Start your day with breakfast, connect with fellow attendees, and get ready for a day of insights and inspiration.

It comes with no surprise that the responsibilities of the CFO have expanded dramatically in recent years. Take, for instance, Audible's Chief FInancial Officer and Growth Officer, Cynthia Chu, who now oversees both the marketing efforts of the company alongside the financial business unit.

Cynthia joins CFO Brew's opening session to discuss how her role has grown over the years, the impact on the broader finance function and business unit, and her recommendations for how CFOs and finance executives can become strategic partners, technological integrators, and digital transformers in their evolving roles.

Today's finance executives are expected to be strategists, technologists, talent leaders, and growth drivers all while maintaining their core financial responsibilities. Add AI in the mix and it feels like just one more hat to wear in leading adoption efforts. But what if AI could actually help executives wear all these hats more effectively?

During this session, we'll consider the tangible ways AI is becoming a personal toolkit for forward-thinking CFOs and finance professionals by making sharper real-time decisions, juggling complex responsibilities, and driving business growth. We'll sit down with Sage's Chief Technologist, Aaron Harris, to understand how AI solutions have become the key to mastering the many roles of the CFO, enhancing both personal and team performance, and positioning themselves as trusted voices for broader, organization-wide AI adoption.

With expert advice from leaders at EY, The Conference Board, and Reed Smith LLP, this session prepares the audience for the ever-evolving regulatory landscape, particularly in the year of an administration change. As teams prepare to navigate complex compliance requirements while driving business growth, this session unpacks the key tools for business-as-usual in a not business-as-usual time.

AI, automation, and other emerging technologies are creating endless possibilities for how finance teams can embrace innovation and efficiencies to close age-old gaps in operations.

During this conversation, CFO Brew sits down with industry experts not only to discuss the technology available, but how financial leaders can scale adoption beyond just pilot-to-pilot models. Whether you're integrating solutions into internal collaboration efforts or to improve external reporting measures, we’ll answer questions around what technologies are best to adopt for what categories of the work and how leadership can partner with technology to better drive their financial strategy.

In 2025, CFOs are facing a perfect storm: a shrinking talent pool, waves of technological disruption, and opportunities for high growth on the horizon. During this conversation, we’re exploring how finance leaders are addressing critical talent gaps while competing across industries. Discover how proactive strategies in targeted upskilling, robust talent pipelines, and retention-focused cultures can reimagine career paths to drive innovation in organizations and ultimately determine how well finance teams can adapt to the technological changes and role evolution.

The drive towards digital transformation transcends FOMO and even cost-savings’ impact alone. It’s about making strategic decisions with real business impact. But as finance leaders advocate for and invest in new solutions and tools, how can they be sure these investments generate meaningful returns? During this conversation, CFO Brew is joined by industry experts to explore case studies of success in AI and automation in action, learn how finance and IT leaders can align on infrastructure decisions, and how business executives are defining ROI metrics for better decisions.

Guided by executive insights, this session serves as a crystal ball of sorts to better understand what CFOs, business leaders, and their teams can anticipate in the year to come and the role both talent and technology will play in their overall success.