CFOVILLE

Javier Idrovo

Javier Idrovo is a big fan of working for a private equity-backed firm. The Varsity Brands CFO loves the sense of urgency that comes with working for a PE owner, and has big plans for the KKR-owned sports and cheerleading apparel and yearbook company he joined last year. This includes considering a possible IPO.

Idrovo isn’t new to private equity. He spent three years as the CFO of Blue Triton Brands, the former North American bottled water business of Nestlé, which was purchased by PE firm One Rock Capital and Metropoulos & Co. He also worked for more than 11 years at candy company Hershey’s, including five years as chief accounting officer.

Prior to starting with Varsity Brands, Idrovo said he was considering joining a publicly traded company. “To me, this sense of urgency, alignment on really getting things done, because we have a limited timeframe, was really the driving force for me to continue in…the private equity world.”

He’s “perfectly fine” knowing he may have to find a new job in three to four years. “That’s part of the excitement, because then you go into the next opportunity.”

KKR will likely try to take Varsity Brands public, Idrovo says.—LB

      

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EARNINGS

General Motors

It’s a tale as old as time: North Americans love a full-sized pickup truck. And while fuel prices remain high, General Motors boosted its 2026 outlook last week to a range of $14 billion to $16 billion in pre-tax operating earnings.

But CFO Paul Jacobson isn’t ignoring the impact of fuel prices on his business.

“I want to make sure that we’re really clear. I don’t think we are projecting lower commodity prices for the second half than the first half…the reason for the guidance raise is, if we believe that it’s plateaued here, we can bank what we’ve sort of earned ahead of expectations in the first half of the year,” he told investors Tuesday.

GM’s fleet sales had their best first half in more than five years, Jacobson said, including record sales of full-size pickups and the automaker’s “highest government sales since 2009.” CEO Mary Barra added that the US Army, after initially ordering 1,200 infantry squad vehicles from GM, plans to order another 10,000 vehicles.

But GM is still incurring costs from downshifting on EVs.—DL

      

TECH BUDGETS

Morning Brew Inc.

There are good surprises, bad surprises…and then there are AI surprises.

The lattermost is all too common, according to a new report from Harness, which found that almost three-fourths (72%) of companies experienced a surprise bill or an unexpected spike in AI costs within the past year. (The findings were based on a survey of 700 global FinOps and engineering leaders.)

Unexpected costs aren’t the only thing emptying enterprises’ pockets. Harness found that a little over one-quarter (26%) of overall AI spend is wasted. To put that into perspective, that’s about $130,000 down the drain for companies with a monthly AI budget of $500,000.

The visibility issue. In its report, Harness said surprise AI bills and wasted spend are byproducts of three structural issues within companies. One is gaps in visibility, which Harness’s FinOps Advisory Director Patrick Brogan told IT Brew is partly driven by provider sprawl as organizations tap multiple AI providers at once for services.

Questions over who owns AI costs contribute to the problem, IT Brew reports.—BM

      

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market forces

Francis Scialabba

Today’s top finance reads.

Stat: More than $3 billion. That’s the cash purchase price for CBIZ, which is being acquired by Grant Thornton Advisors. (the Wall Street Journal)

Quote: “Human in the loop isn’t the same thing as meaningful human judgment. So when you think about what matters to finance people, payroll practitioners, HR people, they’re not looking for human oversight as a box to check.”—Helena Almeida, managing counsel and chief AI legal officer, ADP (CFO Dive)

Read: A deep dive into the AI infrastructure development boom, which one expert called “the largest scale infrastructure build-out in the history of humanity.” (New York Times)

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EVENT

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Jobs

Skip the noise and cut to the jobs that matter. CollabWORK curates openings from top employers and shares them directly in trusted spaces like CFO Brew—click here to see the full list for readers like you.

• Chief Financial Officer at Tidelands Health
• Chief Financial Officer at Milegon LLC
• Deputy Chief Financial Officer at Port of Seattle
• Associate Director, Corporate Development at 5AM Ventures
• Associate - Corporate Development at Caris Life Sciences