Good morning. Comfortable New 12 months! Right now’s CFOs are anticipated not solely to personal the numbers, but in addition to behave as core strategists, digital leaders, and enterprise change brokers.
I just lately talked about this matter with Robinhood CFO Jason Warnick and his successor, Shiv Verma, SVP of finance and technique and treasurer. At Robinhood, the Menlo Park, Calif.–primarily based fintech and asset buying and selling platform, Verma is entering into the highest finance job. Warnick is retiring and transferring into an advisory position this quarter, remaining with the corporate till Sept. 1.
Earlier in his profession, Warnick—who joined Robinhood in late 2018 after twenty years at Amazon—stated he was as soon as requested by a mentor, “What do you assume is an important side of a CFO’s job?” Warnick answered, “capital allocation.”
“That’s essential; that’s what drives future returns for the corporate,” he recollects his mentor telling him. “However you don’t get to allocate the capital your self.” A very powerful ability a CFO has, Warnick stated, is influencing the final word decision-maker—the CEO. “So our job is to carry knowledge and finance into the dialogue and affect the end result,” he stated.
Verma has spent lots of time with Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev, the board, and cross-functional leaders in engineering, authorized, compliance, and danger, specializing in the selections that matter most for Robinhood’s long-term trajectory, he stated.
Whereas each roles are essential on their very own, the standard of the CEO–CFO partnership typically issues greater than what both chief can obtain individually. CEOs are leaning on their CFOs as strategic thought companions as companies confront speedy technological change and evolving stakeholder expectations. In that context, finance chiefs present enterprise-wide visibility and assist flip ambiguity into concrete situations, trade-offs, and selections.
Verma, now Tenev’s strategic associate, describes Robinhood’s previous seven years as a compressed Silicon Valley life cycle: early build-out, pandemic-era hypergrowth, the GameStop frenzy, and an IPO, adopted by a pointy selloff. In 2022, Robinhood reduce roughly 30% of its workforce and shifted to a common supervisor mannequin supposed to chop extreme administration layers and provides managers broader accountability for his or her companies. “We’ve come a good distance,” Verma stated, “to a really expert public firm.” In 2024, the corporate earned $2.95 billion in complete web income and annual web earnings of $1.41 billion. In September, it joined the S&P 500.
Robinhood has additionally managed to create a mannequin of company governance and succession planning. To learn how the corporate dealt with the CFO transition, you may learn extra right here.
Sheryl Estrada
sheryl.estrada@fortune.com
Leaderboard
Jason Chung was promoted to CFO of Riot Platforms, Inc. (Nasdaq: RIOT), efficient March 1, 2026. Chung succeeds Colin Yee, who has served as the corporate’s CFO since 2022. Chung at present serves as Riot’s EVP and head of company improvement and technique, and brings twenty years of expertise in funding banking and company finance to the CFO position. He’ll assume management of Riot’s finance group whereas persevering with to supervise company improvement and investor relations.
Dan Moorhead was appointed CFO of Past Air, Inc. (Nasdaq: XAIR), a industrial stage medical gadget and biopharmaceutical firm, efficient Jan. 5. Duke Dewrell, the corporate’s controller, who served as interim CFO, will resume his prior position as of that date. Moorhead brings greater than 20 years of finance management expertise. He beforehand served as CFO of Zynex, Inc. Earlier than that, Moorhead spent 10 years at Evolving Techniques, Inc. (acquired by PartnerOne, Inc.), serving as CFO following earlier roles as VP of finance and administration and company controller.
Large Deal
Elon Musk’s electrical automobile firm Tesla (No. 43 on the Fortune 500) launched its fourth-quarter 2025 manufacturing, deliveries, and deployments report on Friday.
In This autumn, Tesla produced over 434,000 autos, delivered over 418,000 autos, and deployed 14.2 GWh of power storage merchandise, which is a document for deployments, in keeping with the corporate. Tesla gross sales totaled 418,227 autos in This autumn, in need of analysts’ expectations of round 440,000 autos, together with a FactSet consensus of roughly 440,000. Gross sales have been impacted partly by the expiration of a $7,500 tax credit score for EV purchases that was ended by the Trump administration on the finish of September.
For the complete yr 2025, the corporate delivered 1.64 million autos, down about 9% from 1.79 million in 2024. As compared, Chinese language competitor BYD offered about 2.26 million electrical autos in 2025, now making it the world’s greatest EV maker.
Going deeper
“5 takeaways on Venezuela within the aftermath of Maduro: A memo to CEOs” is a brand new Fortune opinion piece by Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, the Lester Crown Professor of Management Observe on the Yale College of Administration and founding father of the Yale Chief Govt Management Institute.
Three of the important thing themes Sonnenfeld argues each CEO ought to take into consideration are:
—”Contemplate a direct, momentary moratorium on govt journey between the U.S. and Latin America, and take care in Decrease Manhattan.”
— “Maintain off on public statements of assist or condemnation till the justice course of within the U.S. unfolds, Venezuelan streets and authorities processes are secure, succession is evident, and public statements emerge from Latin American nations.”
—”Put together for potential Latin American backlash towards U.S. enterprises with main market engagement and commerce relations.”
You’ll be able to learn his full opinion piece right here.
Overheard
“You make investments in security or investments in folks, they usually don’t essentially present up on the underside line—no less than not instantly.”
—Waste Administration CEO Jim Fish advised Fortune in an interview. “Security tends to point out up in longer phrases, and in the event you do have a secure group, that can finally present up in your earnings assertion—but it surely takes some time,” Fish stated.
