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With AI disrupting finance roles and large-scale changes to CPA licensure rules, accounting graduates of the Class of 2026 stand at a career crossroads. Since early last year, approximately 43 states have passed legislation or modified rules to relax or replace the 150-credit requirement. CFO Dive interviewed six prospective CPAs who, drawing from personal experiences, offered diverse perspectives on the pros and cons of the new pathways, the industry's future, and AI's impact.
Hub Group, a logistics and transportation management company, continued corrective actions following a $77 million accounting error disclosed in February, with CFO Kevin Beth and COO Brian Meents departing effective Thursday. The company appointed Todd Heeter as interim CFO and treasurer, with COO duties temporarily shared by the senior leadership team. The board emphasized that the integrity of financial statements is a key pillar of the company's success and continues to advance financial restatement and SEC filings.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Friday proposed a rule to formally repeal the climate risk disclosure rules pushed through by former Chairman Gary Gensler in 2024. Although the rules were adopted in 2024, they never took effect. The SEC stated that the rules exceed its statutory authority and, even if it had the power to adopt them, there are "independent and compelling reasons" to repeal them.
Uber's engineering team has surpassed the finance team in AI adoption, becoming the largest internal adopter. CFO Tiho Nedkov revealed at a Gartner conference that over 90% of finance staff use AI tools daily, but the engineering team leads due to the prevalence of coding tools.
Market expectations are rising that the SEC will switch corporate financial reporting to semi-annual, but a practitioner with over 20 years of experience in investment banking and auditing is deeply concerned. He believes that removing the external compulsion of quarterly disclosure will encourage procrastination, allowing problems to accumulate over longer periods. Meanwhile, amid sharp fluctuations in tariffs and oil prices, semi-annual reports would base decisions on severely outdated data. Using Dell as an example—which, after going private, still submitted core metrics to creditors on a quarterly basis—the article argues that the real reform direction should be leveraging AI to achieve more real-time, lower-burden disclosure, rather than weakening transparency.
U.S. inflation accelerated to 3.8% in April, outpacing income growth, leading to a decline in real income, weak consumer spending, and the savings rate falling to its lowest since 2022. Federal Reserve officials hinted at possibly abandoning the easing bias and even considering rate hikes.
Six Flags Entertainment announced on Wednesday that it has hired Ash Walia as its new Chief Financial Officer, effective June 17. Walia previously served as CFO of retailer Hot Topic and held senior management positions at Starbucks. He will succeed Brian Witherow, who departed on May 8. The appointment occurs amid pressure from activist investor Jana Partners urging the company to sell.
With inflationary pressures and the introduction of new drug categories such as GLP-1 medications, healthcare costs continue to rise. Virta Health Chief Financial Officer Manu Diwakar said in an interview with CFO Dive that financial executives must first clarify 'how much cost they are willing to bear overall' and set budget limits accordingly. He emphasized that in a high-interest-rate environment, companies need to review the generosity of employee benefits and collaborate with HR and other departments to find efficiencies. Diwakar also pointed out that healthcare decisions often face conflicts between ethics and finance, such as long-term health investments for short-term employees may not be cost-effective, but they differ for long-term retained employees. He concluded that there is no perfect decision in healthcare, and managers must accept and address the issues that arise from this.
Bath & Body Works announced in its Wednesday earnings report that long-time company executive Tom Javitch will take over as interim chief financial officer on June 12, after former CFO Eva Boratto resigned to seek other opportunities. The company has begun actively searching for a permanent CFO successor.
Workday announced on Wednesday the launch of a new artificial intelligence feature, Adaptive Decision Intelligence, aimed at simplifying financial planning and analysis (FP&A) workflows. The feature extends the Adaptive Planning platform, allowing teams to ask questions in natural language and complete scenario analysis within minutes, while integrating data from multiple enterprise systems. Ben Pierce, General Manager of Workday Adaptive Planning, stated that the goal is to make users more efficient, focusing on strategic work rather than data organization. The tool is currently in an early adopter program and is expected to become more widely available later this year.