Andris Veliks - Forbes

Calm Before A Wartime Economy

Tue, 03 Mar 2026 17:41:00 +0000

Plus: How To Uncover Trends In Your Accounts Receivable

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Even though President Donald Trump has been talking about taking military action in Iran for months, and made a first foray into the region last June by bombing what was said to be its largest nuclear facility, it unfolded as somewhat of a surprise when he announced the ongoing military campaign in Iran on social media in the early hours of Saturday morning.

So far, very little feels different in the economy. There’s been a lot of talk about oil prices—which is not surprising given the Persian Gulf’s importance in the natural resource—but the stock markets and commodity prices seem to be steady. Maybe the economy has absorbed so many big shocks in recent months—ranging from tariffs to domestic immigration crackdowns to sizable changes in energy policy to AI advancements—that it’s hard for investors to see how a war in the Middle East could really make a difference on its own. The U.S. has already ramped up military spending, is using new surveillance tools and has reshuffled relationships with many foreign countries.

However, if Trump’s rhetoric holds up, the wartime economy will need to kick in soon. He wrote on Truth Social last night that wars can be fought “forever” because the U.S. has a “virtually unlimited supply” of high-end weapons. At some point, new, big and potentially disruptive choices will have to be made to keep that supply coming—and to commit the resources to keep the war going.

Much of the economy has already seen a slowdown, and companies are likely experiencing it firsthand in their accounts receivable as some entities are taking longer to pay. I spoke with Jared Shulman, CEO and cofounder of AI-powered accounts receivable software platform Daylit, about what CFOs should pay attention to and how they should move forward. An excerpt from our conversation is later in this newsletter.

If you like what you read here, you can easily share it online and on your social media pages. Today’s newsletter, and all previous editions of Forbes CFO, can be found on our website here.

Until next time.

Megan Poinski Staff Writer, C-Suite Newsletters

Follow me on Forbes.com

In today’s CFO newsletter:

First Up: Early impacts from war in the Middle East

Human Capital: Reading into major AI-inspired layoffs from Block

Off The Ledger: When budget forecasts look murky, look to who’s delaying payment

ECONOMIC INDICATORS

People pump gasoline into their vehicles at a gas station in the Marina Del Rey community of Los Angeles, California on March 2, 2026. PATRICK T. FALLON / AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

The U.S. partnered with Israel and, in the early hours of Saturday, began an extensive military campaign in Iran. U.S. and Israeli bombs hit targets in several cities across the country, killing hundreds—including Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Throughout the weekend, the war spread, with at least six Americans killed and reports of counterstrikes in Israel and locations in countries including Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. The attacks have heightened instability in the Middle East, as the UAE, Bahrain, Oman and Kuwait reported deaths in the hostilities.

Wall Street opened a bit down on Monday, though the major indexes rebounded throughout the day and closed slightly up. Considering that uncertainty about the situation in Iran fueled spikes in gold and silver in recent weeks, the resilience of the market is somewhat surprising—as is the fact that markets closed Monday with gold only increasing a relatively modest 1.7%.

Oil futures crested, as Brent crude spiked to nearly $79 a barrel on Monday morning, reaching its highest level in 12 months. On Monday, crude oil prices on the NYMEX were up about 7%, writes Forbes’ Christopher Helman, who described it as a modest reaction given the amount of oil infrastructure disrupted by the attacks. Helman writes that the relatively minor response means it’s highly unlikely that the Strait of Hormuz—an important shipping lane for oil and fertilizer materials—will be blocked during the conflict.

The increase in pump prices in the U.S. was also relatively slow, with some areas reporting more than $3 per gallon, but other regions of the world saw much greater increases—Europe’s gas prices are up 25% to 30%, writes Forbes senior contributor Peter Cohan.

While much of the economic impact of the war so far is focused on oil prices, its influence on other sectors is likely to be felt and examined soon enough. After all, President Donald Trump suggested the military campaign could last as long as four weeks.

HUMAN CAPITAL

JOE RAEDLE/GETTY IMAGES

Jack Dorsey’s company Block made headlines last week after cutting 40% of its staff—about 4,000 jobs—in anticipation of AI making work more efficient. “Intelligence tools have changed what it means to build and run a company,” Dorsey wrote in a shareholder letter with the company’s quarterly earnings. “...A significantly smaller team…can do more and do it better. And intelligence tool capabilities are compounding faster every week.”

Block, which runs a suite of financial tools including Cash App and Afterpay, had a good quarter—gross profits were up 24% to $2.87 billion, and the company’s total gross profits were up 7% to $993 million. The Twitter cofounder wrote that he believes most companies will come to the same conclusion about AI and make similar moves within the next year. Investors have loved the layoffs, with Block’s stock surging over 18% since the announcement. Forbes senior contributor Cohan writes that investors see the move not as a sign of distress, but as a permanent reduction in fixed costs.

Analysts, however, are not quite as enamored. While there has long been talk that AI will replace jobs, Forbes senior contributor Ron Shevlin writes a layoff this huge and deep is not all about AI. After all, he writes, Block’s headcount grew 2.5x—from about 4,000 employees to more than 10,000—between 2019 and 2025, so there could be some actual right-sizing that needs to be done. He adds that while the layoffs energized Block’s stock price, it will likely be difficult for the company to maintain its critical services with so many skilled workers gone all at once.

Forbes senior contributor Erik Sherman writes that this kind of move is what shareholders want to see, and many executives are under pressure from their boards to do the same. But the collective decision that AI has to work—and therefore employees have to go—doesn’t necessarily end well. Last month, Gartner looked at this trend and predicted that half of the companies that are laying off staff now in anticipation of AI making work more efficient will rehire by 2027. And considering the larger economic impacts of massive layoffs, Sherman writes that maybe this kind of move isn’t worth the gamble.

TARIFFS

President Donald Trump delivers his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress in Washington, D.C. on February 24, 2026. NATHAN POSNER/ANADOLU VIA GETTY IMAGES

In the week and a half since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Trump’s so-called reciprocal tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the administration’s tariff strategy hasn’t become clearer. Trump has promised 15% global tariffs allowed under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974—supposedly intended for emergencies—which will last for 150 days, writes Forbes senior contributor Mike Patton. At that point, the tariffs expire without legislative approval, meaning the Trump Administration either has to make its case to Congress for the tariffs or find another way to impose them unilaterally. Meanwhile, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told Fox Business last week that some countries or goods could face higher tariff rates under other agreements.

All that has left companies wondering what comes next, with shoe maker Steve Madden being one of the first to pull its guidance based on tariff uncertainty as it reported earnings in the days after the ruling. Whether companies will be refunded money paid in unlawful tariffs is also an open question.

Trump talked up tariffs in his State of the Union Address last week, declaring that he believes “the tariffs, paid for by foreign countries, will, like in the past, substantially replace the modern-day system of income tax, taking a great financial burden off the people that I love.” Experts say that’s impossible. Tariffs raise far less than income tax, writes Forbes senior contributor Howard Gleckman. Individual and corporate income tax will raise an estimated $40.5 trillion over the next decade, while the tariffs Trump wanted would have raised only $2.2 trillion in that time frame.

But one thing that Trump’s tariffs are doing for sure: Changing the way that international trade will be done in the foreseeable future, even after he is out of office. Forbes senior contributor Bill Conerly writes that there will be four big impacts: many more trade restrictions, tariffs and tax policy will be seen through a partisan lens, companies will be more adept at shifting the sourcing of commodities and finished goods, and international trade will be less attractive.

Jared Shulman, Daylit cofounder and CEO JARED SHULMAN, GETTY IMAGES

OFF THE LEDGER

How To Uncover Trends In Your Accounts Receivable

A CFO can see some early indications of problems with business partners by tapping into accounts receivable data. Jared Shulman, CEO and cofounder of AI-powered accounts receivable software platform Daylit, said that while companies tend to track DSO (days sales outstanding, or the amount of time it takes to get paid), they should be paying closer attention to DPT (days past term, or how late a payment is). As DPT gets longer, it’s an early indicator of something: financial difficulties, issues with your product quality or service, or larger issues with debt and income.

I spoke with Shulman about why DPT is important and what it means to your business and others. This conversation has been edited for length, clarity and continuity.

What does it mean to a business that is getting paid late, from a couple of days to a longer-term delay?

Shulman: For small businesses, it can be really devastating.

Right now, interest rates have been falling. The expectation, if you look at the yield curve, is they’re going to continue to fall, but there’s this fervent energy to go and refinance. That’s an indicator that there’s a little bit of concern for a potential debt wall down the line. Hey, we better get it while the going is good.

This would be an indicator of a risk-off environment, and we need to start paying attention. The most important thing we need to pay attention to right now is our DPT. It’s the earliest indicator, and when we start to see degradation there, we need to be really smart. We need to make decisions tightening our credit box. We need to start looking at financing tools that are maybe more off-balance sheet—trade credit products or factoring solutions. And we have to get a little bit more vigilant, especially around our accounts receivable. That’s both financing and operations.

When is it time to start taking action?

I’m inclined to just say do it immediately.

We like to see our inbound traffic and the search results around accounts receivable automation as kind of like a litmus test for what’s happening in the market. What I can tell you is, especially over the last couple of months—just from a Daylit perspective, a broader trend perspective— people are more focused on this topic. In great markets—2012 to 2019, the market's on fire, no one’s as concerned about accounts receivable. When things start to turn a little bit and there’s nervousness, that’s when people really start to pay attention. So yeah, I would say now is a really great time.

What would you recommend that a CFO do right now in order to get themselves in as solid of a form as they can as current trends continue: some issues with receivables, some issues with debt?

AI is not this magic bullet and there’s benefit to it, but there’s certainly risk. If I’m a CFO right now, I’m really thinking about ways that I can use AI to get more intel into what’s happening [with the] boots on the ground in my company,

It’s really impossible to diagnose what to do without figuring out what the customer is saying and what the main issues are. We like to say that accounts receivable is maybe the most untapped gold mine of information. When someone’s not paying you, there’s a reason, and you want to find out if it’s a problem with them or it’s a problem with you. We’ve had customers that find out one particular product is consistently collecting later, and it’s because the customer really isn't satisfied with it.

This is what we talk about: Not just the number of DPT, but the why behind it. If there’s a product or service that’s not up to snuff, or an operational issue, attack those first because those are the easy ones to go and collect on. When there’s credit concerns or deterioration, that’s a more challenging issue to solve.

Comings + Goings

Power management firm Eaton named David Foster as its new executive vice president and chief financial officer, effective March 2. Foster is rejoining the company after having worked in their financial operations for 29 years, and he will succeed Olivier Leonetti.

Defense technology company L3Harris Technologies appointed Kenneth Sharp as its new senior vice president and chief financial officer, effective March 16. Sharp joins the firm from Peraton Inc. where he worked as executive vice president and chief financial officer, and he will succeed Kenneth Bedingfield, who is moving to a new internal role.

Seafood restaurant chain Red Lobster hired Brad Hill as its new chief financial officer and executive vice president, transformation. Hill joins the company from P.F. Chang’s, where he served as chief executive officer, and he succeeds Bob Baker.

Send us C-suite transition news at forbescsuite@forbes.com.

STRATEGIES + ADVICE

Digital currencies are going from a fringe movement to the mainstream. Here’s what CFOs should know about whether digital assets belong in your business and how to lay the groundwork to add them.

It may be tempting to bring in AI agents to make lower-level management decisions, but is it really a good idea? Here are some questions to ask before delegating responsibility to AI.

QUIZ

Which company reported blockbuster earnings last week—which inspired a stock selloff?

A.	Walmart
B.	Dell Technologies
C.	Nvidia
D.	Berkshire Hathaway

Check if you got it right here.

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How Adobe Helps Marketers Embrace AI

Wed, 10 Dec 2025 20:10:00 +0000

Plus: Marketers Dove Into The Holidays Much Earlier This Year

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The holiday shopping season got started with a record-breaking bang, but what remains to be seen is how things go until December 25. While consumers seemed ready to spend on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, a tight economy and lingering issues around affordability continue to call things into question.

What we do know: Marketers are putting a lot of effort into digital messaging—and for a longer period of time than before. A new report from AI-powered customer engagement platform Iterable found that nearly a third of their customers started going heavy on holiday marketing—or at least brand awareness in preparation for holiday marketing—in early October (well before the traditional November 1 full arrival of Christmas displays in retail stores). Data from the October 2025 Prosper Insights & Analytics survey, conducted in partnership with the National Retail Federation, found more than half of Americans started their holiday shopping in October, though the majority also said at the time that they planned to spend less this holiday season.

This year’s campaigns have been getting deeper into the personal consumer journey, and more native to mobile devices. Iterative customer campaigns through mobile messaging—using channels like SMS, WhatsApp and Push—surged nearly 60% for the beginning of the traditional shopping season. And embedded campaigns were up nearly three-fold this year, compared to last.

These moves are smart ways to meet consumers where they are. Adobe Analytics predicts that mobile devices will be used for more than half of e-commerce sales this holiday, and found that 52.8% of Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales came from mobile. And while spending on the whole may be down, at least these marketers could get a larger piece of the pie.

For that increased volume of messaging, digital tools for marketers and creators are vital. Adobe has been known for its extensive platform of creative tools for decades, and it’s been adopting AI in its tools as technology continues to evolve. I talked to Adobe CMO Lara Balazs about how the company continues to market to marketers. An excerpt from our conversation is later in this newsletter.

If you like what you read here, you can easily share it online and on your social media pages. This newsletter, and all previous editions of Forbes CMO, can be found on our website here.

Megan Poinski Staff Writer, C-Suite Newsletters

Follow me on Forbes.com

In today’s CMO newsletter:

First Up: How the battle for control of Warner Bros. could shake the streaming landscape like never before

Marketing Matters: Pantone’s annual color of the year stirred up more controversy than usual

On Message: Adobe CMO Lara Balazs on how AI has been a game changer for marketing to marketers

BIG DEALS

A sign outside of the Warner Brothers Discovery Techwood Turner Broadcasting campus in Atlanta. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

Ever since Netflix’s $82.7 billion acquisition of Warner Bros.—including the company’s film and television studios and streaming giant HBO Max—was announced on Friday morning, talk has surged about how the proposed deal could change entertainment, streaming, jobs and the media landscape as a whole. The streaming and entertainment network was locked in a fierce bidding war with Paramount Skydance and Comcast for the iconic studio. (The proposed deal would split off Warner Bros. Discovery’s TV network business into its own independent business.)

The deal could have a profound impact on the entertainment business, writes Forbes contributor Shann Biglione. While Netflix is no stranger to big-budget, long-form and critically acclaimed independent content, it hasn’t made anything specifically for theaters. After announcing the deal, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said that theatrical release windows would “evolve to be much more consumer-friendly.” Earlier this year, Sarandos said the theatrical release model was “outdated,” though he later clarified that was referring to lengthy theatrical runs for new movies. Forbes senior contributor David Bloom writes this attitude—and the post-pandemic way the movie industry has rushed theatrical releases to streaming (if they were in theaters at all)—is the cinema business’ biggest problem. In a statement, trade group Cinema United’s President and CEO Michael O’Leary put it plainly: “Netflix’s stated business model does not support theatrical exhibition.”

The deal would also shake up streaming. Netflix would become the new owner of HBO Max—plus all of the entertainment properties and titles that go with that. Biglione writes that this could be good for the future of ad-supported streaming, considering that it could be rather pricey to subscribe to all of that content advertisement free. On Netflix’s end, it would be pressured to do a better job of measuring streaming audience metrics, writes Forbes senior contributor Toni Fitzgerald—especially since there would be fewer providers for streaming content.

But there are no guarantees this deal will even go through. It will be subject to antitrust scrutiny, given that the merger would place an extraordinary share of the entertainment and streaming businesses in the hands of one company. Hollywood unions representing performers and writers were quick to speak up about their concerns, writes Forbes contributor Cathy Olson. And there are many: Jobs could be lost, wages for those on the writing and performing end of the business could go down, consumer costs could go up, and the diversity of viewpoints in entertainment could decrease.

On Monday, Paramount announced its hostile effort to acquire Warner Bros., giving shareholders $18 billion more in cash than Netflix. Paramount is trying to buy all of Warner Bros. Discovery, and says the acquisition target “never engaged meaningfully” with Paramount’s proposals.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Sabrina Carpenter attends the 2025 Met Gala. Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images

No matter what you think about President Donald Trump, it’s undeniable that he and his administration have done more with social media than any previous U.S. president. Many of the administration’s posts are controversial in terms of content, tone, humor and taste, using popular styles, memes and music, as well as AI-generated videos and artwork to reiterate his agenda.

Several artists who disagree with Trump and his decisions have objected to their creations being used in these social media posts. Sabrina Carpenter recently succeeded by getting much more support on her X post asking the White House to take down a video than the original video received—resulting in the White House being “ratioed” in social media parlance, writes Forbes senior contributor Dani Di Placido.

The White House’s X account had posted a video montage of ICE deportations, set to Carpenter’s song “Juno,” which has the repeated line, “Have you ever tried this one?” Carpenter responded by writing “this video is evil and disgusting. Do not ever involve me or my music to benefit your inhumane agenda.” Carpenter’s reply went viral. A screenshot compared Carpenter’s post—which had 1 million likes—to the White House’s—with just 43,000. The White House deleted the original post when Carpenter’s response had been seen 138 million times.

Keeping in character, the White House didn’t apologize to the pop star. Instead, it doubled down by backhandedly saying Carpenter was defending the “dangerous criminal illegal murderers, rapists, and pedophiles” that were being deported. The White House also posted a new X video, featuring an on-purpose badly dubbed version of Carpenter’s recent SNL appearance, telling cast member Marcello Hernández she “might need to arrest someone for being too hot.” In the edited video, “too hot” is replaced with “illegal.” That video is still up.

MARKETING MATTERS

Cloud Dancer is Pantone's 2026 Color of the Year. Pantone

Since 2000, Pantone’s annual color of the year has been a fun way for the institute to set the tone for the year ahead—and pick the “it” color that everything will be in the next year. (It works—I painted my bedroom Classic Blue after it received the honor in 2020.) This year’s color, however, is generating more controversy than trends. Pantone selected Cloud Dancer, which is a white hue, for the 2026 color. The institute said this color “acts as a whisper of calm and peace in a noisy world,” and it “invites true relaxation and focus, allowing the mind to wander and creativity to breathe.”

While the world does seem to be noisier than ever, many have rejected the selection of white. The term “Pantonedeaf” circulated on social media, with commenters saying that the color evokes feelings of white supremacy—especially in a year that has seen many diversity efforts slashed. This is the first time the color has been a shade of white. But regardless of what people feel about the color, one thing is certain: Many things—from paper to websites to walls—will feature it.

Adobe CMO Lara Balazs. Adobe, Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images

ON MESSAGE

How Adobe Stays Current In Marketing To Marketers

For decades, Adobe has had one of the elite suites of creative platforms to help all kinds of people design digitally. The company is adding AI to many of its platforms as part of the creative and technology evolution. I talked to Adobe CMO Lara Balazs about how Adobe markets to marketers, and how generative AI is transforming the creative process. This conversation has been edited for length, clarity and continuity.

How do you work with individual company marketers to build their use of AI and bring more AI to what they do?

Balazs: Generative AI is a game changer. It doesn’t take creativity away from people, it just amplifies it. So you want to tell that message to all marketers, because there is some fear in change.

The biggest opportunity as we go through this change is change management. As CMOs, we have to be chief transformation architects because the marketing system is changing, and we have to be energizing our teams in terms of change management to seize the day, take on that change and not be scared by it. Try it, have fun with it, and see that it makes your life easier.

Meeting with our customers who are CMOs and chief experience officers across companies around the world, we say: Find those really inspirational people within your own organization that like to try new things, embrace them, and then have them talking and being that spark to drive that change in your organization.

Everybody knows that Adobe is a provider of creators’ tools. How do you market to creators and other marketers?

We’ve recently gotten very focused on the customer groups we serve. We serve such a broad array of customers from individuals, students, business professionals, new creators, creative professionals, all the way to enterprises. That is a broad range—it’s B2B, B2C. We’re always starting [with the] customer, and going customer-centric in everything we do.

When we’re marketing Express, anyone can use it. You can create anything: presentations, you can do social posts. It’s very easy to use. We think about that student, whether they’re in the K-12 school system or in college. And influencers using social platforms like TikTok, Instagram, all of the things that you would expect. We talk to them in the way that they talk to each other, and showcase [the] influencers talking to that generation. We meet them where they are.

We have GenStudio for Performance Marketing, which allows us to go in an automated fashion, self-serve, to go out to all of these social platforms—TikTok, Snap, Instagram—and be able to see in real time what post is doing better, then alter that up and optimize into the one that is working best with that population.

Then to the enterprise, which is on the other end of the spectrum, it really is understanding what problems they’re facing in their organization day to day. Often as CMOs, we cannot create enough content. You are constantly creating content, and the idea that you can create content at scale—which is what we at Adobe do—is often answering one of the CMO’s biggest problems: How do I create more content all the time, given the amount of content that is in your social feed, my social feed, anybody’s feed? You’re competing with our consumer’s attention there. And every CMO is facing that today.

AI has been growing, changing, and really revolutionizing the way that things are put together, ways that business happens, ways that things are created. A year from now, what do you think will have happened with AI, and what will we be talking about?

I think AI will have been picked up by more people. More people will say, ‘Wow, this is an incredible way, and I can be more creative.’ I really believe that.

I know that brands will be more important [than ever] in this LLM-driven world. So you’re going to see more brands really understanding who they are. And while generative AI will continue to fuel and ignite creativity, those brands who know their purpose, their values, they will stand out in all of this. Your brand purpose can’t be prompted.

Trust will matter [more] than ever before, so trust will become a strategy. Those marketers, those brands, those consumers understand that change is inevitable. When you seize the day with generative AI, the tools, the immense ability it gives you to amplify your creativity and stand out and be distinct, those creators, brands, individuals will be showcasing all the great stuff they’re doing, and showing the Adobe tools that have helped them do that.

COMINGS + GOINGS

Anesthesia management company North American Partners in Anesthesia appointed Jody Casey as chief growth officer. Casey most recently worked as managing director and healthcare technology practice leader at Protiviti, and she has also worked in leadership at Microsoft.

Clean energy company Mote selected Ashleigh N. Ross to be its chief commercial officer. Ross previously worked as deputy director of carbon management technologies at the U.S. Department of Energy.

Media monitoring platform Cision appointed Amy Jones as chief marketing officer. Jones joins the company from Boeing Digital’s Jeppesen ForeFlight division, where she worked in the same role, and she has also held leadership roles at Oracle and Everbridge.

Send us C-suite transition news at forbescsuite@forbes.com.

STRATEGIES + ADVICE

On LinkedIn, your posts set the tone for the kind of attention you attract. If you’re looking for high-paying clients, there are some wording and phrasing tricks that will be more likely to catch their attention.

The biggest threat to your brand has nothing to do with geopolitics, money or cybersecurity. It’s the always-looming possibility of becoming irrelevant. In this excerpt from Forbes CMO Network Managing Director Seth Matlins’ keynote address at the Forbes CMO Summit in Aspen, Colorado, he lays out what businesses are doing about it.

QUIZ

It’s that time of year: Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You” is once again topping the Billboard Hot 100 chart. If it holds the top spot this week, it will break the record for most weeks at No. 1. Which two songs currently hold that record?

A.	“A Bar Song (Tipsy),” Shaboozey
B.	“One Sweet Day,” Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men
C.	“Despacito,” Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee, featuring Justin Bieber
D.	“Old Town Road,” Lil Nas X, featuring Billy Ray Cyrus

Check if you got it right here.

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Making People Your Cybersecurity Solution

Thu, 12 Jun 2025 22:47:00 +0000

Plus: How To Make Sure AI Is Not An Extinction-Level Event

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Presented by

Anyone who works in IT knows this basic fact about cybersecurity: People are the weakest link. As long as there has been cybercrime, scammers have exploited this fact. According to a new study from AI-powered cybersecurity company Abnormal, attackers tried to steal more than $300 million from companies through scam emails impersonating vendors in the last year.

While you may be conducting trainings on email safety and continually testing employees with fake scam emails, the scammers are still successful. By monitoring activity in 1,400 organizations’ email accounts, Abnormal found a 44.2% engagement rate with these fake emails. They were some of the most often replied and forwarded emails throughout company inboxes, with large companies’ employees responding and forwarding them 72% of the time. And the vast majority of these incidents—98.5%—were not reported to the IT department.

It’s a difficult problem to solve. Abnormal found that most of the engagement with scam emails came from more entry-level employees, who are likely unaware of the extent of phishing emails and company processes. Adding a section on phishing email training to onboarding might not have the desired effect, considering new hires could be overwhelmed. Abnormal suggests using an AI-powered platform to scrutinize suspect emails, like ones that come from slightly misspelled domain names, or that ask for more information about past transactions in completely different email threads. But a more holistic approach might be leaning on education, so that people in the company better police their inboxes. If they know what to look for, are told the stakes, have an established reporting process and potentially earn rewards for stopping fraudsters, employees will have a reason to pay attention and care—something every IT department hopes they can find.

AI is transforming everything about the way we do business. If you are ready and have a plan to utilize it, AI can take your business to the next level. If you aren’t ready, your business could be left behind. Boomi CEO Steve Lucas wrote a book about preparing for the change called Digital Impact: The Human Element of AI-Driven Transformation. I talked to him about that transformation, and an excerpt from our conversation is later in this newsletter.

Forbes CIO will be on hiatus next week in honor of the Juneteenth holiday. We will be back in your inboxes on June 26.

If you like what you read here, you can easily share it online and on your social media pages. This newsletter, and all previous editions of Forbes CIO, can be found on our website here.

Megan Poinski Staff Writer, C-Suite Newsletters

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In today’s CIO newsletter:

First Up: Meta taps billionaire AI startup CEO for its new AI lab

Big Deals: Top firms shore up data management capabilities via acquisitions

Bits + Bytes: Practical advice for embracing AI with legacy platforms

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Scale AI cofounder and CEO Alexandr Wang CHRISTIE HEMM KLOK FOR FORBES

Meta is known for putting a deep stake in the ground around up and coming areas in technology, like the VR metaverse and AI-enabled smart glasses. This week, reports indicated it’s making a big move toward the goal of AI “superintelligence”—a system that outperforms human capabilities. Forbes’ Rashi Shrivastava writes Meta has its eye on a 49% stake in AI evaluation startup Scale AI, reportedly costing it $14.8 billion. In this potential deal, Scale AI’s CEO Alexandr Wang would join Meta as part of a new AI superintelligence lab. The New York Times reports Meta is also trying to woo other top AI figures to work for its new lab. Reports indicate that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has grown impatient with the company’s progress in AI so far, and this acquisition would help Meta close some of the distance between it and other top AI companies.

Meanwhile, this week the Browser Company released the beta form of Dia, its generative-AI-enabled browser, writes Forbes senior contributor Barry Collins. Dia includes several features that allow generative AI to get to know users, as well as summarize and compare information open in different browser tabs. Its standout feature “remembers” everything you do online: every tab you open, every search you do, the work you’ve been doing online, and even your writing style. Browser Company CEO Josh Miller said in a video introducing Dia that at the end of a week, month or year of browsing, Dia will “know you as well as your closest friends and colleagues.” Collins notes the Browser Company doesn’t provide details about how it would keep this information secure.

BIG DEALS

Salesforce headquarters in San Francisco, California JUSTIN SULLIVAN/GETTY IMAGES

In the last month, three top tech companies made acquisitions in the data space worth nearly $9.3 billion, writes Forbes senior contributor Peter Cohan. Analytics company Databricks is spending $1 billion to buy cloud-based open source database company Neon. Salesforce is spending $8 billion to purchase data management provider Informatica. And data cloud service Snowflake is spending $250 million to buy data warehouse provider Crunchy Data. Cohan writes that these acquisitions have one thing in common: Many of the larger companies’ customers are demanding better data platforms and organization in order to more effectively use AI.

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NOTABLE NEWS

Apple CEO Tim Cook speaks during the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference on June 9, 2025 in Cupertino, California.JUSTIN SULLIVAN/GETTY IMAGES

This week was Apple’s WWDC, its anticipated annual conference where the tech behemoth usually announces new software updates. This year, many of Apple’s announcements were about AI, bringing more features through Apple Intelligence, which will come to devices with the iOS 26 update this fall, writes Forbes senior contributor Kate O’Flaherty. (Apple is changing its iOS naming conventions to be the same as the year they are released. Updated devices now run on iOS 18.5.) Some of the major updates include the ability to search and take action on whatever users are viewing across apps—they can ask ChatGPT for more information about what’s onscreen and easily search across Google to find similar products. It can recognize when someone is looking at an event and suggest adding it to their calendar. It can screen text messages from unknown senders, keeping them silenced until users accept them. And it will be able to do live translation, which will be integrated into Messages, FaceTime and the phone itself—but the translations will stay on devices and remain personal.

O’Flaherty writes that another new feature, reported on by MacRumors, will basically serve as a secure digital ID verification. The feature, called Verify with Wallet on the Web, will allow users to verify important ID details—like age when renting a car—without having to upload a photo of their actual ID. It will allow users to store state-issued IDs, driver’s licenses and passports online for identification purposes. The data will be protected by end-to-end encryption, so the underlying data will only be accessible to the user. It will also prohibit the use of fake IDs.

Last but not least, Apple is rolling out a refreshed design. Called Liquid Glass, it updates the traditional look of the iOS experience to look, feel and reflect like glass panels. The appearance of screens, toolbars, icons and functions themselves will become more reactive to touch and motion, and will feature more rounded corners. Apple is extending the Liquid Glass look to all of its platforms with the fall’s operating system update. It’s received mixed reviews so far.

STEVE LUCAS

BITS + BYTES

How To Make Sure AI Is Not An Extinction-Level Event

Integration and data management platform Boomi CEO Steve Lucas realized that the capabilities and possibilities of AI were zooming toward businesses like a meteor—but with deep changes that could translate to a wipeout for businesses that aren’t prepared and cannot embrace it. He wrote his new book, Digital Impact: The Human Element of AI-Driven Transformation, to look at what AI can do and help businesses take full advantage of the possibilities.

I talked to Lucas about what companies need to do to not just survive, but succeed in the AI era. This conversation has been edited for length, clarity and continuity.

How do you recommend a company get all of its data sprawl, apps used by various employees and departments, and legions of APIs under control?

Lucas: The first thing is acknowledging you have a problem. The first thing is recognizing the digital fragmentation—a term I use frequently—exists and it is a real problem.

The second thing is then assessing within your organization: What are the systems, the applications, the data, the business elements that I need to run and operate my business? What are the core things that I must absolutely have on a day-to-day basis?

The third is mapping the processes within your organization, what I characterize as the hidden processes today. So think about this for a minute. How many CEOs could say: ‘I know exactly how our income statement is assembled at this company… all the systems required to pull that data together … the spreadsheets that are sitting out there with the magic translation that my accounting team does.’

Knowledge processes are very different than business processes. A business process is a manufacturing process, and I know every step that goes into the assembly. The knowledge process: Do I understand what elements go into the assembly of the income statement as a product? Most organizations don’t have a good model for what their knowledge processes are, so you’ve got to inventory that.

Once you do that, you have the ability to weigh: Here’s my knowledge processes. Here’s my business processes. What systems and applications do I really need to achieve this?

Ultimately, where we’re going with this is probably 75% to 90% of the knowledge processes that we rely on today, that human beings work on, will go to AI.

How does the transformation to AI impact contracts you already have for SaaS and with other tech vendors?

You can’t rely on your suite anymore—rigid architectures, closed systems. By the way, these vendors know that they’re in deep trouble. Your competitors, the ones that aren’t weighed down with these rigid architectures, are building flexible, agent-driven, highly composable systems.

You have to learn how to extract value from your existing stack, not invest in your existing stack. Companies are not going to win by replacing their core systems. Those are very, very expensive. I go back to a simple example: Hundreds of thousands of companies all over the world rely on antiquated billing systems that are 20, 30 years old. If I want to go in and have my billing system be more intelligent so it’s not sending collection notices to my most important customers, the average company today has to spend tens or hundreds of millions of dollars upgrading their infrastructure just to do that. That doesn’t make any sense at all.

Keeping your existing technology, but making it more composable and more flexible with AI, that’s where this stuff is going.

The last thing I would say is silos are a massive liability. If you’ve worked really hard to create this stack that is siloed in nature, when you hear things like your competitors are moving more quickly, they’re more nimble, it’s because they’ve invested in an integration automation orchestration platform.

What advice would you give to a CIO who is working toward bringing in AI agents and wants to make sure they’re going about it the right way?

Prioritize integration, automation and orchestration. Companies that do, that can build modern composable, AI-driven workflows, will win. Build your digital nervous system early. Invest in a platform layer that lets systems, data and agents communicate. Without that layer, your AI is blind and isolated; you’ll build terrific AI that is totally unable to orchestrate meaningful workflows.

I don’t think we’re in a ‘rip and replace’ world. I think we’re in a ‘wrap’ world, where we can wrap our silos and our systems in intelligence and connectivity. Those systems that you already own, wrapping them in intelligence and connectivity is extraordinarily transformative.

Lastly, create out of the gate your AI or agentic governance strategy before the chaos arrives. I met with a hospital network, and they said, ‘Steve, we all have the technology now to build an amazing AI that could help a doctor look at test results and go, ‘Holy cow, your creatinine level was super high,’ and then it could figure out [potentially related conditions the patient was] here for once upon a time. What we can’t bring together is our digital past. The data for that sits in a hundred different systems, and how do we also operate and access all of those systems in a highly regulated environment where HIPAA still matters? How do we protect your privacy at the same time?’ As compelling as that future is that has arrived, we have to rationalize it with our digital past.

COMINGS + GOINGS

Biopharmaceutical firm Neurocrine Biosciences appointed Lewis Choi as chief information officer, effective June 9. Choi joins the company from Thermo Fisher Scientific where he most recently worked as VP of AI automation & data.

Customer experience software provider Genesys brought on Trevor Schulze as chief information officer. Schulze previously worked at Alteryx, where he was most recently the senior vice president and chief digital and information officer.

E-commerce technology company Radial elevated Shauna Bowen to executive vice president and chief digital transformation officer. Bowen, who previously served as SVP of strategy & transformation, succeeds Jim French, who is retiring.

Send us C-suite transition news at forbescsuite@forbes.com.

STRATEGIES + ADVICE

Leadership is never easy, but it’s especially challenging right now with a volatile business climate and rapidly changing economic projections. Here are five mental concepts from other disciplines that can help you lead through whatever the world throws at you.

Successfully bringing AI to your business probably requires a massive cultural shift, which could be met with resistance. Here are some ways to build an AI-first culture, setting expectations around an AI transition.

Quiz

Last week, Walmart unveiled its generative AI-powered shopping assistant embedded in its app. What is it called?

A.	Walter
B.	Roly
C.	Rover
D.	Sparky

Check if you got it right here.

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Stepping Stone CFO Job

Tue, 13 May 2025 19:13:00 +0000

Plus: Inside The Age And Gender Gap Around AI In Corporate Finance

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Finance jobs are changing rapidly with the adoption of AI, but the technology has uncovered significant age and gender gaps in how people look at a company’s financial department. A new study from enterprise finance management platform OneStream found that while two-thirds of current finance professionals use AI at work right now, just 54% of those with at least 10 years of experience say they have enough experience with AI to use it in their work. (Earlier career finance professionals are somewhat more experienced, with 63% saying the same thing.) More than half of all finance professionals see a generational technology divide at work, with 44% saying AI skills are contributing to that gap.

On the younger end of the spectrum, nearly nine out of 10 finance students say they already have enough experience to use AI at work. They also see finance jobs as ones with relatively easy schedules. Nearly four out of five expect to work less than 40 hours a week—while 58% of working professionals say they actually work more than 40 hours. Only 16% associate a finance career with burnout, something that 57% of finance professionals have experienced personally.

Men are using AI and technology more frequently than women across all age groups. Just over seven in 10 male finance professionals say they rely on AI at least somewhat often, while only 61% of women said the same. And nearly a third of female finance workers with less than a decade of experience say automation and AI will be the biggest challenge facing their career over the next decade.

Regardless of how different groups feel about AI and technology, these gaps need to be bridged. Hands-on training on AI tools and more education about the functions they can perform could help make all ages feel more comfortable with them. (Considering the current situation with tariffs changing seemingly on a daily basis, deploying AI tools really might be the only way to make sense of the financial picture.) Giving women more opportunities with AI could also help equalize the way that the tools are seen and used. As for the up-and-coming finance students, they may know something about AI that the rest of the profession doesn’t. When the global economy stabilizes, AI tools may actually make the average finance professional’s week less stressful and eliminate long hours.

More and more companies that are looking for new CFOs want a little something extra: A CFO who can eventually become CEO. I talked to Laura McPhail, cofounder and partner at executive search firm Hedley May about this new trend, and how CFOs can use the opportunity to get themselves positioned for growth. An excerpt from our conversation is later in this newsletter.

If you like what you read here, you can easily share it online and on your social media pages. This newsletter, and all previous editions of Forbes CFO, can be found on our website here.

Until next time.

Megan Poinski Staff Writer, C-Suite Newsletters

Follow me on Forbes.com

In today’s CFO newsletter:

First Up: Inflation moderates more, but tariff impacts may show up in future months

Human Capital: On top of a 2024 profit loss of 88%, Nissan announces more layoffs

Off The Ledger: The search for CFOs who are a CEO’s strategic partner and successor

ECONOMIC INDICATORS

A customer at an H-E-B grocery store in Austin, Texas. Brandon Bell/Getty Images

Last month, inflation was its most moderate in four years, according to figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The consumer price index rose 2.3% in April, just below consensus expectations of 2.4%. Prices rose 0.2% from March to April on a seasonally adjusted basis. This was the first CPI report after President Donald Trump started enacting tariffs, and some economists expected to see tariff-related inflation reflected in the report. However, it takes some time for newly increased prices to show up in a CPI report; JPMorgan Chase chief U.S. economist Michael Feroli wrote last week that he expects to see tariff-related inflation increase in coming months as tariffs are passed along into consumer prices. Feroli also pointed out that energy prices are going down, as crude oil prices have been at a multi-year low.

Last week was another Federal Reserve meeting, and once again, interest rates held steady at the 4.25% to 4.5% they’ve been at since December. “The risks of higher unemployment and higher inflation have risen,” the committee said in a statement. As tariffs continue to shake the economy, the committee said, “uncertainty about the economic outlook has increased further.” Considering the uncertain situation, very few predicted any shift in rates—CME’s Group’s FedWatch tool predicted a 98% chance of a hold, while economists at JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America all forecast no change.

The only person who seemed to think a change should come was President Donald Trump, who once again started attacking Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell on social media after the meeting. “‘Too Late’ Jerome Powell is a FOOL, who doesn’t have a clue,” Trump posted to his Truth Social platform Thursday morning. He added that speaking to Powell is like “talking to a wall.” Unlike Trump’s social media attacks on Powell earlier this month, these didn’t crash markets because he didn’t threaten to fire Powell, and his U.K. trade deal was announced on the same day.

TARIFFS

Shipping containers stacked at the Port of Oakland in California in 2023. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

After weekend negotiations with China, there is a trade deal—or at least elements of a potential deal. A joint statement from the U.S. and China Monday morning says that tariffs are decreasing on both sides—10% for China to the U.S. and 30% for Chinese goods imported into the country—for the next 90 days, allowing for more negotiations between the two countries. This is a significant rollback of the 145% tariff the U.S. imposed on China and the 125% China put on U.S. imports, which Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said was equivalent to a trade embargo. Bessent said both sides agreed that “we have a shared interest” and “neither side wanted a decoupling” of trade. The White House announced Monday evening that the tariff on shipments worth less than $800 coming directly from China—like merchandise from Temu and Shein—was dropping to 54% from a previous 120%.

Stocks soared on Monday due to the reduction and pause on Chinese tariffs. By the time the markets closed, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 2.8%, the S&P 500 saw a 3.3% boost, and the Nasdaq was up 4.4%.

But how long will the rally last? While the agreement with China is significant, it’s not permanent and subject to further negotiations—meaning things are still uncertain, especially for businesses that deal with imports from China. Consumer prices also may rise based on the former sky-high tariffs since they were in full effect for a month. And deals will only go so far. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Friday that the 10% baseline tariff on all imports will stay in effect no matter what.

Several companies have already lowered their outlooks or estimated steep losses in profit because of tariffs—including Toyota, which said it lost an estimated $1.25 billion in profits in March and April alone. A new report from Democratic members of Congress said that the tariffs represent a nail in the coffin for small businesses: Costs are rising, hiring is slowing and firms are already laying off workers, writes Forbes’ Brandon Kochkodin. Several small business owners told Kochkodin that their businesses have been damaged irreversibly because of tariffs, and a group of business owners have sued the Trump Administration with the nonprofit legal group New Civil Liberties Alliance, saying that the tariffs are illegal.

HUMAN CAPITAL

Job cuts continue across industries, with Nissan sharing plans on Monday to cut more than 10,000 more workers, adding up to 20,000 job cuts announced since November. The automaker saw its profits drop precipitously in the last year—its previous fiscal year profit was 69.8 billion yen ($472 million)—a decline of 88%. Nissan had been in merger talks with Honda last year, but both sides called off the deal in February.

Nissan isn’t the only automaker that has seen large layoffs. General Motors, Volvo and Mercedes-Benz have also announced layoffs for cost-cutting amid economic uncertainty, writes Forbes senior contributor Jack Kelly. UPS said last month it was cutting 20,000 jobs, and many layoffs in the federal government—including a planned 1,500 National Park Service staffers in the run-up to summer—are adding to the year’s job cut tally. But while job cuts may be seen as a quick way for a company to free up cash, Forbes senior contributor Caroline Castrillon writes that corporate leaders often overlook some of the costs of layoffs—including severance payments, unemployment insurance tax increases and damage to employee morale and company reputation.

OFF THE LEDGER

Hedley May cofounder and Partner Laura McPhail. Hedley May, Getty

Why Companies Are Looking For CFOs Who Will Become CEOs

In the last two years, Laura McPhail, partner and cofounder at executive search firm Hedley May, has seen a new trend in CFO searches: Companies are looking for CFOs who can eventually become CEO. I talked to her about what she’s seeing and why companies are using recruiting for succession planning. This conversation has been edited for length, clarity and continuity.

What are you being asked to look for in a CFO who would be an eventual CEO?

McPhail: There has been a move away from heavy regulatory compliance accounting, traditional Treasury backgrounds in the CFO role, and more focus on big data because big data is used for productivity and business optimization. It’s more of a focus on candidates who have range, who understand the data, who understand how to work with the analytics and how to show productivity with those numbers.

Is there a reason for a CFO candidate to be leery of working for a company that is looking for its next CEO?

I see it in a more positive light in that companies don’t want to look at resumes of candidates that jump around too much. And at the same time, candidates don’t want to move so much. It’s a lot to move career to career. I think on both sides, they’re looking for longevity.

If you want a career trajectory to CEO, it’s really great if you find a company that is of the same mind, which is why it’s important to be transparent.

What does this say for the power, viability and future of the CFO to CEO pipeline?

It’s stronger for candidates who have range and who don’t just stay in their own lanes. The more CEOs we talk to, the more it’s about using a CFO as a more strategic partner. That means helping the CEO, getting key messages to business leaders—and sometimes that means the CFO is not delivering the kindest messages all the time. It’s how do you find a person who can deliver key messages, positive or not, and still maintain a wonderfully positive working environment and a collegial culture.

For somebody that would eventually like to be considered for this type of a stepping stone CFO job, what should they be doing to get their resume ready? What responsibilities should they take on to show that they can do it?

What that person could be doing is range. Try to think about being a CFO that is more commercially-focused. Where else can you step aside from your role and demonstrate that you have a real ability to work with the business? That may be taking an overseas assignment. That may be running a function that isn’t part of your initial remit. Or going to a company and understanding how to [show] you understand the numbers, but you understand [them] from a strategic and a cultural perspective.

Nobody wants a CFO who doesn’t appreciate life beyond the metrics. It’s how can we use this function to advance the culture?

Comings + Goings

Data storage firm Western Digital selected Kris Sennesael as its chief financial officer, effective May 12. Sennesael was most recently CFO for Skyworks Solutions, and has also held the same role at Enphase Energy and Standard Microsystems.

Legacy toy maker Mattel appointed Paul Ruh as its new chief financial officer, effective May 19. Ruh joins the company from Kenvue, and will succeed current CFO Anthony DiSilvestro, who is retiring.

Outdoor goods retailer REI Co-op announced Shannon Damen will become its chief financial officer, effective June 16. Damen was previously global head of real estate at Gap, Inc, and she will succeed Kelley Hall, who is retiring.

Send us C-suite transition news at forbescsuite@forbes.com.

STRATEGIES + ADVICE

Looking for revenue growth? Sometimes, an outside opinion can stoke new ideas. Here are five prompts to put into ChatGPT to help you see new ways to improve your strategy, pricing and value.

There are many management strategies, but one of the most effective revolves around creating value for others. Businesses that embody this model tend to grow faster, work better with employees and others, and serve as better corporate community members.

QUIZ

Which industry saw the most Q1 dealmaking this year since 2023?

A.	Oil and gas
B.	CPG food and beverage
C.	Video games
D.	Retail

Check if you got it right here.

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