From CTO to CFO: a major oil company’s rare move

Could your chief technology officer be the next CFO? That’s the case at Chevron Corporation, but it’s not a traditional path. 

Eimear P. Bonner, vice president and chief technology officer (CTO) at the oil giant, has been appointed the next CFO, effective March 1, 2024, the company announced on Sunday. Bonner will succeed Pierre Breber, VP and CFO since 2019, who will retire from Chevron in 2024 after 35 years at the company.

Bonner made history at Chevron in 2021 as the first woman to become CTO. Next year, she will become the second woman to take on the role of finance chief. Patricia E. Yarrington served as CFO of Chevron from January 2009 until her retirement in March 2019. She spent 38 years at the company. 

Bonner, 49, who is also the president of the Chevron Technical Center, has been with the company since 1998, holding several leadership, operating, and strategy positions. For example, she served as general director of Chevron’s largest joint venture, Tengizchevroil (TCO), in Kazakhstan from 2018 to 2021. Bonner was responsible for TCO’s operational and financial performance and led an organizational transformation. Before that, she served as TCO general manager of operations.

But Bonner has a different career background in comparison to Breber, who has held finance positions including treasurer, controller, and VP of finance at the company before becoming finance chief. Chevron reported preliminary Q2 2023 earnings of $6.01 billion, almost half of the record profit earned during the same time last year, but beating analyst estimates. The company will report its full second quarter results on Friday. Chevron has climbed six spots on this year’s Fortune 500 to No. 10. Fueled by a 52% jump in annual revenue in 2022, Chevron moved back into the top 10 for the first time since 2015.

Regarding Bonner’s appointment, she has “a proven track record leading large, complex organizations,” Chevron CEO Mike Wirth said in a statement.

A unique path

CFOs are increasingly playing a central role in digital transformation. But is the CTO-to-CFO path a common one? “Absolutely not,” says Shawn Cole, executive recruiter and president of Cowen Partners, an executive search firm specializing in the C-suite. 

“Similar to FedEx hiring John Dietrich as CFO, these are very strange appointments for companies of this size, sophistication, and shareholder accountability to make. I would expect this from much smaller and privately held companies.” Cole is referring to FedEx Corp.’s recent announcement that John W. Dietrich, formerly the CEO of Atlas Air Worldwide, will become EVP and CFO at the company. 

In general, going from a CTO to CFO is “a very nontraditional path,” says Jenna Fisher, managing director and head of the CFO practice at the global firm Russell Reynolds Associates.

As of today, the firm says its own analysis of S&P 500 CFOs shows that no sitting CFO in that group has CTO experience. Russell Reynolds does see around 20% of CFOs coming from non-finance roles before their first CFO role, but those roles are most typically division CEOs, chief strategy officers, or investment bankers.

“When I have seen nontraditional hires into CFO seats, it sometimes has more to do with the relationship that the person has with the CEO, or the strength of the bench beneath the CFO that can support a non-traditional CFO in the role,” Fisher says. 

But companies are seeking finance chiefs who are very tech-savvy. 

“CFOs are becoming ever more dependent on technology, including leveraging A.I.,” Cole says. “However, this does not discount executive qualifications and experience—especially at a publicly traded company.”

The continued digitalization of business and the finance function has created the need for future CFOs to be digitally savvy and use these tools to optimize business performance, according to Russell Reynolds. Despite this need for digitally savvy CFOs, just 39% of next-gen CFOs feel prepared to respond to tech change in the next 12-18 months, the firm’s 2023 Global Leadership Monitor Survey found. Meanwhile, 57% of current CFOs feel prepared to do so.

When Bonner becomes CFO in 2024, she’ll certainly have a lot of insight on how tech can optimize business performance.

Sheryl Estrada
sheryl.estrada@fortune.com

Big deal

A topic discussed in Cengage Group's 2023 Employability Report is A.I. and its impact on the workforce readiness of recent graduates as well as employers’ plans for hiring. More than half (52%) of graduates say competition from A.I. has them questioning how prepared they are for the workforce. And 65% say they are eager for training on working alongside A.I.

Meanwhile, 59% of employers say that the growth of A.I. has prompted them to prioritize different skills when hiring. And 68% say their employees will need to learn new skills in the next three to five years.

In addition, half of employers have dropped degree requirements for entry-level roles. The findings are based on a survey of 1,000 graduates who completed a degree or non-degree program in the last 12 months and 1,000 U.S. hiring decision-makers. 

Going deeper

A new Wharton business journal article provides an excerpt from The Customer-Base Audit by Peter Fader, Bruce Hardie, and Michael Ross. The authors ask critical questions to help companies gauge how much they really understand about their customers’ buying behavior.

Leaderboard

Donny Lau was named CFO at Zaxby's, a restaurant chain specializing in chicken dishes, effective July 25. With more than 20 years of experience, Lau comes to Zaxby's most recently from Dollar General, where he served as SVP, finance and chief strategy officer. Before Dollar General, Lau held numerous roles at Yum! Brands, including mergers and acquisitions, FP&A, investor relations, corporate strategy, and corporate planning. He also helped architect and played a lead role in the 2016 spin-off of Yum! China into a separate publicly traded company.

Diego Reynoso was named CFO and treasurer at The Boston Beer Company, Inc. (NYSE: SAM), effective Sept. 5. Reynoso has more than 25 years of experience in finance and operations in the alcoholic beverage and food industries. Reynoso most recently served as the CFO of the Prepared Foods division of Tyson Foods. He was previously the SVP and CFO of the $5 billion beer division at Constellation Brands and held various senior financial and operational roles at spirits company Beam Suntory, Inc.

Overheard

“The housing market is different than the stock market, it’s normally forecastable. It has been growing since 2012, it has been about 10 years of steady growth in home prices. But it may be coming to an end with this interest rate rising cycle.”

—Yale University economist Robert Shiller said of the housing market in an interview with CNBC.