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Salesforce has announced the appointment of Robin Washington as the firm’s first president and COFO, or chief operating and financial officer, effective March 21. Washington will replace COO Brian Millham, who will retire on May 1 and transition to an advisory role, and CFO Amy Weaver, who said in 2024 that she would transition from the firm once her replacement was named. Washington, who has served as EVP and CFO of Gilead Sciences, CFO of Hyperion Solutions, and chief accounting officer at PeopleSoft, has been a member of Salesforce’s board since 2013 and lead independent director since 2022. Salesforce chair and CEO Marc Benioff welcomed the appointment, saying Washington has been a key architect of the firm’s strategy to “accelerate the rise of Agentforce — the first digital labor platform”. Fortune notes the recent trend in CFOs taking on responsibilities associated with the COO role, with Salesforce taking that consolidation “a step further”.

 

Fortune

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The Wall Street Journal interviews Dan Crumb, chief financial officer of the Kansas City Chiefs, about how he manages the team's financial strategies. The team's recent successes - although it was defeated last night at Super Bowl LIX by the Philadelphia Eagles - have bolstered its finances, enabling capital improvements including new seating and premium spaces in Arrowhead Stadium. The team has also diversified revenue through partnerships and international expansion, and has taken steps to maximize revenue by investing in stadium upgrades. Regarding the impact of high interest rates and inflation, Crumb says: "We really haven’t felt it on the revenue side because our revenues have continued to increase, and that’s tied to our fan experience, our team on the field."

 

Wall Street Journal

A new survey by Gartner has found that chief financial officers are expected to perform beyond the traditional scope of the finance function in 2025. The research highlighted multiple times where CFOs have been asked to assume ownership or co-ownership. Additionally, there is a growing need for CFOs to drive stronger data and analytics strategy for enterprise, to ultimately boost the bottom line. Other common roles that CFOs are overseeing include AI, information technology, real estate, cybersecurity and ESG. Gartner adds that CFOs are expecting more from their leadership teams to help them remain cognizant of day-to-day finance activities and not overlook potential leverage points.

 

Gartner

The corporate landscape is witnessing an unprecedented wave of CEO departures, with data from the headhunting firm Russell Reynolds Associates showing that 202 CEOs stepped down in 2024, a 9% increase from the previous year. This is partly attributed to the economic climate, with Laura Sanderson of Russell Reynolds saying “increased volatility . . . has made the role harder, more relentless and higher pressure.” Activist investors are also playing their part, agitating for change in a bid to revive share prices. Meanwhile, analysis from stockbroker AJ Bell shows that nearly a dozen listed CFOs have already stepped down this year. The report also shows that the average tenure of a CFO is down by 20% to just four years. David Anderson, a partner in Deloitte’s finance department, says: “The CFO's job would be much easier to manage if it were neatly defined,” adding: “The reality? The CFO's role is continuing to expand far beyond their traditional responsibilities.”

 

The Sunday Times

The Sunday Times

Chief information officers say that despite the increasing prevalence of artificial intelligence (AI) tools, companies have yet to establish a way of charging for them as they seek to make the tools cheap enough that people want to buy them but expensive enough to cover costs. While vendors have typically used monthly subscriptions, some are looking at different models in an attempt to gain more users and more adoption, including per use payments and plans that allow enterprises to toggle their spend minimums. Jared Spataro, chief marketing officer of AI at Work for Microsoft, says: “A per user per month charge can sometimes be difficult for them if they’re trying to go to broad scale because they’re just not sure how to value something.”

 

The Wall Street Journal

Tech giants plan to significantly increase their investments in artificial intelligence this year, following record outlays in 2024. Combined capital expenditures for Microsoft, Google, and Meta are projected to reach at least $215bn, marking a 45% annual increase. Amazon did not provide a full-year estimate but plans to boost its capital spending to over $100bn, primarily focusing on AI development. “We think virtually every application that we know of today is going to be reinvented with AI inside of it,” said Amazon chief executive Andy Jassy. Google CEO Sundar Pichai observed: “I think part of the reason we are so excited about the AI opportunity is we know we can drive extraordinary use cases because the cost of actually using it is going to keep coming down.”

 

Wall Street Journal

Meta is to commence company-wide layoffs while expediting the hiring of machine learning engineers, the Facebook parent company told employees in internal memos seen by Reuters on Friday. The process is set to start today in most countries, including the U.S. According to one of the posts, authored by Meta’s head of people Janelle Gale, employees in Germany, France, Italy, and the Netherlands would be exempt "due to local regulations." Those in more than a dozen other countries throughout Europe, Asia and Africa will receive their notifications between February 11 and February 18, the company said. Meanwhile, a separate memo posted by VP of Engineering for Monetization Peng Fan asked staff to assist with a fast-tracked hiring process for machine learning engineers and other "business critical" engineering roles.

 

Reuters

German consumer goods group Henkel has announced the sale of its North American retailer brands business to an affiliate of First Quality Enterprises, LLC. The move is part of Henkel's ongoing portfolio optimization strategy, which began in February 2022. Since the start of 2022, Henkel has sold or discontinued brands and activities, generating over €1bn ($1.04bn) in sales. The company has chosen not to disclose the financial specifics of this latest deal.

 

Reuters

The U.S. economy added 143,000 jobs in January and the unemployment rate edged down to 4%, showing cooling but still solid gains for the labor market, the Labor Department said Friday in its first monthly jobs report of 2025. The unemployment rate dipped 0.1 point to 4%. Economists were projecting the unemployment rate would stay at 4.1% and 170,000 jobs would be added, according to FactSet estimates. Healthcare led January’s job gains with 44,000. Retail added 34,000 and the public sector, 32,000. However, leisure and hospitality, which includes restaurants and bars, lost 3,000 jobs. Professional and business services, a sprawling sector that includes white-collar and other office workers, shed 11,000. Meanwhile, manufacturing added just 3,000 positions and construction, 4,000. Average hourly earnings rose 17 cents to $35.87, pushing up the yearly increase from 3.9% to 4.1%. “The foundation of the labor market remains incredibly sturdy,” Cory Stahle, an economist at the Indeed Hiring Lab, wrote in a statement on Friday. “Revisions to the past year’s data may have rearranged a few rooms in the house, but they did not fundamentally change the structure.”

 

CNN

USA Today

Fox News

Wall Street Journal

The University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index dropped to 67.8 in mid-February, from 71.1 at the end of January, its lowest level in seven months. The deterioration in consumer sentiment came amid a surge by year-ahead inflation expectations, which spiked to 4.3% in February from 3.3% in January, reaching the highest level since November 2023. Long-run inflation expectations also ticked up, to 3.3%. “The decrease was pervasive, with Republicans, independents and Democrats all posting sentiment declines from January, along with consumers across age and wealth groups,” said Joanne Hsu, director of the survey.

 

Nasdaq

Reuters

Wal Street Journal

Wall Street Journal

Tax season is causing stress among Americans, with a new survey from accounting software firm Invoice Home showing that only two in five are confident in their ability to file taxes. The complexity of filing taxes is attributed to social media and the attention economy, which makes it harder for people to focus on mundane tasks like filing taxes. Tax season is one of the only times of the year when most adults have to sit down and review their financial situation. Many filers try to file their taxes sooner than later, but filing too early can be damaging. Gen Z and Millennials are more inclined to trust artificial intelligence (AI) over an accountant for tax filing assistance, while 43% of Gen Xers and 25% of Baby Boomers, who grew up with the paper filing system, also express confidence in the technology. AI can provide comprehensive tax advice in a matter of seconds, but many free LLM versions, like ChatGPT-4o, often suggest users utilize tax software companies like TurboTax and H&R Block to complete their filing.

 

Fortune

Venture capitalist Katerina Stroponiati believes that older founders have something unique to offer and has launched a small fund to back founders of early-stage tech companies who are over 50. Pointing to advantages that older founders have which tend to go overlooked by investors, the Wall Street Journal argues that they have connections, credibility, expertise and industry experience. Analysis by economists from MIT, Northwestern, the University of Pennsylvania and the U.S. Census Bureau looked at millions of American companies that were started between 2007 and 2014 and found that the average age of their founders was almost 42. “The highest success rates in entrepreneurship,” the report said, “come from founders in middle age and beyond.”    

 

The Wall Street Journal