When Justin Greenberger started at General Electric right out of college, he was enrolled in the company's leadership program, where he learned lifelong lessons in various areas including tech, cybersecurity and healthcare. "It's sort of like the GE Marines," he told me, referring to the rotation training.
Greenberger, the former executive audit manager of information technology at GE, recalls how he gained experience working in different business units and the invaluable insight learned from daily interactions with corporate leaders including finance chiefs of each department.
Greenberger, now the chief customer officer at Optro (formerly known as AuditBoard), a cloud-based platform for audit and risk management, sees the rise of AI as a new "dawn of subject matter expertise," which has important implications for the audit function.
"If you are a domain expert, you're going to do very, very well over the next five to 10 years. From an audit standpoint, we are seeing the rise of what we call 'audit engineers.' These are hybrid, cross-functional individuals who understand system maps and data, but truly understand risk and where the risk lies in the company," he said.
I asked Greenberger how he would model his own training program today for an audit team to succeed. Here's an edited version of our conversation:
What would your best advice be for CFOs in terms of training an audit team?
The three things I would look for are:
1?? Subject Matter Expertise: Being able to make decisions and having deep domain expertise. If you think about agentic AI and everything else we're doing right now, we are leaving human judgment up to the individual because judgment itself is a critical control. Having domain judgment is essential, whether you're in financial services and banking or healthcare and life sciences.
2?? System Fluency: Having an understanding of how systems interact-whether that's an ERP [Enterprise Resource Planning] to an MRP [Material Requirements Planning], or data sitting in a master data lake. Understanding how systems and data flow is truly important.
3?? Pattern Analysis: Understanding what is happening at a portfolio level. If you look at controls across an enterprise, individual controls are typically what's assessed. But looking forward, as companies become able to test controls in 70% less time, you are really managing a portfolio of control data and fact patterns. You need someone who can tease out those patterns and make decisions across different sets of controls.
Those are the three big things: Expertise in a specific area or domain, an understanding of data flow through the enterprise and portfolio-level fact pattern analysis.
?? Share your thoughts: What do you think of Justin's advice? Or what would be your best advice on this topic for CFOs or finance leaders? Reply to this email, and we may feature the best insight in a future newsletter.
The Day Ahead
📆 Earnings
Campbell's
Ciena
Lululemon Athletica
Planet Labs
Samsara
UiPath
Victoria's Secret
Zscaler
📈 Economic Indicators
The ISM releases its Services Purchasing Managers' Index for August.
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What Else Matters to CFOs
Here's a surprise about the countries at the center of the bond-market selloff: They're all borrowing far less than Uncle Sam, WSJ reporter Jason Douglas writes.
A look at the details: This year, the International Monetary Fund expects Japan to have the smallest budget deficit in the Group of Seven advanced economies for the third year running, at around 2% of gross domestic product.
Excluding interest payments, Italy is headed for a small surplus. The U.K. and France are borrowing more, but the U.S. is in a league of its own, with a budget deficit forecast by the IMF to reach 7.5% of GDP this year and stay there through 2030.
And here's another surprise: Growth is one key distinction, however. The U.S. is forecast to grow faster than other major economies in the years ahead, propelled by the AI boom emanating from Silicon Valley and robust consumer spending.
What Does a Bond Selloff Mean for American Consumers?
There Are Four Forces Pressuring Bonds: War Is No. 1
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Google Avoids Breakup of Dominant Ad Tech Business
Investor David Booth on Life, Stocks and (Not) Trying to Beat the Market
Uber's $15 Billion Takeover Bid Gets Delivery Hero Board Backing
Why Washington's 'Economic D-Day' Against Iran Faces Steep Odds
Highlights From the Messy Divorce Trial of a Hedge-Fund Titan
New York City Temporarily Bans AI in Classrooms Through Middle School
Canada Doesn't Want to Be the Next Venezuela
Podcast: Inside the U.S. Deal to Get Venezuela's Oil
📈 Earnings wrapup
Brown-Forman Quarterly Sales Slip on Tequila Slowdown
Ryanair Cuts Traffic Target to Reduce Exposure to Unhedged Winter Oil
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The Big Number
Percentage increase of sales of nonalcoholic beer, spirits and wine in the U.S. in the 52 weeks ended July 18, compared with the previous 52-week period, according to NielsenIQ. The beverages have surged while traditional alcohol sales have stalled, with sales of nonalcoholic beer climbing to nearly $235 million for the three months ended June 27.
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CFO Moves
The German telecommunications group Deutsche Telekom said Chief Financial Officer Christian Illek would step down in April, citing his age, after more than eight years in the role and 20 years with the company. The company said Wednesday that the 62-year-old would be replaced by Dhananjay Mirchandani, who joined the Frankfurt-listed group in 2019. The company said Jan Hofmeyr would become a new board member for product and technology, while Mladen Mitic would be promoted to chief product and digital officer. Hofmeyr most recently led product and technology for Amazon Web Services' Edge division.
-Joe Stonor contributed to today's Ledger.
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The WSJ Leadership Institute's CFO Journal offers corporate leaders and professionals CFO analysis, advice and commentary to make informed decisions. We cover topics including corporate tax, accounting, regulation, capital markets, management and strategy.
Follow us on X @WSJCFO. The WSJ CFO Journal Team comprises reporters Kristin Broughton, Jennifer Williams and Bureau Chief Walden Siew.
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