Speaking at the Liquidity Summit 2026 this week, Friar said the way OpenAI evaluates talent is changing alongside the technology it builds.

“I would never hire a finance person who didn’t know how to use Excel, and I probably wouldn’t hire a finance person today that doesn’t know how to use a tool like Codex,” she said.

Codex is the company’s AI coding agent for automating software and technical tasks through natural-language prompts. Knowledge workers now represent about 20% of Codex users and are growing more than three times as fast as other user groups, according to OpenAI’s new report.

Friar’s stance on considering AI skills in finance when hiring reflects a growing trend. Deloitte’s Finance Trends 2026 survey of more than 1,300 global finance leaders found that AI and automation skills are now their top priority for developing and sourcing new finance talent—ranking ahead of traditional competencies like regulatory compliance and cost management.

This shift in hiring expectations reflects a broader transformation in how finance work is done inside AI companies. As AI tools become more capable, the ability to effectively use them will be a defining skill for future finance professionals.

That change is happening against the backdrop of a major constraint for OpenAI: computing power.

“Compute is a very scarce resource at the moment,” Friar said, describing demand as rising up a “vertical wall” that continues to outpace supply. She noted that even with aggressive infrastructure investment, OpenAI expects compute to remain tight into 2026.

Compute refers to the processing power required to run and train AI models, including the underlying chips and systems that support AI services.

Because of that shortage, Friar said OpenAI has had to invest heavily in infrastructure ahead of demand. The company previously faced criticism for its aggressive compute purchases, but she defended the strategy. “Thank God we did,” she said, “because in ’26 we still won’t have enough compute.”

She added that compute constraints extend far beyond chips alone. Energy supply, land availability, permitting speed, memory production, talent pipelines, and community relationships all play a role in whether AI infrastructure can scale quickly enough. Trust is part of the supply chain too, she said.

“It’s really important there on the trust side, that we don’t leave communities behind,” she said.

Have a good weekend.

Sheryl Estrada
sheryl.estrada@fortune.co

Leaderboard

Fortune 500 Power Moves

—Eva C. Boratto was appointed EVP and CFO of Cencora, Inc. (No. 10), effective June 29. Boratto succeeds James F. Cleary, who will be retiring from his role as previously announced. Cleary will serve in an advisory role through the end of 2026. Boratto brings financial and operational experience across the healthcare and consumer sectors. She most recently served as CFO of Bath & Body Works, Inc., and previously spent 12 years at CVS Health Corporation, where she held leadership roles, including CFO, and played a key role in the integration of the company's acquisition of Aetna.

—Ling Hai, president of Asia Pacific, Europe, Middle East and Africa at Mastercard (No. 141), will become CFO, effective Aug. 3. Hai brings broad operating experience across international markets, deep knowledge of customers and products, and a strong commercial perspective to the role. He succeeds CFO Sachin Mehra, who will move into a newly created role as chief business officer, responsible for country operations across the globe. Mehra will also be responsible for sales enablement, global partnerships, and digital commercialization under a single global go-to-market leadership structure. 

Every Friday morning, the weekly Fortune 500 Power Moves column tracks Fortune 500 company C-suite shifts—see the most recent edition.

More notable moves this week:

Rob Livingston was appointed CFO of Nubank, a digital banking platform, effective July 13. He succeeds Guilherme Lago, who is transitioning to the role of special advisor, after five years as CFO. Lago will support the transition through Aug. 31. Livingston brings more than 30 years of experience. He joins Nubank after more than 12 years at Visa, where he recently served as CFO for North America. He also led corporate finance and investor relations for Visa, Inc., served as CFO for Visa Europe and board member of Visa Europe Limited. Before Visa, Livingston spent 18 years at Capital One.

Shannon Nash was appointed CFO and COO of Vibrant Planet, a technology company providing wildfire risk management software. Nash brings more than 30 years of finance and operations experience across high-growth technology companies, including roles as CFO at Wing (Alphabet’s drone delivery subsidiary), Reputation.com, and Insidesource. Nash joins Vibrant Planet at a pivotal point in its growth as the company scales partnerships across the country.

Nate Olmstead was appointed CFO of The Trade Desk (Nasdaq: TTD), a global advertising technology company, effective July 9. Olmstead joins from Penguin Solutions, an AI infrastructure and technology solutions company, where he was SVP and CFO. Before that, he served as CFO of Logitech International S.A., a multinational company. He also held a number of financial leadership roles during his 16 years at Hewlett Packard Company and Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

Sri Maddipati was promoted to EVP and CFO of CMS Energy (NYSE: CMS) and Consumers Energy, its primary business, effective June 3. Maddipati joined CMS Energy in 2014 and was elected as VP and treasurer in 2016, a position he held until he moved to the role of Consumers Energy VP of electric supply in 2023. He was appointed Consumers Energy SVP and president of the electric supply business unit in 2025. Before joining CMS Energy, he was a VP in the financial institutions group at Goldman Sachs. 

Scott Humphrey was appointed CFO and treasurer of Stoneridge, Inc., a global supplier of electronic systems and technologies. Humphrey has 25 years of experience. Most recently, he served as CFO at Fox Factory Holding Corporation, a designer and manufacturer of specialty sports and on- and off-road vehicles. Before that, Humphrey served as interim CFO at Hibbett Sports and previously held the CFO role at Ciner Resources LP. 

Big Deal

E*TRADE from Morgan Stanley’s monthly analysis gauges clients' behavior in May. The sectors with the most net-buying activity were consumer staples (+8.15%), utilities (+5.92%), and industrials (+1.02%)—the same ones that led in April.

Real estate (-4.52%), energy (-4.50%), and health care (-2.08%) experienced the most net selling. "While the buying in consumer staples appeared to have a defensive element, much of the activity in utilities was in energy providers with ties to the AI data center buildout," according to Chris Larkin, managing director of trading and investing. "And in addition to selling into modest strength in the health care sector, clients were also net sellers—although not aggressively—of the month’s strongest sector, tech."

Going deeper

Here are four Fortune weekend reads:

"These Fortune 500 companies are bigger than most national economies—here’s where they’d rank as countries" —Catherina Gioino

"Melinda French Gates is betting $215 million on women’s health—and daring her fellow billionaires to follow" —Emma Hinchliffe

"Social Security faces a 24% cut in 2032—that’s a $345 billion hit to retirees nationwide, watchdog says" —Nick Lichtenberg

"Chipotle COO calls hiring one of the ‘most painful processes’—so his AI bot ‘Ava Cado’ cut it from 12 days to 4" —Preston Fore

Overheard

“If my education and career paths were lines on a graph, they wouldn’t trend neatly upward. There would be spikes, dips, line breaks, maybe a couple of loops.”

—Allison Danielsen, CEO, Tallo, a digital career platform, writes in a Fortune opinion piece, “My wrist injury derailed my college plans. It’s why I’m a CEO today.”