Artificial intelligence. Automation. Cybersecurity. Is it just us, or is the CFO remit starting to lean a little tech-heavy?

With myriad opportunities and risks associated with technology, CFOs’ tech literacy and their relationship with tech-focused cohorts—including chief officers of information and technology—are vital, experts told CFO Brew.

Daniel Meyer, CTO of process-automation software developer Camunda, said he sees the CFO and CTO as “two key players” in aligning investments in technology with an organization’s overall strategy in an era of digital transformation.

“The CFO has…that ROI and that investment mindset, often, and then the CTO has that technology strategy mindset that needs to be in alignment with the business objectives,” Meyer told CFO Brew. “I think companies where those two roles get along great and have a great working relationship will out-compete other companies.”

Click here for more on aligning tech and strategy.—AZ

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This isn’t the kind of growth that finance departments like.

Insurance premium renewal rates accelerated in all but one major line of business during the first quarter, according to new data from Ivans, a software developer for insurance agents and brokers—meaning CFOs are likely to see higher insurance bills soon.

For instance, premium renewal rates on commercial auto insurance policies increased an average of 9.09% YoY in Q1, compared to an average bump of 8.79% in Q4 2023. Other insurance policies that saw premium increases included general liability, commercial property, umbrella, and business owner policies (BOP), which combine various forms of coverage and are typically offered to smaller businesses.

The premium renewal rates show “continued hard market conditions,” Kathy Hrach, SVP of product management at Ivans, said in a news release. A hard market refers to a phase of the insurance market cycle characterized by rate increases and capacity tightening.

Click here to find out how much business insurance rates are increasing.—AZ

Adriana Carpenter is CFO at Emburse. She’ll appear on a panel on upskilling and reskilling as part of our upcoming CFO Brew live event, Next-Gen Finance: Future-Proofing Your Business Operations. Ahead of the event, she told us via email about the skills finance teams need, especially in the area of AI.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

In particular, what skills are needed to work with AI and other advanced technologies?

Two things are essential when applying AI in the context of the finance department. The first is good and high-quality data. The second is applying tools to assess and learn from the data.

Start by understanding the data attributes your team needs to measure to get the outcome you’re looking for. To get an AI tool or other finance technology to work, you need to ensure all the data points that those tools can ingest are at your fingertips before you can surface the insights. Identify the necessary data points by outlining your desired outcome and then mapping it back to measurable data attributes.

Make sure [the data] has integrity, regardless of the source. This will ensure that, once deployed, the AI tool will provide the finance organization with high-quality insights. For example, if a general ledger isn’t tracking data on each line item, you will never be able to get insights from the data you’re extracting from the ledger. Tag each data point at the 5-foot level before you go to the 100- or 1,000-foot level.

Click here to learn more about upskilling for AI.—CV

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