Coworking with Drew Adamek

Coworking is a weekly segment where we talk to CFOs and other leaders in the finance space about their experiences, their companies, and the larger economy. This week, we’re featuring one of our own! Let us know if you are—or you know—a CFO we should interview.

CFO Brew has undergone a lot of changes this year, including welcoming a new roster of reporters and a new editor. To help get you acquainted with the team, this week we’re talking with Drew Adamek, who became the CFO Brew editor in March.

Drew started with the CFO Brew team as a founding reporter in 2022. He’s been covering finance and accounting since 2018, when he joined Financial Management magazine as a senior editor. He’s worked as documentary film researcher, investigative reporter, and editor since the late ’90s.

Feel free to contact him with story ideas or tips at [email protected].

What’s your background as an accounting and finance reporter?

I was looking for work after returning home from a two-year stint in Serbia as an investigative reporter when a friend mentioned that the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants (AICPA) was hiring freelance writers. I figured I could freelance for the AICPA while looking for a full-time job.

What I didn’t expect when I started writing for AICPA was to be so drawn into the finance beat. It seemed to me that finance professionals and accountants were five years ahead of everyone else in wrestling with a range of complex challenges: How does one survive professionally in an increasingly automated workplace? Can we truly account for the impacts of climate change and our dependencies on natural resources? What’s the best way to plan for and navigate political, social, and economic volatility? How vulnerable are we to cyberattacks? I was hooked as soon as I started reporting on these questions and haven’t looked back.

What do you see as the most pressing issues facing finance professionals and accountants right now?

Talent is far and away the biggest trend in finance as I see it. Recruiting, retaining, and retraining finance talent often tops CFO concerns polls. Concurrently, the accounting and finance pipeline is in real peril. The combination of a looming retirement explosion of older accountants and finance professionals, and far fewer people becoming accountants and finance professionals means that within five years, there will likely be a critical talent shortage.

Technology is also a two-sided issue for finance professionals. One, they need to upskill on the technology and automation sweeping through the profession. Excel skills are no longer enough, and many finance and accounting jobs are at risk of/are being automated.

The flip side is that organizations are looking at digital transformation as the key to future success and CFOs have largely been charged with overseeing organizational digital efforts. Orgs are becoming “data first” and that data starts with the finance department. How to manage and utilize all of that data is a top-of-mind concern for our audience.

Have you ever considered a career in finance?

No, unfortunately I don’t have the analytical mind that I think finance professionals need. I much prefer thinking in the abstract than in the concrete that finance requires.