CEOs have traditionally been the public faces of their companies. But companies and CFOs benefit when CFOs become more visible, according to Trish Backes, group SVP and virtual market lead at uncapped communications, a specialized health communications agency. She spoke with us about how CFOs can develop more of an executive presence and why they should.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Why is it important nowadays for CFOs to develop their executive presence?

More and more we’re seeing that investors—even employees—are wanting to see their leaders, see who’s making up the bench strength behind any given company. CEOs have traditionally been more front and center when it comes to executive visibility. From a communications perspective, we want to make sure that more than just the CEO is being seen.

How would you define executive presence?

There are two ways you can think about it. There’s your presence when you’re in a room with someone and you can say, “She or he has an executive presence.” And in that case, it’s about exuding confidence and leadership, but not arrogance.

But from a communication standpoint, I’m thinking about executive presence as it relates to how you are showing up to the right stakeholders. That can be through speaking opportunities—so an industry panel or a functional expertise type of panel.

For more on building your executive presence, click here.—CV

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Auditors, better mind your p’s and q’s.

The PCAOB has fined firms more than $33 million so far this year—and it’s only April. It’s already blown past the record $20+ million in penalties it levied last year.

And the rest of 2024 could be just as busy.

In July 2023, the organization released a report showing that 40% of the audits it inspected in 2022 had deficiencies. At the time, Chair Erica Williams called the findings “absolutely unacceptable” (regulator-speak for “we’re majorly ticked off”). It had just fined Marcum $3 million for lax quality control standards, its highest-ever penalty for a non-affiliate firm. But that paled in comparison to the $25 million it fined KPMG Netherlands last week for sharing answers on exams.

Regs on the horizon: 2023 was the PCAOB’s most active regulatory year in a decade, according to its annual report. It adopted one new standard meant to “strengthen and modernize” the procedures auditors use to confirm financial statement information with third parties.

Click here to read more on PCAOB’s crackdown.—CV

Eric Mason is the CFO of the city of Quincy, Massachusetts. He is one of the experts who will speak at the upcoming CFO Brew live event, “Next-Gen Finance: Future-Proofing Your Business Operations.”

Ahead of the event, we talked to Mason via email about how he’s approaching his existing (and future) tech stack.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

What’s the best application of generative AI that you’ve seen in the world of finance so far?

I have seen two great use cases so far. The first being the use of AI to simplify complex financial language. AI has worked great as a bridge between the often complicated and verbose world of large-scale statistical modeling and non-quantitative operations. Personally, I like using LLM to explain complicated processes and results in a digestible manner. Previously, it would take hours to write reports like this, but with AI the language can be democratized much faster with more time being devoted to complicated financial processes.

The second use case is generating more efficient coding, particularly in open-architect analysis. Being able to leverage syntax generation in AI to refine modeling code has proven to be both a valuable time saver and a pronounced expansion of ability.

Click here to read how this CFO is incorporating tech.—NP

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