As artificial intelligence moves from isolated pilots to enterprise-wide ambition, the question on everyone’s lips is: who should lead it?
For many organisations, AI is still seen primarily as a technology initiative. But for CFOs, it raises a much broader set of issues around investment discipline, governance, accountability, risk and measurable business value. In other words, the debate about AI leadership is no longer just about technology. It is about enterprise control.
Yet AI does not sit neatly within one function. It cuts across finance, IT, operations, legal, HR and the wider executive team.
That leaves an important question for 2026: should the CFO lead enterprise AI adoption, or simply help govern it?
In this 30-minute webinar, Gary Simon, CEO of FSN and Leader of the Modern Finance Forum on LinkedIn, interviews Keshav Maharaj, a frequent and popular expert contributor to the FSN Modern Finance Forum, co-founder of Aphelion Group and author of AI Demystified: A Business Leader’s Guide to Winning in the Age of AI. Keshav’s work focuses on AI accountability, value measurement, and assurance, positioning the CFO not as a technologist, but as the executive ultimately responsible for ensuring AI delivers sustainable value, resilience, and trust. Together, Gary and Keshav discuss how the CFO’s accountability for AI is changing, how ownership should be divided across the C-suite, what risks finance leaders still underestimate, and what AI mandate matters most for CFOs in 2026.