CFOVILLE

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Overall CFO turnover is trending at 18.3% for the year and is on track to hit its highest rate since 2019, according to a projection from Crist Kolder Associates.

In 2025, the full-year turnover rate was 18.1%. And, in 2020, when the Covid-19 virus plunged the US into recession, CFO turnover reached 18.2%.

The executive search firm’s mid-year Volatility Report found that as of July 31, 10.7% of the 665 Fortune 500 (2026) and S&P 500 companies it tracks had experienced a change in CFOs this year, including Berkshire Hathaway, Broadcom, and ExxonMobil.

Kirby Perkins, a Crist Kolder managing director and co-producer of the Volatility report, pointed to market choppiness earlier this year as a possible reason for the turnover surge. “Whether it’s good market conditions or bad or poor market conditions, you tend to see an uptick in CFO turnover,” Perkins told CFO Brew.

Frequent job switching by senior executives “doesn’t have the stigma” it once did, Perkins said. She also noted the influx of private equity firms, which are “increasingly picking off CFOs” from the Fortune 500 and S&P 500.

Diversity in the CFO chair has stalled.—LB

      

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ACCOUNTING

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Richard Kopelman, longtime CEO of top-20 accounting firm Aprio, has seen the organization through many shifts since he started out in 1992 as a staff accountant. But in the last few years, the changes have come rapid-fire.

In 2017, the Atlanta-based firm, then known as Habif, Arogeti & Wynne (HA&W), rebranded to Aprio. In 2024, it took on private equity investment from Charlesbank Capital. And since then it’s been an M&A machine, making about 30 acquisitions since October 2024. As a result, its revenue has climbed 46% from $420.8 million in 2024 to $615.9 million last year, according to Accounting Today.

Kopelman spoke with CFO Brew about how PE investment has changed the firm, why the acquisitions aren’t just growth for growth’s sake, and what he sees happening to the profession in this era of consolidation.

What do you look for in a firm you acquire?

It’s really about the people and the culture of the business. We have a defined and practiced culture in our 31 fundamentals of behavior that back up our brand.

Then we look for strategic fit on the service side: Is this adding the new capabilities that our clients need, is it adding a capability that expands our reach and capabilities within a specific industry, and continues to deepen our expertise in that area?

“Aprio Week” is a key part of integrating the firms Aprio acquires.—CV

      

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LABOR MARKET

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The Department of Labor (DOL) is reportedly tapping major tech players to help understand the data on AI’s impact on the workforce, according to acting Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling.

OpenAI, Google, Meta, and Amazon are some of the companies tapped to share data with the DOL in order to help it understand how businesses use AI and where the technology might be headed, Sonderling told Axios.

The new data from the tech giants would supplement the collection of ongoing government statistics, according to Sonderling, providing more insights into how companies are adopting AI and its implications for employees and the workforce. He told Axios the findings would be made public.

“The bottom line is—and I’ve been open about this—the government does not have the data,” Sonderling told Axios reporter Courtenay Brown during an event hosted by the Forum Club of the Palm Beaches that the agency has memorandums of understanding (MOUs) with a number of tech giants. “Who has the data? The large tech companies and the large Fortune 500 companies who are really going to be the most impacted by this.”

Economists and labor experts have warned that as AI is incorporated more and more into work and the labor market, its impact on working adults is largely unknown.

Some experts want the DOL to make collecting data on AI’s impact a priority.—AD

      

market forces

Francis Scialabba

Today’s top finance reads.

Stat: 60%. The percentage of American adults who consider themselves “working class,” according to the Pew Research Center. Among the 8,500 respondents, about “half of college grads and upper income adults”—with household incomes of $200k or higher—put themselves in that category. (Bloomberg)

Quote: “I’m going to paraphrase John Lennon here: Give disinflation a chance. We can wait one meeting. What’s the cost of waiting one meeting? Hiking 25 basis points, one meeting right now, is not going to bring the CPI down to 2%.”—Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller (CNBC)

Read: Volkswagen’s North American head is out after less than two years, as the German automaker struggles to regain its footing in the US amid new tariffs. (the Wall Street Journal)

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