No matter what you think of the last six months, at least you can’t say it’s been boring.

In case you blinked, CFO Brew is here to provide a recap of the biggest themes in finance- and accounting-related news through the first half of 2025.

A wild tariff ride. This summer brought us the live action remake of the Disney animated movie Lilo & Stitch, and with it a new rendition of the iconic song “Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride.” Meanwhile, the global economy has endured some gnarly waves of its own thanks to a chaotic tariffs program rollout, then pullback, from President Donald Trump.

Here’s a quick (and incomplete) recap: Trump enacted tariffs on the US’s largest trading partners, tacked more tariffs onto targeted items like automobiles, announced reciprocal tariffs on virtually all countries in April, paused many of them, lost a court battle over his universal 10% tariffs, then won them back on appeal. Now, the US and China have allegedly reached a new trade deal.

Feeling dizzy? Beyond the head-spinning back and forth, CFO Brew explored what the tariffs meant for business decision-making. Here’s another nonexhaustive list of the tariffs’ business implications:

• Most CFOs said they’d pass the cost of tariffs on to consumers
• Companies executed on their mitigation plans
• Consumer confidence plunged
• The tariffs created some M&A headaches
• Experts warned of longer-term implications

Why does 2025 feel like it’s already been ten years long?—AZ

This is part three of CFO Brew’s yearlong look at pivotal moments over the last 25 years that shaped the finance and accounting profession. For the rest of the series, click here.

The finance and accounting professions were undergoing a sea change in the early 2000s. New regulatory demands stemming from accounting scandals like Enron and WorldCom, combined with tech innovations, were changing what was expected of finance and accounting professionals.

But the early 2000s was also an era of globalization and rapid advances in communication technology (can you say high-speed internet?). Business was becoming more interconnected and transnational, which meant that finance and accounting needed to go international too.

The creation of the Global Accounting Alliance in 2005 was a formal acknowledgment of what many in the profession had known for some time: There was a clear benefit to information-sharing in a profession that had already gone global.

As Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand, one of GAA’s founding members, explains on its website, the organization was formed to “bring together leading professional accounting bodies in major world markets in response to the emerging challenges of globalisation.”

Its primary objective was information-sharing and collaboration, according to Jim Knafo, CEO of GAA and director of global alliances at AICPA & CIMA.

“There was a consensus view that the accounting profession is very international—it was already at that point, and it was going to become even more so,” Knafo told CFO Brew.

For more on the globalization of accounting, click here.—AZ