s·CFO DailyHow Georgia’s top accounting official uses nology and change management to champion a new era in government financeBy Sheryl EstradaBy Sheryl EstradaSenior Writer and author of CFO DailySheryl EstradaSenior Writer and author of CFO DailySheryl Estrada is a senior writer at Fortune, where she covers the corporate finance industry, Wall Street, and corporate leadership.
She also CFO Daily.SEE FULL BIO Gerlda B. Hines, Georgia’s state accounting officer. Courtesy of the Georgia state accounting officeGood morning.
Legacy systems and complex data slow down government finance modernization—leaving many public agencies struggling to meet today’s demands and real-time accountability. Gerlda B.
Hines, Georgia’s state accounting officer since September 2021, and the first woman permanently appointed to the role, is working to eliminate antiquated finance and accounting cesses, essentially bringing Big to the bureaucracy.
Hines previously served as commissioner, chief of staff, interim commissioner, deputy commissioner, and CFO for Georgia’s Department of Human Services, where she oversaw a $1.9 billion budget and led the department’s executive team.
Before that, she was deputy CFO for the Georgia Department of Community Health and VP/CFO at the Georgia Student Finance Commission. Gerlda B. Hines, Georgia’s state accounting officer.
Courtesy of the Georgia state accounting office I recently sat down with Hines, who is known for her blem-solving skills, she said.
When the state accounting officer position opened, her name kept coming up because of her CPA credentials and deep knowledge of the state.
“I was amazed when they called me because I had just been appointed commissioner of the Department of Human Services,” she told me.
Hines admits she’s always been the first to volunteer for new tasks, dating back to her youth: “I was the person growing up to say, ‘I’ll do it.’” Now, she faces the challenge of revamping the state’s finance and accounting cesses.
“Nothing was standardized in the way we did around accounting,” she said. After evaluating nology vendors, Hines and her team selected Workday (a CFO Daily sponsor).
Un company CFOs who seek board apval, Hines and her co-executive sponsor, Commissioner Rebecca Sullivan of the Department of Administrative Services, had to present their budget request to the governor’s office and to state legislators, including chairmen and budget directors of both houses.
The partnership with Workday began in January 2023, with the ject kicking off in December 2023. More than 121 agencies are set to soon go with this HR, finance, and curement nology transformation.
“This is an enormous ject for Georgia,” Hines said.
“The last time something this was implemented was in 1999.” Tackling change management Change management in the age of AI turns employees into active contributors—encouraging experimentation, co-creation, and continuous learning, according to McKinsey re.
As a blem solver, Hines knew that selecting the nology was only part of the transformation; change management was equally essential and challenging.
Some staff worried the new system could mean job losses, so her team prioritized encouraging employees to continually try out the platform and vided upskilling and reskilling to help them adapt, she said.
For several months, Hines has driven broad, consistent engagement across agencies—using s, dedicated change agents, and regular meetings spanning finance, HR, and nology—to keep everyone informed and aligned.
Her apach emphasizes active communication, active stakeholder involvement, and readiness assessments to support successful adoption.
“We take a pulse by sending out readiness assessments to see where everyone is in the ject,” she said.
Hines also noted many agency employees are reaching retirement age, making talent recruitment a challenge.
Modern platforms, she believes, can help bridge talent gaps and attract younger workers interested in advanced nology.
“Moving away from manual data is going to allow us to do more analytics and look at trends,” she said.
Hines also told me that she hopes her leadership can inspire young women: “If you can see it, you can accomplish it.” Sheryl Estradasheryl.estrada@fortune.comLeaderboardJoao Laranjo was moted to CFO of Stellantis N.V., effective immediately.
Laranjo succeeds Doug Ostermann, who has resigned from the company for personal reasons. In 2024, Laranjo joined Goodyear as VP of finance.
He rejoined Stellantis earlier this year as CFO of Stellantis North America under the company’s new management.
Laranjo also previously worked at Fiat Chrysler Automobiles as chief accounting officer for Latin America, rising to CFO for the region.
He began his career at General Electric in 2001, serving as an associate auditor and later as controller for GE Healthcare in South America.Amir Jafari was appointed CFO of Couchbase, Inc.
(Nasdaq: BASE), a data platform vider, effective immediately. Jafari joins Couchbase from Blend Labs, where he most recently served as CFO and head of finance and operations.
Before Blend, he held CFO roles at multiple companies, as well as in finance and duct leadership roles at ServiceNow.Big DealThe Bank of America Institute's 2025 Workplace Benefits report finds that despite a general sense of optimism when looking ahead, employees are experiencing heightened stress.
77% of employees surveyed are stressed the current economic environment, 43% are stressed their typical workday, and 37% are stressed their personal and family s.
They're also grappling with matters how to balance credit card debt with emergency savings and taking vacation time versus caregiving at .
While many employers focus mainly on traditional benefits retirement plans and health insurance, employees increasingly value broader financial wellness grams—including equity, debt support, and work/life balance—which help attract and retain top talent.
More than 8 in 10 employers say that financial wellness boosts job satisfaction, retention, and ductivity, according to the report.Going deeper"Inside the cybersecurity boom, strong team, and bold gamble that helped Wiz CEO Assaf Rappaport win a $32 billion deal with Google" is a new Fortune feature article by Michal Lev-Ram that takes a deep dive into how Rappaport and his cofounders built a simple but powerful duct and landed one of the biggest deals of the decade—just months after rejecting another big offer.
"The deal cements Wiz’s place in the pantheon of software successes," Lev-Ram writes.
"The selling price ranks among the top 10 M&A deals in history, and represents the largest cybersecurity acquisition of all time, not to mention the most expensive purchase Google has ever made in any sector." Read the here.
Overheard"As a long-time board member, and a former chair and CEO of a $12 billion health care company, I am optimistic AI as a contributor to blem-solving and decision-making." —Harry M.
Jansen Kraemer, Jr., a clinical fessor of leadership at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, writes in a Fortune opinion piece.
Kraemer is the former chairman and CEO of Baxter International Inc., a global health care company, and the author of four best-selling books on values-based leadership.
He views AI as "not as a replacement for human judgment, but as a tool that enables more informed decision-making."This is the web version of CFO Daily, a on the trends and individuals shaping corporate finance.
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