Why finance leaders are taking over operations—and why the new COFO role isn't a simple shortcut.
There’s a new acronym roaming the C-suite. The so-called COFO — a hybrid chief operating and financial officer — is more common than ever, marking a structural shift in how companies are deciding who runs the business. But the combined role is a risky one: it works far better going one direction than the other, industry watchers tell Global Finance.
Salesforce made it official last year. The San Francisco-based company named Robin Washington its first COFO — tasking a 30-year finance veteran with steering both the balance sheet and the company’s artificial intelligence (AI) and digital-labor transformation.
PayPal, headquartered in San Jose, California, took a similar route. The company expanded CFO Jamie Miller’s mandate to cover operations as well as finance, putting one executive in charge of the strategic growth initiatives that used to require two separate memos and a joint meeting to sort out. Two very different companies, same conclusion: the boss who understands the cash is likely the person who’s expected to move it.
While some observers view this trend as temporary, many industry leaders see the hybrid COFO as a permanent shift in corporate leadership.
“I do think this is a trend that’s here to stay,” said Jaylene Kunze, COFO at Denver-based LegitScript, a risk management service.
For decades, the CFO and COO occupied a kind of awkward office marriage: sharing a roof, splitting the chores, occasionally blaming each other when the numbers didn’t add up.
“Historically, the CFO and COO were often set up to work against each other by default since each one’s success depended on the other, but neither had the full picture needed to make the best decisions for the company,” Kunze added.
That being said: Does the COO job disappear? Kunze calls “operational acumen and a real connection” to the business as “essential.” However, she argues the CFO seat has evolved past spreadsheets and GAAP.
“That’s exactly why the COFO role is emerging as such a powerful one,” she said. “It’s not enough to build the model; you must know what growth targets you’re driving toward and which levers to pull, when, and how.”
‘A Whole New Job’
Executive coach Edith Hamilton, who works with CFOs and COOs at NEXT New Growth, noticed the same pattern.
“It’s not title inflation. It’s authority redistribution,” she said, pointing to AI-driven process change as a major accelerant. But the honeymoon, she warns, is short.
“The second emotion is, ‘Oh dear Lord, this is a whole new job.'” Boards, she added, flip the script overnight — from “protect the numbers” to “use your authority to change the business.”
Her verdict: durable, but not universal. “It will work in companies where finance and operations need to be welded together — not merely coordinated.”
Sierra Hinson has been living this arrangement for over a decade under various titles. Most recently, as a “fractional CFOO” through her firm, Additive Insights. Her reaction to the sudden buzz? “What took so long?” Splitting finance and operations creates blind spots and slows everyone down, she said. And it shows up at the worst possible moment — the exit. “In a transaction, buyers look for inconsistency between what the financials say and what the operations show,” she said. “The title is the easy part — the track record is not.”
Missing the Point
Not everyone’s convinced the direction of travel could reverse. Ariela Tannenbaum, former CFO at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati and now a profitability architect, thinks the whole debate is arguing about the wrong things. “The COFO debate misses the point on two counts,” she said. “First, titles. Whether you call it inflation or evolution, a title reflects accountability, not capability. The higher the title, the greater the responsibility. Rebranding a role does not dilute it; it expands it.”
Her second point takes aim at the assumption that AI is what’s really behind all this. “Faster information is not faster judgment,” Tannenbaum said. “A CFO or COO in a COFO role will spend exactly as much time reviewing, analyzing, validating, and deciding as before. AI compresses the data cycle. The thinking, judgment, and responsibility cycle remains unchanged.”
What’s actually driving the trend, she argues, is something more old-fashioned: good managers building good benches. “Great financial leaders already mentor, elevate, and develop their teams to the point where the CFO can spread his or her wings to take on an expanded operational mandate,” she said. Given the chance herself, she wouldn’t blink: “I would run the operation with conviction through the financial lens, where clarity lives.”
The Risk of Reversing the COFO Role
But Tannenbaum, like Hamilton, sees the arrangement working in only one direction. “Can an experienced CFO absorb the COO role? Absolutely,” she said. “Capital discipline, resource allocation, performance accountability — these are financial constructs applied operationally.”
The reverse, however, is not symmetrical.
A COO assuming the COFO role introduces real risk: technical gaps in financial analysis, regulatory exposure, and the kind of judgment calls that only come from deep financial experience.
Her bottom line: “The COFO is not a shortcut. But it works in one direction far better than the other.” And for companies simply focused on saving a salary line rather than building real bench strength, she has a warning dressed up as a punchline: “Can’t find two great executives? Look under the light.”
Which brings the debate back to a question. Firms like Ridgeway Financial Service ask CEOs: does your team just report the numbers, or help run the business? Increasingly, in this new hybrid role, the answer is both — same office, same person, one very full inbox.
Anthony Noto covers corporate finance and private credit. Contact him at anoto@gfmag.com