We don’t sail often. And if we’re really getting into semantics, we don’t sail at all. Like, ever. We have never sailed. That’s probably the more accurate way to put it.

So when we say “headwinds,” we mean it in the CFO way, like inflation and high interest rates, not wind blowing in front of you, or however boat people use it. And when we say “tailwinds,” well…same same but different.

We wrote about the biggest headwinds in 2025, which you probably could’ve predicted from a mile (or whatever unit of measurement sailors use) away. The usual suspects—an uncertain macro environment, tech-related risks, talent concerns—all cropped up.

But if you’re going to talk about tailwinds in 2025—by which we mean bright spots for business, not sailor talk—you might want to call up that frenemy from college who’s randomly always on a boat, because nautical knowledge comes in handy here.

At least, that’s what Michael Bayer, CFO of Wasabi, a cloud storage company, who knows just enough about sailing, wants other CFOs to understand. The major tailwinds of 2025 were really no different than the headwinds—it’s all just a matter of framing, in his mind.

“If you think about a sailing analogy, a headwind, you think of it as a bad thing, but it can still help you tack. Tacking is [when] you’re going sideways against the wind, and you use it,” he told CFO Brew. “Even if you have a headwind, you can still move forward, and it becomes a very interesting force that you use.”

Keep reading.—NP

The finance team and the sustainability team have long been like horses in a race. They’re running on the same track but in parallel lanes, sometimes wearing blinders that can limit what they see of each other.

They both collect large amounts of data to understand the progress of the company. They both have targets they have to hit. And they both have to report those numbers—though one has historically been voluntary while the other is mandatory.

But that’s changing. The path forward has gotten murky after the SEC dropped its climate rule, but mandatory and standardized regulations are still coming globally, including in California, Australia, and in the EU, although it’s slashed some of its requirements. Finance teams are increasingly sneaking a peek at the sustainability team’s reports. This is causing what Brad Sparks, executive director of the Accounting for Sustainability Foundation in the US, calls a “confusion of ownership.”

But his company has been working on this intersection of finance and sustainability for 20 years, so it has some best practices to pass along. Sparks spoke with CFO Brew about what he sees as finance professionals’ take on sustainability responsibilities.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What is the role of the finance department in sustainability goals?

What we think is so critical for CFOs and finance teams is they sit at the heart of the organization. They control the flow of money. They help influence decisions. They’re able to articulate and communicate to key decision-makers within the organization the activities that the organization should be looking toward and how to plan and prepare for those. Most importantly, they’re stewards of value creation. Sustainability is connected and needs the support of those areas to be able to advance within the organization, most importantly, probably that linkage to sustainable value creation. So that’s why we think they’re really critical.

Keep reading.—JK

Like the youngest sibling in the family, AI-related initiatives are getting whatever they want—which, in most cases, is a budget to get the job done.

According to a December report by Emburse, which builds expense and travel management software, 58% of surveyed US and UK business leaders believe AI-related purchases are the easiest to approve. And business leaders are using this information to their advantage: More than six in 10 (62%) claim to have linked at least one software purchase to an AI initiative to get budget approvals.

Fast pass. Michele Shepard, Emburse’s CRO, told IT Brew that while AI projects may have initially gotten easy approvals as companies bought into industry hype over the technology, business leaders are now funding projects because of their long-term benefits.

“Initially…it was, ‘Oh, it’s the next cool thing,’” Shepard said. “But the reality is, it is driving significant cost benefit, ROI, real efficiency savings for organizations.”

Keep reading on IT Brew.—BM