Finance

Making a business case for AI

Published

2 years ago

June 26, 2024

Good morning. If you’re a CFO, you’ve been in a board meeting—or will be very soon—communicating your plan to invest in AI. For some insight into that process, I sat down with veteran tech CFO Mark Hawkins. His first piece of advice? “Clearly and unambiguously define the use case.”

“The less difficult it is to understand, the more credible the opportunity,” he explained. “When people can’t explain it, as a seasoned executive, it creates a yellow flag for me.”

Hawkins spent more than 40 years in corporate finance, most recently as president and CFO of Salesforce, which then appointed him president and CFO Emeritus, a position he held through November 2021. He’s also been CFO at Autodesk and Logitech, and he held various positions at Dell and Hewlett-Packard (HP).

Bringing it back to AI, it’s important for CFOs to share with board members “the math, the ROI, the metrics of success” to help build credibility but also be transparent about any risks, and work on building trust, Hawkins said. “It would be wise to really articulate the governance framework for technology,” he added.

It’s also important to make clear the opportunities and potential outcomes—and how those align with the company’s overarching goals and principles.

“When you’re presenting to a super-sophisticated group of technologically advanced people, and most of them could have deep engineering and science backgrounds, it’s a different level of dialogue,” Hawkins continued. Use cases often require additional details, for example.

By 2027, spending on AI software likely will grow to $297.9 billion, with a compound annual growth rate of 19.1%, according to Gartner. The firm’s research also found that boards are asking about AI more than three times as often as considerations tied to cloud computing.

During our conversation, I asked him his personal thoughts on AI, which he compared to electricity, also “a big paradigm.” Artificial intelligence, he said, is going down the path of augmenting people’s abilities and productivity, a journey that potentially includes significant value creation and a chance to create business models that don’t yet exist.

Hawkins also took a moment to reflect a bit on his own journey, including when, at age 21, he joined HP—at the time, a $3.1 billion company. In 2023, its annual revenue was $53.7 billion.

“It was the beginning of my journey into technology,” Hawkins said, “and I’ve been there ever since.”

Sheryl Estrada
sheryl.estrada@fortune.com

Leaderboard

Matt Lesmeister was promoted to CFO at flyExclusive, Inc. (NYSE American: FLYX), a private charter jet company, effective June 25. He will succeed interim CFO Billy Barnard. Lesmeister joined the company on May 30 as EVP and chief of staff and has 14 years of public company experience across various finance roles. Most recently, he served as VP of transformation and strategy at Fox Factory Holding Corp., Before that, Lesmeister served in various roles of increasing responsibility at United Technologies Corporation.

Kevin Nihill was named CFO at Rhinebeck Bancorp and Rhinebeck Bank (Nasdaq: RBKB). Nihill replaced former CFO, Michael McDermott, who retired from the bank after 23 years. Nihill most recently served as EVP and CFO at St. Mary’s Bank. He also served as SVP and treasurer at Berkshire Bank.

Big Deal

Mercer recently published new research about the impact of AI on productivity. The findings, created in partnership with Oxford Analytica, suggest that AI may boost developed markets’ GDP growth up 0.5%, with emerging markets potentially seeing a 0.2% boost in GDP growth.

Another key finding is sectors will experience different AI-enabled productivity boosts: finance and insurance (14%), information and technology (13.4%), manufacturing (6.9%), health care and social assistance (6.3%), transportation and warehousing (5.7%), and hospitality and food service (3.1%, according to Mercer.

Going deeper

“Federal Reserve governor says AI is ‘not going to replace’ central bankers—at least not yet,” is a new Fortune report by Michael del Castillo. He writes: “Lisa Cook, a Federal Reserve governor, isn’t afraid of losing her job to robots anytime soon. Speaking at an Economic Club of New York event on Tuesday, Cook said that when you’re a central bank governor every word counts in a way that not only caught her off guard at first but that likely will catch AI off guard for quite some time.”

Overheard

“By taking a human-first approach and developing AI tools that solve problems everyday people experience, businesses can reach a global audience with broad demographics.”

—Matthieu Rouif, CEO and cofounder of Photoroom, an AI-powered photo-editing app, writes in a new Fortune opinion piece.

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Finance

Consumer confidence plunges among younger adults

Published

5 hours ago

June 18, 2026

Press Room

Consumer confidence plunges among younger adults

Consumer confidence has plunged among traditionally optimistic younger adults amid fears for their personal finances and the wider economy, figures show.

GfK’s long-running Consumer Confidence Index remained unchanged at an overall score of minus 23 in June.

However, the analyst said this was was “misleading as, beneath the surface, there are new signs that confidence is weakening”.

Source: GfK

Neil Bellamy, consumer insights director at GfK, said: “The biggest fall this month is among those aged 16 to 29, traditionally one of the most optimistic groups.

“Here confidence has dropped 11 points over the past month to minus two, the lowest level seen for two years, driven by large falls in views on both their own personal finances and the wider economy.

“More broadly, there are now no demographic groups with a positive confidence score, including higher-income households earning £50,000 or more, who have slipped back into negative territory as of June.

“Confidence remains subdued and vulnerable to further economic or political uncertainty.”

Overall, confidence in personal finances over the coming year remained flat at minus two, four points lower than this time last year.

The measures of both personal finances and the economy over the previous 12 months were both slightly down, by two points and three points respectively, “reflecting the sense that things have been extremely tough over the last year for so many”, GfK said.

The only measure to increase was expectations for the wider economy over the next 12 months, up two points to minus 36 but still eight points below this time last year.

The major purchase index, an indicator of confidence in buying big ticket items, remained at minus 20, four points lower than June last year.

Finance

How US-Iran peace deal will affect our cost of living

Published

15 hours ago

June 18, 2026

Press Room

How US-Iran peace deal will affect our cost of living

“Ships of the World, start your engines. Let the oil flow!” said Donald Trump on social media after he announced the signing of an interim peace deal with Iran on Sunday. Under the agreement – which Iran acknowledged included a 60-day negotiating period for a final deal – the president said that following retrieval of mines, there would be a “toll free opening” of the Strait of Hormuz.

But many of the finer details remain “unclear”, said The Guardian. There are questions over the “exact timing of the reopening of the maritime route, who will oversee safe passage and whether any conditions will be applied”.

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Finance

Hong Kong graduates prefer careers in finance, survey finds

Published

1 day ago

June 17, 2026

Press Room

Hong Kong graduates prefer careers in finance, survey finds

Hong Kong graduates believe the city’s finance industry is its most attractive and stable sector, making them more optimistic about career opportunities than their global peers, according to a study by the CFA Institute, which trains investment managers.

The US-based institute’s “2026 Graduate Outlook Survey”, released on Wednesday, found that 71 per cent of Hong Kong graduates rated their career prospects between eight and 10 out of 10. The global average for that level of optimism was 59 per cent.

The graduates’ view of careers in finance reflected “both the sector’s resilience and Hong Kong’s continued strength as an international financial centre, which ranks third worldwide and first in Asia-Pacific”, the institute said in a statement.

The findings also indicated that young people were confident about Hong Kong’s role as an international financial centre, resilient amid global uncertainties, and strategically focused on improving skills, it said.

That confidence was “deeply grounded”, it said, with nearly 90 per cent believing they had the skills to succeed and clearly understood what employers were looking for, notwithstanding the wider adoption of artificial intelligence in the city.

“Rather than viewing AI as a threat, 38 per cent of Hong Kong graduates believe it has no negative impact on their job hunting, and 37 per cent believe it makes securing a job easier,” the institute said. “Three quarters are already actively using AI tools in their job applications, demonstrating a proactive, tool-first mindset.”