Houston-based ConocoPhillips, the nation’s leading independent oil and gas producer, announced Thursday that Andy O’Brien, CFO and EVP of strategy and commercial, will succeed Ryan Lance as president and chief executive, effective Sept. 1. Lance is retiring from the top role and will become executive chair of the board of directors.

Fortune’s Jordan Blum reports that the succession announcement comes as ConocoPhillips (No. 75 on the Fortune 500) reported a second-quarter profit of $3.9 billion, up from $2 billion a year earlier. The company has a market cap of about $140 billion, down only slightly from the all-time high it hit in late March. Profits were boosted by high oil prices triggered by the Iran war.

ConocoPhillips and Phillips 66 spun off from each other in 2012, when Lance became CEO. He has spent more than four decades at the company.

O’Brien has built his career at ConocoPhillips as well. He joined the company in 1997 as a financial analyst in England. According to his LinkedIn page, he has held more than a dozen roles in finance, strategy and planning over the years—from controller in Alaska to senior vice president of global operations. In a statement, O’Brien said he plans to build on the momentum Lance established and continue raising the bar for the company.

The CFO-to-CEO pipeline

So far in 2026, executive search firm Crist Kolder Associates says the CFO-to-CEO succession trend is continuing. For 2025, the firm reported that 10.26% of sitting CEOs at Fortune 500 and S&P 500 firms came directly from the CFO role, compared with 7.1% in 2024 and 6.5% in 2015.

I asked Scott Simmons, co-managing partner at Crist Kolder, what experience—beyond his financial stewardship at ConocoPhillips—makes O’Brien “CEO-ready” in the board’s eyes.

O’Brien has nearly 29 years of experience at the company and has worked all over the world in a variety of positions and markets, Simmons explained. He spent time outside of finance in global operations and commercial roles, building credibility with the board on intangibles such as overall leadership ability and investor relationships. O’Brien has also been part of the executive leadership team since 2022, meaning he has been “at the table.” “All of this is a strong recipe for a successful CFO-to-CEO transition,” Simmons said.

Konnie Haynes-Welsh, currently vice president of finance and controller at ConocoPhillips, was promoted to senior vice president and CFO. Haynes-Welsh has also had a long tenure at the company—nearly 15 years—and has held a variety of roles across finance and strategy, from manager of SEC compliance to chief accounting officer to vice president and treasurer.

ConocoPhillips appears to be building a solid leadership pipeline, and reaching the top seat there seems to require taking on many different roles to gain a full range of experience.

Have a good weekend.

Sheryl Estrada
Sheryl.Estrada@fortune.com

Leaderboard

Fortune 500 Power Moves

The weekly Fortune 500 Power Moves column tracks Fortune 500 company C-suite shifts—see the most recent edition.

More notable moves this week:

Jeremy Hofmann, CFO of Zillow Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: Z and ZG), was appointed to the additional role of chief operating officer. In this expanded role, Hofmann will oversee both Zillow's financial strategy and day-to-day operational execution. The board expanded Hofmann's role because of his proven track record as CFO and his understanding of operational dependencies across the business during his nine years at the company, according to the announcement. Jun Choo, who has held the role of chief operating officer since November 2024, is stepping down to focus on his health and will serve in an advisory capacity through the end of 2026.

Matt Newcomb, CFO of financial technology company Chime, is stepping down, effective Aug. 7. Mark Troughton, Chime's president, will take on the role of interim CFO. Troughton is a seasoned public company executive and chartered accountant. The company has initiated an executive search for a permanent CFO. Newcomb has had a decade-long tenure and led Chime's June 2025 IPO. He will remain with the company as an advisor during the search and leadership transition period.

 Carla Chiorazzo was appointed CFO of Adolfson & Peterson Construction, a national construction management and contracting firm. Chiorazzo brings more than 20 years of financial and operational leadership experience. She most recently served as CFO of Conti Federal, a federal construction and design-build company. Before that, she was VP of finance, shared services at PAE, where she supported finance processes for more than 15,000 employees.

Michael Easton was promoted to EVP and CFO of Clarivate Plc (NYSE: CLVT), a global analytics and data information company, effective Aug. 8. He succeeds Jonathan Collins, who is stepping down as CFO to pursue another opportunity. Easton brings more than 25 years of experience in finance, accounting, and operations to the role. He most recently served as SVP and chief accounting officer, leading Clarivate's core financial reporting and planning functions.

Ray Morel was appointed CFO of Transflo, a provider of workflow automation solutions for the transportation industry. Morel is a seasoned financial executive with experience across private equity-backed SaaS, fintech, health care, and technology organizations. Throughout his career, he has led finance organizations through periods of transformation and successful exits.

Kevin Kalicak was appointed CFO and treasurer of Portillo’s (Nasdaq: PTLO), the fast-casual restaurant known for serving Chicago-style favorites, effective Sept. 7. Kalicak has decades of financial leadership experience within the restaurant industry, serving in various roles with Darden Restaurants for more than 25 years. Most recently, Kalicak served as SVP of finance for Olive Garden. He has held several positions across various areas of brand finance, business analytics, enterprise finance, and investor relations within Darden’s portfolio.

Big Deal

Workday has announced the findings of the 2026 Contract Intelligence Index Report based on a survey of nearly 7,000 legal and enterprise professionals across 10 countries. About 77% of respondents say no more than a few people in their organization know who owns contracts. Meanwhile, 89% believe their organizations absorb unnecessary financial losses from vendor contracts that automatically renew without anyone’s knowledge. 

The global research identifies a growing contract intelligence divide, highlighting how organizations using AI and contract intelligence to improve visibility and oversight are pulling ahead, while those dependent on manual, disconnected processes face unclear ownership, scattered contract data, and inconsistent obligation tracking.

Going deeper

Here are four Fortune weekend reads:

Overheard

"The scale of the opportunity is just massive, and of course, we do have global ambitions."

—Zach Dell, the cofounder and CEO of Base Power, told Fortune in an interview. Zach, the son of legendary Dell Technologies founder Michael Dell, has already made a name for himself in his own right. Base, which Zach cofounded in 2023, has raised another $1 billion in a Series D funding round.