AT&T Names Jennifer Biry CFO as Pascal Desroches Retires

AT&T has lined up its next finance chief, and it is a familiar face. The Fortune 30 telecom, employing around 142,000 people, named Jennifer Biry as its next Chief Financial Officer, succeeding Pascal Desroches, who retires at the end of 2026 after five years in the role.

Jennifer spent 22 years at AT&T before leaving in 2020, serving as CFO of its consumer, business and technology units and overseeing close to US$120bn in annual revenue.

"AT&T played an important role in shaping my career," she says, calling the return "a full-circle moment that truly feels like coming home".

Jennifer will step in as deputy CFO on 6 July before taking the reins as CFO on 1 January 2027. This six-month handover is designed to keep things steady at a company where investors closely watch the finance seat.

At a regulated telecom carrying heavy debt and large capital plans, a clean finance transition is itself a message to bondholders and shareholders that nothing about the numbers is about to lurch.

How a software-savvy CFO transforms a network

Jennifer was CFO of WarnerMedia during its AT&T years, steering nearly US$20bn in annual investment across news, sport and entertainment, before becoming CFO and then COO of the cybersecurity firm McAfee.

"Leading finance and operations at McAfee gave me a front-row seat to software and cybersecurity innovation," Jennifer says, learning she frames as fitting "the work AT&T is doing to build secure, future-ready networks".

With networks now shaped by software and security standing as a product itself, a finance chief who speaks both languages can spot where the next wave of returns will emerge.

The balance sheet Pascal hands over

Since joining in 2021, Pascal cut costs, simplified a balance sheet swollen by the WarnerMedia chapter and pushed heavy investment into 5G and fibre.

John Stankey, AT&T's Chief Executive, credits him with doing it the right way. "Pascal has been an exceptional partner and a principled leader," John says, recalling that from their first meeting in 2017 he "was always focused on improving the business".

AT&T is still spending heavily to reach millions more homes with fibre, and Jennifer will have to fund that ambition while holding the deleveraging on track.

A finance seat changing hands across the Fortune 500

A generation of long-serving Fortune 500 CFOs is retiring simultaneously, handing their books to successors across corporate America. Many of those seats are now claimed by women.

Biry's rise comes the same quarter CME Group elevated CFO Lynne Fitzpatrick to chief executive, denoting a transformation in corporate finance.

For AT&T, the company entrusts its finances to a leader who once steered its course, ventured out to master software and now returns to call this role home.