Top Five Stories of the Week on Finance Chief

‘Auf Geht's’: Michael Bird Joins as Vodafone Germany CFO

Vodafone Germany sees the appointment of Michael Bird as its new CFO

Michael Bird, CFO at Vodafone Germany, shares his enthusiasm for the new role on LinkedIn: “Excited for my first day as CFO of Vodafone Germany!”

His appointment commenced on 1 September 2026. Michael moves from his position as CFO of Vodafone Investments, which he was present at for just over two years. 

Vodafone partners with Google: Google is a major technology company best known for its search engine. It was founded in 1998, and is currently led by CEO Sundar Pichai, who was appointed in 2015. He joined the board of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, in 2017. Google is currently headquartered in tech hub California, US.

Vodafone also partners with Cisco, Dell EMC, Microsoft and Zscaler.

Fugro Welcomes Emiel Jongerius as Future CFO

Fugro, a geo-data specialist, announces that it is receiving a refreshed look for its executive leadership team. 

Emiel Jongerius, a finance executive with at least 25 years of experience, will be joining the company as its next Chief Financial Officer come November, subject to approvals. 

Emiel will replace Barbara Geelen, who stepped down earlier this year. 

Fugro partners with Fermi: Headquartered in the US and founded in 2025, Fermi accelerates clean energy infrastructure to power next-generation technology developments.

The firm focuses on site development and power generation complexes for energy-intensive assets like data centers. Under the leadership of recently appointed CEO Lee McIntire, Fermi partners with infrastructure developers to deliver clean energy projects. Lee brings extensive engineering expertise to drive the company’s strategic expansion across global infrastructure.

It also partners with DTACT, Ubiotica, Sapiem and SDG Data Alliance. 

Q&A: The Evolution of Treasury and the Office of the CFO

In an exclusive Q&A with Finance Chief, Hilary Norris Wilson, Head of Global Operations, Ripple Treasury talks about CFO modernisation to ensure success.

Few executive seats are undergoing a transformation as radical as the Office of the CFO. Driven by the rapid convergence of enterprise technology and global capital markets, the modern finance leader is being asked to evolve from a retrospective reporting function into a forward-looking strategic architect. In this exclusive Q&A with Finance Chief, Hilary Norris Wilson, Head of Global Operations, Ripple Treasury, explains how the modern finance chief can best utilise modernisation to ensure efficient operations in the Office of the CFO. 

Ripple partners with Volvo:  Synonymous with safety innovations and engineering excellence, the brand continues to lead the automotive sector in electric vehicle transition and commercial mobility solutions under current CEO Martin Lundstedt. Martin joined Volvo Group in 2015, and is Co-Chairman for the UN Sec­retary-General’s High-Level Advisory Group on Sustainable Trans­port. Volvo was founded in 1927 in Gothenburg, Sweden, Volvo is an iconic global manufacturer. Headquartered in Gothenburg, the famous automotive manufacturer has 99,000 employees worldwide. 

It also partners with Subway, Sulzer, Stihl, Quest Diagnostics. 

South Korea's AI Chip Boom Powers a Record 2027 Budget

South Korea is having the kind of year that makes central bankers sweat.

Its factories are shipping memory chips faster than the world can bolt them into data centres. Exports hit a record US$98.25bn in August. 

The man buying much of that silicon sees no end to it.

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"The memory shortage could last for years," warns Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA. 

NVIDIA partners with SK Hynix: Nvidia's lead supplier of high-bandwidth memory, tied into a multi-year AI supply deal. CEO Kwak Noh-jung, headquartered in Icheon, South Korea. 

NVIDIA also partners with Samsung Electronics and Micron Technologies. 

GE Vernova Snaps up Rivian CFO Claire McDonough

GE Vernova hires its second-ever CFO, Claire McDonough, as she joins the company in November. 

She leaves Rivian, where she has been CFO for close to six years. At Rivian, she was responsible for steering the company through the US’s largest IPO in 2021, to the tune of US$13.7bn. 

GE Vernova’s current CFO, Ken Parks, will retire in 2027. Upon Claire’s completed onboarding, she will take over as CFO in her full capacity 1 January 2027 while Ken transitions into an advisory role.

GE Vernova partners with Amazon Web Services (AWS): Headquartered in Washington, US, AWS is one of the world’s best known cloud providers. CEO Matt Garman took over as Chief Executive in 2024, having been at AWS for 20 years. AWS was initially launched in 2006 to enable equal access to powerful technology to college students and sophisticated businesses alike.

It also partners with ANYbiotics, Visionaize, LS Electric and Quinbrook.