Q&A: Samantha Greenberg, CFO of AlphaSense on Moving Markets

Following AlphaSense’s recent US$350m funding round, valuing the company at US$7.5bn, CFO Samantha Greenberg discusses how capital, AI and real-time intelligence are reshaping high-growth businesses today in an exclusive interview with Finance Chief. 

Drawing on nearly two decades as a technology investor and her experience leading finance at ID.me, Samantha explains why funding is vital to scaling, how strategic investors such as Accenture can accelerate growth, and why finance leaders must move beyond reporting the past. 

She also explores responsible AI adoption, human oversight, data quality and trust, arguing that AI will augment rather than replace CFOs, enabling faster decisions, sharper forecasts and more effective capital allocation.

Please could you introduce yourself and your experience?

I spent nearly two decades as a technology investor at large institutions like Goldman Sachs and Citadel, as well as founding my own hedge fund, which grew to become one of the largest women-owned hedge funds in the US. 

I realised that I loved being an operator even more than I loved being an investor– leveraging data insights to drive value creation, allocating capital for purposes of launching products, entering new markets and making investment decisions as a scaling company.

I spent the last several years serving as CFO of ID.me, and earlier this year I joined AlphaSense as CFO. AlphaSense was a perfect fit after having been a power user of the AlphaSense platform for years. At ID.me, AlphaSense became such an integral part of how my team worked that we couldn't do our jobs without it.

I consider myself a very hands-on CFO and cross-functional partner across the company, and my philosophy is a CFO’s most important role is to surface insights that drive revenue and profits (leveraging data analytics and forecasting), collaborate to solve problems and partner on consequential decisions allocating resources and capital – all in service of driving value creation.

How vital is funding to a scaling business?

For a high-growth AI company, our scarcest resources are our time and capital and prioritising our roadmap to maximise value creation. Our industry and enterprise AI adoption are moving at rapid speed, and a formidable capital base allows us to invest and scale at the speed the market demands.

At AlphaSense, we're seeing exceptional momentum, having recently closed a US$350m funding round valuing the company at US$7.5bn, nearly double our last round’s valuation, and reaching US$700m in ARR.

Usage of our AI platform continues to accelerate, and our hypergrowth at scale places us in the small subset of companies foundational to how AI is deployed for outsized productivity impact.

Our latest funding round reflects confidence in our product innovation, business momentum and market. It allows us to invest aggressively in our roadmap, expand internationally and deepen strategic partnerships, as seen through our newly expanded partnership with Accenture.

We're still in the early stages of enterprise AI adoption, and having the resources to invest aggressively is a significant competitive advantage.

What’s a lesson other businesses can take from AlphaSense’s capital markets strategy?

At AlphaSense, we've been deliberate about building relationships with investors who understand both enterprise AI and software, and who are valued thought partners. Our partnership with Accenture is a great example of an investor who brings strategic and commercial value alongside investment partnership.

Accenture is a longtime AlphaSense customer and now becomes our first strategic channel partner to build AI market intelligence and workflow automations into agentic systems across the market. We’re partnering to help organisations embed market intelligence into core agentic workflows, enabling more proactive, data-driven decision-making.

Equally important is alignment of capital strategy to business plans and investment roadmap. Having the innovation, conviction and capital to invest is what allows businesses to seize opportunities and win the market.

A takeaway for finance leaders hoping to scale in the next 12 months?

CFOs and finance leaders cannot simply report the past and need to provide real-time insights that drive valuable decision-making. Markets move too quickly for CFOs and leadership teams to wait until month-end to understand what's happening in their business.

One of the biggest shifts in the CFO role has been the ability to combine financial discipline with live operational insight. AI and real-time analytics turbo charge the ability to identify trends, forecast a wide range of scenarios and adapt in real-time to changing market environments. CFOs need to become experts in this to not get left behind. 

From a culture perspective, I think a scaling company should encourage healthy debate. The best finance teams challenge assumptions. Rigorous discussion leads to better decisions and stronger outcomes.

In today's environment, the organisations that combine speed, data quality and rigorous decision-making will be the ones that scale most successfully.

What are some vital AI tips that leaders in finance should utilise?

It’s imperative for finance leaders to embrace AI, one of the most powerful productivity tools we've ever seen. I dedicate around 10 hours every week outside of work to deepening AI learning because the technology is evolving so quickly. That continuous learning is part of my job.

Finance teams should look for opportunities where AI can automate manual work, surface faster insights and support more granular forecasting, while ensuring there are proper controls in place (like any tool, AI has to be used safely).

By combining human judgement with AI’s ability to process information at scale, we amplify our critical thinking. 

Ensuring the human element isn’t forgotten, how can AI be integrated to live side-by-side with human workers?

The biggest misconception is that AI is replacing people. While agents can automate meaningful work, this levels-up what human workers can do leveraging AI – they can research more topics, look at more opportunities, dig deeper into judgment and insights because many of the time-consuming manual work can be automated.

AI can automate repetitive tasks, summarise large volumes of information and accelerate analysis, while humans provide context, judgement and creativity.

Human oversight in decision making is especially critical in highly regulated industries like financial services. Those qualities will become even more valuable as AI capabilities improve and take on more complex workflows.

Leaders can help employees use AI responsibly and productively.

That means investing in training, rewarding AI deployment and putting governance in place. Organisations that build these foundations empower their teams to spend more time on the work humans do best.

As AI continues to dominate business planning, how can companies ensure that trust is maintained as a key focus?

Trust has to be designed into AI from the very beginning. For enterprise organisations, that means using AI systems built on high-quality, trusted data and content and workflows in which verifiability and traceability to source information is transparent.

These steps ensure humans have the most trustworthy context for important decisions. The quality of an AI output will always depend on the quality of the information system it's built upon.

It's also important to communicate openly with employees and customers about how AI is being used and where human oversight exists.

AI should increase confidence in decision-making, not reduce it.

Organisations that prioritise transparency, governance and data quality will be able to build lasting trust with their customers as AI adoption continues to grow.

Could there be the possibility of a popular AI CFO in most boardrooms in the next five years?

I don't think we'll see AI replacing CFOs, but we will absolutely see AI transforming what great CFOs look like.

The archetype of the CFO has already changed dramatically. Today's finance leaders are expected to understand AI, data and technology just as well as financial performance. AI will increasingly act as a strategic partner, as it does for me.

Today’s CFOs should be leveraging AI to model scenarios, identify risks, allocate capital, forecast outcomes and surface insights in real time.

The human element is not going away. Boards need leaders who can navigate uncertainty, guide strategy and allocate capital effectively.

AI will make CFOs faster and better informed, but leadership, accountability and strategic thinking will remain uniquely human.