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The finance teams hiring AI specialists are also hiring someone to watch them
A Munich industrial client asked us last quarter for two hires at once: a machine learning engineer for their S/4HANA forecasting, and a finance controls specialist to evaluate whether those forecasts stay accurate. Four other DACH companies made similar paired requests in the weeks that followed.
The CFO building a second set of books that never sleeps
Luke Pritchett at PEX is designing a parallel accounting layer that runs autonomously alongside the official ledger. The approach raises practical questions about data architecture that most mid-market companies have yet to answer.
When your AI agent knows everything but understands nothing
We have spent the last quarter placing data architects and ML engineers into roles where the spec keeps changing. Companies are realising their AI systems can retrieve information but cannot act on it with judgement. The roles now require someone who can design constraints around autonomous action.
The SAP implementation partner model is about to get squeezed
SAP is betting that agentic AI will cut the cost and complexity of S/4HANA migrations. We think the real pressure falls on the talent pyramid that consulting companies have built around these projects.
Rate hike risk is filtering into CFO hiring conversations
Fed minutes this week flagged that several officials see conditions for raising rates if inflation persists. Interview questions for senior finance roles in DACH are already reflecting the shift.
The quiet erosion of domain expertise in hiring
A research paper suggests that the rush to hire for AI skills is hollowing out the deep sector knowledge that made those skills valuable in the first place. We have been watching this tension in our Data & Digital mandates for months.
The infrastructure gap holding back enterprise AI just got smaller
DeepSeek’s open-source release addresses a specific bottleneck we keep encountering in Data & Digital searches: companies have capable AI models but struggle to turn them into production agents. The talent implications are immediate.
The CFO retirement wave is opening doors that were closed five years ago
Russell Reynolds data shows CFO retirements in the first half of 2026 hit an eight-year high. For finance professionals who have been waiting for their shot at the top seat, the maths is finally moving in their favour.
AI budgets are a finance problem no finance team was trained to solve
When Microsoft invoices you in credits and Snowflake invoices you in credits but neither credit means the same thing, the CFO cannot compare apples to apples. Finance hiring is starting to reflect that gap.