Opinion
Family offices typically do not appoint a Chief Risk Officer because the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) already assumes this function. The CFO holds comprehensive data on the portfolio's cash flows, debt, capital commitments, and operations, providing the best vantage point for integrating risk. The article proposes four practices: liquidity stress testing, scenario analysis, counterparty risk assessment, and operational risk monitoring, while emphasizing the critical role of governance structures and senior-level culture in embedding the risk function.
Niyi Oladepo, Vice President of Finance at Pike Industries, writes in detail about how his team developed an AI-driven pricing intelligence tool based on public bidding results from the New Hampshire and Maine Departments of Transportation. The article introduces the system's three-tier architecture (historical baseline pricing, estimator dynamic judgment, and relevance deduplication logic) and emphasizes the contribution of early failed iterations to the system's ultimate value.
Deloitte's 4Q25 CFO Signals survey shows North American CFO confidence has risen to its highest level since 2021. In 2026, CFO responsibilities continue to expand, with 57% of financial leaders leading corporate strategy development, but issues such as lagging AI investment returns and a shortage of technical talent remain prominent.
The 'One Big and Beautiful Bill' (OBBBA) brings significant opportunities for corporations, including 100% bonus depreciation, immediate deduction of domestic R&D expenses, and permanent transferability of tax credits, but it also introduces new challenges such as state-level tax law compliance and interactions between provisions. Tax teams need to manually review state consistency, pay attention to the impact of the GILTI renaming, and seize the window for accelerated depreciation elections in 2025-2026.
In middle-market private companies, a phenomenon known as 'cumulative capitalization drift' is quietly suppressing EBITDA. This article analyzes its causes, manifestations, and impacts, and proposes strategies such as interim reviews to help CFOs unlock undervalued enterprise value.
Facing a stronger dollar and increased volatility, CFOs and treasurers at U.S. multinational corporations are reassessing pricing, financing, and hedging strategies. This article outlines three "dos" and "don'ts" principles for the foreign exchange market, drawing on historical lessons such as European automakers reducing hedge ratios in 2003-2004 and manufacturers rejecting options in 2008. It recommends prioritizing written policies, instrument diversification, and risk-first approaches, while avoiding knee-jerk reactions to short-term market movements.
When the $1.7 trillion private credit market undergoes its first real stress test, market focus centers on fund-level liquidity and investor redemptions, but the health of underlying borrowers is what truly matters. Andres Pinter, Senior Managing Director at Ankura Consulting, speaking from a corporate restructuring expert's perspective, notes that the most critical indicator of a company's debt-servicing capacity is cash flow, not GAAP profits or adjusted pro forma figures. The 13-week cash flow forecast, as the most honest financial tool in American capitalism, is evolving from a restructuring-specific instrument into a required course for investors across all asset classes.
An NBER study shows that over 80% of companies report no significant impact of AI on employment or productivity, yet executives still predict AI will boost productivity by 1.4% over the next three years. This article argues that this stems from the evaluation trap of cost accounting, and uses Goldratt's Throughput Accounting as an alternative framework, emphasizing that AI should act on system bottlenecks rather than local efficiency. It cites cases from Forrester, PwC, Klarna, and Air Canada, pointing out that mis-evaluation leads to value destruction.
When an enterprise incurs losses, CFOs are often blamed, but they actually bear the fundamental responsibility of guiding the enterprise toward profitability. This article, written by Diya Sagar, CFO of AWA Studios, shares her experience in turning around losses: first, it is necessary to distinguish between temporary losses and fundamental failures, then focus on controllable levers, such as optimizing unit economics, rather than blindly cutting costs. The article emphasizes that when approaching profitability, risk tolerance should be increased, investment should be made in growth opportunities, and it should be recognized that turnaround takes time, ultimately validating the CFO's capability through financial performance.
Sam Darnold won the Super Bowl but received a $249,000 tax bill from California, sparking widespread discussion. This article clarifies the facts, explains how the 'athlete tax' works, its historical background, and differences in state tax rates, illustrates its impact through three cases, and finally offers compliance recommendations for CFOs.