, high-stakes accounting responsibilities could meaningfully reduce strain on CFOs. The data support that view, she said.
The results also raise questions about the evolving role of the CAO. Many CAOs step in as interim CFOs when a finance chief departs, and some move permanently into the role. But Rhodes suspects many see CAO as the peak of their specialty—the firm’s lead accountant—and may not seek the broader, more externally focused CFO position. Future research could examine CAO career paths more closely.
Since the study data is from 2004-2019 and predates the rise of generative AI, I asked Rhodes if she expects technology to reshape the finance function.
Looking ahead, Rhodes says she expects advanced tools to alter the division of labor across finance teams. AI may absorb routine, rules-based tasks in closing, consolidation, and reporting—either reducing the need for traditional delegation or making the CFO–CAO partnership even more strategic, she predicted.
Sheryl Estrada
sheryl.estrada@fortune.com
Leaderboard
Greg Prata was promoted to CFO at Sony Music Publishing, effective March 31. He succeeds Tom Kelly, who recently announced his upcoming retirement from his position as CFO, after a 35-year career. Prata has more than 25 years of experience in corporate finance. He joined Sony in 2012 as SVP, financial planning and analysis, following his time at EMI. In 2019, he was promoted to EVP, finance and corporate strategy. Before his roles at Sony Music Publishing and EMI, Prata spent over a decade in private equity and investment banking.
Kevin McDonnell, EVP and CFO at AeroVironment, Inc. (NASDAQ: AVAV), a global defense technology provider, has informed the company of his decision to retire, effective July 31. McDonnell joined AV in 2020. During his tenure as CFO, AV strengthened its balance sheet, financial and operational discipline, and completed strategic acquisitions and organic growth initiatives. AV is conducting a search for his successor. McDonnell will continue to offer support throughout the transition period.
Big Deal
The core finding: people who use AI most effectively tend to treat it as a collaborative partner. Longer, back-and-forth conversations show about twice as many “good practice” behaviors, such as refining prompts, questioning the model’s reasoning, or pointing out missing context.
By contrast, when users ask AI to produce polished outputs like code, apps, or documents, they tend to give detailed instructions upfront but engage in less critical follow-up. They’re less likely to fact-check, challenge reasoning, or flag gaps, which raises concerns about over-trusting outputs that sound confident and complete.
Anthropic describes the index as an early baseline rather than a final verdict. The findings are correlational, drawn from early adopters, and only capture behaviors visible in chat logs. The company plans to study differences between new and experienced users and test whether specific interventions can improve AI fluency over time.
Going deeper
"While Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang enjoys an over $150 billion net worth, his fellow cofounder Curtis Priem sold out in 2006—and missed out on $600 billion" is a Fortune article by Preston Fore.
“In 1993, Jensen Huang met two of his engineering friends at a Denny’s in Silicon Valley,” Fore writes. “Over pancakes and coffee, Huang, Chris Malachowsky, and Curtis Priem kicked around an idea that sounded ambitious at the time: building chips that could deliver realistic 3D graphics on personal computers.” Read more here.
Overheard
"At a time with tech stocks volatile and greater worries around the AI narrative with the 'AI Ghost Trade' black cloud over tech stocks, it all comes down to gauging the AI Revolution demand story, which starts and ends with Nvidia."
—Wedbush Securities analysts wrote in an investor note on Monday. Nvidia is scheduled to report its fourth-quarter and fiscal year 2026 financial results on Wednesday. “The entire global market will be carefully watching these results,” according to the analysts.
