FEI St. Louis is where engaged financial leaders thrive | |
AI in Finance: Balancing Innovation, Accuracy, and Audit Readiness – A Q&A with Deloitte’s Ryan Hittner
FEI Daily | 04/7/2025
by Olivia Berkman
Ryan Hittner shares practical steps finance leaders can take to implement AI confidently while maintaining trust and accuracy in their reporting processes.
As the finance and accounting landscape continues to evolve with the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence, leaders are seeking insights on how to navigate this transformation responsibly and effectively. In the lead-up to the AI in Finance and Accounting 2025: Managing Governance, Adapting the Workforce event that took place April 9–10, we spoke with Ryan Hittner, Audit & Assurance principal at Deloitte & Touche LLP, to discuss how organizations are leveraging both traditional and generative AI, what this means for audit readiness, and the critical importance of governance, transparency, and human oversight. In this Q&A, Ryan shares practical steps finance leaders can take to implement AI confidently while maintaining trust and accuracy in their reporting processes.
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Financial Executives International useful stories like this one for financial professionals. Check out the membership benefits page to see a full list of the ways FEI can help you and your business.
Are you interested in joining FEI? Attend an upcoming meeting to see why FEI St. Louis is where engaged financial leaders thrive! Contact FEI St. Louis membership chair George Kobitz at George.Kobitz@roberthalf.com to learn more.
| | Elevating HR in the Age of AI: isolved’s Fifth-Annual HR Leaders’ Research Study | | |
isolved surveyed more than 2,000 HR decision-makers to uncover the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats for HR departments in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). The responses highlight current industry insights and trends, which are compared to accumulated data from the last five years.
Core areas covered include current HR outlooks, talent acquisition, workforce retention, competitive considerations, tech stack analysis, power of partnerships, future outlooks
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Kameron Aaron is your isolved representative. Please contact her at KAaron@isolvedhcm.com to learn more about how she and FEI platinum sponsor isolved can assist your company.
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Salary and the Multigenerational Workforce
This three-part series explores topics and ideas presented in Robert Half’s Examining the Multigenerational Workforce report and is based on insights from Robert Half’s internal experts and thought leaders of different generations. Part Three takes a look at workers’ priorities regarding salary through a generational lens. If you haven’t already, check out Part One and Part Two.
Multigenerational teams benefit companies by bringing professionals with diverse perspectives and experiences together. Advantages include a broader range of insights and viewpoints for better, more nuanced decision making and the ability to identify potential problems from multiple angles. Generational diversity can prompt solutions—and even help pre-emptively avoid difficulties—that might otherwise stump a team or result in activities that would use up more resources than they need to.
But assembling and overseeing such a team presents a challenge—partly due to those varied perspectives that end up being so valuable. After all, what attracts someone from Gen Z to work for your company might be vastly different from what prompts a Gen Xer to join your team and gets them engaged with their work. Trying to manage workers from different generations the same way when their professional needs and motivations are different can lead to complications.
Click her to read more about Salary and the Multigenerational Workforce.
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Corporate Transparency Act Paused…For Now (Again)
Since its introduction as part of the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020, the Corporate Transparency Act has troubled some U.S. businesses concerned over its reporting requirements. So has ongoing uncertainty around its validity and enforcement.
In effect, the CTA would establish a national corporate registry showing beneficial ownership information (BOI) for certain entities collected via a mandatory reporting framework operated by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). The law’s stated purpose was to combat the ability of bad actors to conceal illicit activities through shell companies; however, the mandatory BOI reporting requirements would impose potentially significant reporting burdens for covered companies.
Since its enactment, the CTA’s validity has been questioned, and its enforcement has been largely hobbled. The reporting deadline in most cases was originally set for January 1, 2025, but pending litigation introduced a delay. After a federal court removed a stay that had paused the CTA’s reporting requirements, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced on March 2 a policy of non-enforcement against U.S. businesses and individuals. Accordingly, on March 21, FinCEN issued a final interim rule eliminating the requirement for U.S. companies and U.S. persons to report BOI to FinCEN under the CTA.
Some business interests cheered DOJ’s refusal to enforce the CTA, but its future remains unclear. DOJ cannot repeal the CTA; only Congress can do that, so the law remains in effect. Even if the administration’s CTA policy survives legal challenges, absent statutory changes to the authorizing law, a future administration would remain free to revoke the Trump-era policy of non-enforcement and restore the CTA’s enforcement provisions (at which time, litigation challenging the underlying validity of the CTA would cease to be moot and again become ripe for decision).
There is also the matter of all BOI already shared with FinCEN. The information presumably can still be used by FinCEN and shared with other federal and state agencies and foreign governments for activities related to national security, intelligence, and law enforcement, as described under the CTA and its regulations. At present, there is no mechanism for clawing back BOI already shared with FinCEN.
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Executive Perspectives on Top Risks
Board of directors and senior executive teams face a complex web of uncertainties. These may generate opportunities for strategic advantage or risks leading to unexpected disruption and performance shortfalls. An ability to anticipate risks that may be on the horizon before they become imminent can help leaders navigate unfolding developments – particularly those that are uncontrollable – that may impact their organization’s value and growth objectives. This report – our 13th annual edition – contains insights from 1,215 board members and C-Suite executives around the world regarding their perspectives on the top risks they see on the horizon for both the near-term (two to three yea
rs ahead) and the long-term (a decade later, 2035).
Board members and senior executives use the key findings in our annual Executive Perspectives on Top Risks Survey reports to benchmark their organization’s risks against those on the minds of other leaders. It is our hope that this research will provide helpful perspectives that can generate fruitful dialogue and discussion amount boards and C-Suites as well as validate risk perceptions as they ponder emerging issues.
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Mark Bonheim and Scott Springman represent FEI gold partner, Protiviti. Contact them to learn more about how they can help you and your business.
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Cybersecurity Is a Balance Sheet Issue
Why CFOs Can’t Afford to Ignore Risk Across IT, SaaS, and Cloud Ecosystems
Cybersecurity is no longer just an IT concern—it’s a direct threat to business continuity, financial stability, and brand reputation. Today’s CFOs are on the lines of enterprise risk, and ignoring vulnerabilities across
SaaS platforms, and cloud environments is a gamble few afford.
Risk Has Gone Borderless
Modern threat actors don’t stop at your data center—they exploit cloud misconfigurations, SaaS permissions, and third-party vendors. Ransomware, data loss, and supply chain breaches aren’t theoretical—they’re costly, headline-making events. Foundational controls like identity governance, threat detection, and continuous monitoring are critical to protecting revenue, uptime, and trust.
Reputation Is on the Ledger Now
The financial impact of a breach is just the beginning. Regulatory fines, legal exposure, and customer churn are compounded by long-term brand damage. Rebuilding trust after a public cyber incident can take years—and the costs rarely stay confined to the IT column.
Smart Investment, Not Overspending
Cybersecurity doesn’t mean bloated IT budgets. It means aligning spend with enterprise risk—prioritizing the controls that reduce exposure and maximize resilience. Strategic investments in audits, staff awareness, and cloud security posture are now part of responsible financial stewardship.
Bottom Line
CFOs must treat cybersecurity as a core financial risk. Those who take a proactive, cross-functional approach—spanning infrastructure, SaaS, and cloud—position their organizations to operate securely, maintain customer trust, and grow with confidence in an increasingly digital world.
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FEI MEMBER EXCLUSIVE EVENT
- CFO-Focused Panel Discussion
- 7:30 am - 9:00am
- April 29, 2025
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members contact Sue Hites
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prospective members contact George Kobitz
FEI Annual Golf Tournament
- Proceeds benefit the Special Education Foundation (SEF)
- Forest Park Golf Course
- 11:00am - 7:00pm
- May 20, 2025
- Registration and Details
| Upcoming Tech Series Event |
CFO of the Future
- CFGI
- Hosted at the Husch Blackwell offices
- 8001 Forsyth Blvd, Suite 1500, the Meramec Room
- 7:30am - 9:00am
- May 13, 2025
- Register today
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Join FEI St. Louis on May 20, 2024, at the Forest Park Golf Course for our annual golf tournament. In addition to golf, beverages, and great food, attendees will have an opportunity to purchase raffle tickets for fabulous prizes.
Registration and lunch start at 11:00am. Shotgun start at 12:00pm.
This year proceeds support the Special Education Foundation. The Special Education Foundation is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization whose mission is to assist students with disabilities in St. Louis County in ways not supported by tax dollars.
Contact Sue Hites at suehites@yahoo.com or Bill Witzovsky at bill.witzofsky@cfb.com to learn more ways to get in the swing of things to make the 2025 Golf Tournament a success!
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Ed Hagan, Satisfi Labs - CFO
John Hughes Health Payer Consortium - Controller
Judy Abrams, YMCA of Greater StL - CFO
Marc Ballantyne, Anheuser Busch - Sr. Director Finance
| | Help your fellow finance professionals | | |
Invite Them to Join FEI!
St. Louis area controllers, directors, or chief financial officers are eligible to join the select ranks of the area's finest financial leaders, FEI St. Louis. Invite eligible financial leaders to a meeting or a tech series event so they can experience the benefits of connecting and collaborating with their financial peers in St. Louis.
Current members receive a $100 GIFT CERTIFICATE to the restaurant of their choice by recruiting SIX QUALIFIED NEW MEMBERS to join FEI St. Louis!
There's no better time than now to join FEI St. Louis, where engaged financial leaders thrive!
| | For more details, contact Membership Chair, George Kobitz at george.kobitz@roberthalf.com. | | | | FEI St. Louis partners are a carefully curated group of Service providers who can help area business leaders like you. You can find these valued FEI St. Louis partners at meetings and events, or you can reach out to them directly through the contact information listed here. | | | | |
