Americans hate it when the dollar loses value. It makes traveling in Europe so much more expensive. But this month the dollar dropped so low, it might make staying in the States more expensive too.

The dollar is the world’s global reserve currency and other countries have seen it as a stable investment for decades. But confidence in that norm might be wavering. And it will have big impacts for businesses and CFOs.

In April, the dollar value as compared to other currencies dropped 4.5%, the biggest monthly drop since 2022. Since January, the dollar value has fallen 9% to its lowest level in three years.

This sharp dropoff caught investors by surprise, many of whom thought the Trump tariffs would embolden the dollar, as an increase in the price of foreign goods would decrease US demand for foreign currency, and drive the dollar’s value up.

But instead, the extent of the tariffs and then the chaos of the rollout seems to have pushed conventional wisdom out the door and ushered in skepticism about the traditional perception of the US as a safe haven for money.

Keep reading about the dollar’s decline here.—JK

John Woods is the CFO of Citizens Bank, a regional bank with around 1,000 branches, holding total assets of $217.5b. We spoke with him to hear how businesses are responding to tariffs, economic volatility, and the risk of a recession.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Are your business customers, in particular, feeling any pain from tariffs right now?

A month or two ago, what we were hearing is that there was some front-running of tariffs. That resulted in a little more activity in the first quarter than is usually the case. Typically, the first quarter is a seasonally down quarter for a lot of this activity, but we did see some loan growth.

There was some M&A activity in the first quarter. There was some business investment from a capital investment perspective.

What our commercial customers are now trying to figure out is, what do they do with these tariffs? The original equipment manufacturer that’s exporting, will they eat some of the tariff? Not often, but if that’s an opportunity, then great. Do they have pricing power with the customer? Which isn’t great, because that raises prices, and that’s where inflation comes from, and that’s part of what the Fed’s worried about. And once they’ve exhausted those options, then it’s just left to the company to eat it in their margin.

For more on how this CFO sees tariffs, click here.—CV

Coworking is a recurring segment where we talk to CFOs and other leaders in the finance space about their experiences, their companies, and the larger economy. Let us know if you are—or you know—a CFO we should interview.

Patrick Villanova took over as CFO of BlackLine in March. This was the latest milestone for Villanova’s nearly decade-long tenure at the software developer, where he joined as controller in 2015 and became its chief accounting officer (CAO) in 2019.

Villanova spoke with CFO Brew about the changes he’s seen in the CAO role over his career, as well as the role that mentorship plays in preparing the next generation of finance leaders.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Would you say your expanding role as CAO is similar to what you’re seeing across the profession?

You [as CFO] need somebody who’s more automation oriented, more systems [and] process oriented. That’s what we do; that is our expertise as accountants. If you can recognize that opportunity and say, “I’ve got this expertise. I’ve got this ability to take large quantities of data and automatically distill it down into something meaningful,” and you link that to an understanding of the strategic objectives of your business, then the CFO is going to be looking to the CAO at all times to help provide those insights.

Keep reading here.—AZ