Good morning. Boards are pushing CFOs into a bigger operational mandate, and the last two weeks alone have produced three new examples.
—Zoetis Inc. (No. 434 on the Fortune 500) announced on Aug. 6 that James “Jay” Saccaro was appointed EVP, CFO and chief operating officer (COO), effective Aug. 17. The combination of the CFO and COO roles is new at the company. Wetteny Joseph, currently EVP and CFO, who will transition to an advisory role, did not hold the COO role. Saccaro most recently served as VP and CFO at GE HealthCare.
—Jeremy Hofmann, CFO of Zillow Group Inc., is taking on the additional role of COO, the company announced on Aug. 5. The board expanded Hofmann’s role because of his proven track record as CFO and his understanding of operational dependencies across the business during his nine years at the company, according to the announcement. Jun Choo, who has held the role of COO since November 2024, is stepping down immediately to focus on his health.
—At Owens Corning (No. 385 on the Fortune 500), Todd W. Fister, who served as EVP, CFO since September 2023, temporarily took on the combined role of chief financial and operating officer in May. The company announced on July 29 that Fister will now serve as president and chief operating officer, effective Aug. 10. Jonathan M. Collins was appointed EVP and CFO.
There is also a movement toward the fusion of the two roles, leading to formal structural changes. Last year, Salesforce announced the newly created position of COFO—chief operating and financial officer—with the appointment of Robin Washington. A finance veteran, Washington spent decades working on financial and operational strategy, including serving as EVP and CFO of Gilead Sciences, CFO of Hyperion Solutions, and chief accounting officer of PeopleSoft.
The pattern reflects a broader shift in how boards define the CFO’s mandate. CFOs are often expected to assume an outsized mandate that extends well beyond traditional finance, encompassing both business and technological challenges and opportunities, according to Russell Reynolds Associates.
According to L.E.K. Consulting’s 2025 Office of the CFO Survey of more than 100 finance chiefs across industries, nearly two-thirds said their responsibilities now overlap with the COO role. In about 10% of companies surveyed, the positions are fully merged.
Boards are leaning heavily toward C-suite consolidation to drive capital efficiency and tighter data integration, and an experienced CFO can absorb operational frameworks through the lens of resource allocation. The trend of assigning the CFO the additional role of COO, or moving a CFO into a full COO role, continues.
As AI reshapes the office of the CFO into a command center for data-driven decision-making, expect more boards to test just how far one executive’s mandate can stretch.
Sheryl Estrada
Sheryl.Estrada@fortune.com
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
