As chief financial officers increasingly serve as co-pilots to chief executives, chief accounting officers are stepping into pivotal roles that blend operational mastery with forward-looking influence. Automation and artificial intelligence are reshaping finance hierarchies, allowing CFOs to focus on scenario planning, forecasting, and value creation while CAOs manage governance, compliance, risk, ESG reporting, IT integrations, and process enhancements. This shift, detailed in a December 2025 Journal of Accountancy analysis, marks an inflection point for the profession, with CAOs emerging as essential partners in business transformation.

Over the past decade, CAOs have led implementations of major FASB and IASB standards on revenue recognition, leases, and financial instruments, extending their reach into collaborations with business units. Controllers, often reporting to CAOs, are absorbing technical expertise, risk management, and AI execution in a trickle-down effect. According to the 2024 EY Global DNA of the Financial Controller Survey, 86% of controllers anticipate significant role changes in the next five years, underscoring the breadth of this evolution.

The proliferation of CAO positions reflects this momentum. Live Data Technologies reports over 10,000 CAOs globally as of October 2024, a 60.4% increase from 1990 and 36.9% from 2000, as noted in CFO Brew. This growth aligns with CFOs delegating tactical duties to prioritize strategy.

CFOs Elevate, CAOs Anchor Operations

Rachael Crump, CAO at Insight, a U.S. tech firm, exemplifies this dynamic. ‘The financial statement and the integrated audit are always going to be top of my list, but it’s more my knowledge and viewpoint of that that I take into budgeting and five-year strategic planning,’ Crump told the Journal of Accountancy. At Insight, which aims to be ‘AI-first,’ Crump drives transformations across finance, HR, and legal, achieving expense reductions through AI integration.

Tom Hood, executive vice president at the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants, describes transaction-layer automation via generative AI as accelerating entry-level role shifts, pushing responsibilities toward validation, forecasting, supply chains, M&A, and contracts. Jennifer McCalman, vice president and CAO at The Hershey Co., led an ERP migration from SAP ECC to S/4HANA, slashing manual journal entries by 60% with a 90% goal, embedding her team in procurement, contracts, and M&A for proactive issue prevention.

Christopher Gullotta, senior vice president and chief accountant at Kyndryl, emphasizes front-end involvement: ‘In advance of signing contracts, in advance of executing major shifts in business, whether we’re doing M&A deals or complex client transactions, our role has been much more front-end based.’ He advocates curiosity: ‘How can I be more curious about where I’m going with the work that I’m doing? What are my business partners doing to generate the outcomes?’

AI’s Double-Edged Acceleration

AI automates anomaly detection, fraud flagging, and transaction processing, freeing CAOs for interpretive guidance. Hood notes this as an ‘inflection point’ for accounting. Yet caution persists; McCalman at Hershey views AI as ‘inevitable, but it’s just not mature enough yet that we would rely on it for accounting and financial processes,’ stressing CPA scrutiny of AI’s ‘black box’ with controls, per a November 2025 Journal of Accountancy piece.

Boundaries between controllership and FP&A are blurring, with CAOs integrating analytics and planning. A March 2024 Forbes Councils post highlights CAOs evolving as CFOs partner across operations, IT, sales, and R&D, leveraging data for insights. CFO Dive in April 2024 describes a ‘symbiotic relationship’ between CFOs and CAOs as finance drives strategy amid digital shifts.

Process excellence is paramount. McCalman stresses: ‘Process has become much more important. Really understanding a process, being able to know how you control that process, how you can rely on that process, and how that shapes what your people need to do around that process has been one of the biggest things I’ve seen change.’ Her team’s broad scope links functions: ‘We really have such a broad scope of understanding, while we might not be experts in every functional area, we understand how they all link together.’

Essential Skills for Next-Gen CAOs

Key competencies include analytical prowess for predictive analysis and scenario planning; technological literacy in AI, ERP, and digital risks; business acumen for M&A, investor relations, and innovation; process and risk management; curiosity and communication; and a transformation mindset. McCalman notes transformation ‘brings you to the table and gets people to listen.’

A Fortune August 2025 study links empowering strong CAOs to CFO retention, positioning the role as elevated leadership amid steady CFO salary hikes. CFO Brew in September 2024 terms the CFO-CAO dynamic ‘complementary,’ with CAOs like Patrick Russell at Jackson Healthcare overseeing accounting, FP&A, treasury, and payroll to free CFOs for strategy.

Recent appointments affirm this trajectory. In January 2026, Photronics named Rui (Elie) Zhang CAO after Eric Rivera’s ascent from CAO to president and CFO, per StockTitan. KPMG’s 2025 CAO Agenda notes 74% of C-level executives and 84% of direct reports affirm heightened financial reporting importance, despite perception shifts.

Quantifying the Strategic Surge

CAO salaries average $198,728 in 2025, per PayScale, reflecting demand. Spencer Stuart portrays the modern CAO as a ‘strategic leader’ and infrastructure builder. In private equity, ECA Partners emphasizes CAOs for financial oversight, controls, and value creation in portfolio firms.

Oracle differentiates: Controllers handle tactical records; CAOs partner CFOs strategically on governance and investor relations. FinOptimal underscores CAOs’ C-suite status, reporting to CFOs while aiding financial strategy. A Reddit r/Accounting thread clarifies CFOs’ external focus versus CAOs’ internal operations.

This realignment positions CAOs not as mere guardians of the past but architects of the future, enabling CFOs to navigate uncertainty while ensuring operational resilience. As AI matures and regulations evolve, their influence will only deepen.