Top 10 Firm Grant Thornton announced that its CEO, Seth Siegel, is stepping down from his position after 30 years with the firm, though will still remain involved as a senior advisor.

“I have called Grant Thornton home for almost three decades and am proud to have been part of this amazing team and organization, which has solidified its standing as the destination of choice for clients and talent alike,” said Siegel in the firm’s official statement. He felt that, with Grant Thornton positioned for what he said was strong continued growth, it was the right time to step down. In a LinkedIn post, Siegel said the move will allow him to pursue other ambitions, focus on his health and spend more time with his family.

The new CEO will be Jim Peko, current chief operating officer of Grant Thornton Advisors LLC.

“I thank Seth for all he has done to help transform Grant Thornton so adeptly for the future. He has been a colleague, mentor and friend to so many of us, and a tireless advocate for the firm’s best interests. As CEO, my priorities will focus on accelerating our current business strategy and solidifying our standing in the marketplace as a unique global platform, driven by quality, culture and differentiated capabilities. We will continue to be the employer of choice for the industry and always capitalize on compelling opportunities before us as we drive meaningful growth,” said Peko.

Siegel expressed his confidence in Peko, saying he has worked closely with him for many years.

“Jim and I have worked closely together for many years, and he is the right leader for this new chapter — one who knows Grant Thornton well and has been integral to our many recent accomplishments and our quality-focused delivery,” he said.

Siegel became a partner in 2006, became managing partner of South Florida in 2020, and became CEO in 2022.

The announcement comes shortly after the completion of the merger between Grant Thornton Advisors LLC in the U.S. and Grant Thornton Ireland. At the time it was said that Grant Thornton Advisors CEO Seth Siegel would continue in his leadership role at the combined firm, while former Grant Thornton Ireland CEO Steve Tennant would become a member of Grant Thornton Advisors’ executive committee.

Grant Thornton laid off about 150 employees in the U.S. last November across the advisory, tax and audit businesses after the deal was announced. Its U.K. firm also received private equity investment last November from Cinven, which acquired a majority share of Grant Thornton U.K.

Accounting and business solutions provider IRIS announced an expansion to its IRIS Firm Management solution that, among other things, enhances the software’s document management capacities.

“Modern accounting firms are growing quickly, expanding their service lines and client bases,” said Jim Dunham, president and general manager of IRIS Americas. “However, this rapid growth often introduces technology sprawl, added costs and complexity. To tackle today’s challenges, firms need an all-in-one solution that simplifies operations and helps them scale their business. That’s why we created IRIS Firm Management — purpose-built from strategic acquisitions and shaped by four decades of collaboration with our customers.”

IRIS IFM’s integrated document management solution allows for storing, organizing and retrieving critical documents, for compliance with complex regulatory requirements. Today’s update also allows the solution to automatically retain documents for standard periods of time; provides template forms to maintain document consistency and integrity; and produces a detailed audit trail — tracking who accessed which documents and any actions taken, and when. This means firms can securely share encrypted files with clients using drag-and-drop upload functionality.

In addition, customers can now create unlimited customizable reports with step-by-step guidance in order to gain real-time insights through interactive analytics dashboards and data visualization. Using drag-and-drop tools and filtering options, users can refine views, organize and analyze data sets—such as client, geography, accounts receivable, work-in-progress—to create a unified account view.

The update also allows for streamlined hierarchical menus to replace dropdowns for better accessibility and consistency. It also features a new period-lockdown feature which prevents changes to key functions in order to bolster security. Meanwhile, the solution also supports cloud-based receipt storage to simplify setup, as well as options for user preferences allow for tailored workflows.

Finally, IRIS IFM sports a new Configuration Management Component, which offers 140 multilevel configuration options across 40 modules, along with a library of ready-to-use templates. Real-time updates let users enable or disable features without disrupting existing workflows, ensuring seamless, personalized implementations for each client.

Centralized Customer Success Function

IRIS also announced a new centralized Customer Success Function, which will bring together customer-facing resources from across the business into one cohesive global team. This team will collaborate closely with IRIS’ Account Management, Renewals, Product, Marketing and Customer Service teams to engage with customers at every stage of their journey.

The new function is meant to increase touchpoints to engage customers at critical moments that matter, as well as enhance the overall customer experience through establishing a unified approach across products and customer lifecycle stages and expanding customer-centric, outcome-based KPIs to drive impact.

This function will be led by Dave Burns, a newly appointed chief customer officer who previously served as interim chief revenue officer at IRIS Software Group. In his new role, he will oversee a unified team and collaborate closely with global leaders across client-facing teams.

“At IRIS, our customers are our top priority. We design and improve our products based on customer feedback and we strive to deliver exceptional customer experiences throughout our customers’ end-to-end lifecycle,” said Burns. “The launch of this new Customer Success function is just another way that IRIS is continually working to ensure our customers have a seamless and convenient experience from start to finish. We are excited about this evolution and confident it will significantly benefit both our customers and IRIS.”

2025 is shaping up to be a year of rapid change for CFOs across their accounting and finance departments. Continuing talent challenges, increasingly dangerous cyber threats, renewed focus on ROI and the rise of AI will all influence — and permanently change — the way CFOs work and how they drive value for their organizations. 

IBM’s 2024 CFO Survey found that the top 9% of CFOs in terms of performance were significantly more engaged than the average in activities including cybersecurity, brand reputation, enterprise strategy and execution, technology and talent. Because of the connection between performance and wider involvement, the biggest trend we expect to affect CFOs in 2025 is the need to consider and contribute to activities across the organization. 

In some cases, this engagement may look like a convergence or overlap between the roles of CFO and COO. CFOs who haven’t already forged working partnerships across their companies may want to start by making closer connections to the CIO or CTO for the biggest early wins. For example, 65% of CFOs who participated in the CFO survey said, “Their organization is under pressure to accelerate ROI across their technology portfolio,” but just a third said finance and technology strategize together early in the IT planning process. 

The CFO embraces data-driven storytelling

To help different departments improve their ROI, CFOs increasingly need storytelling skills to craft narratives based on financial data. This is important for conveying to other decision makers how they can create value in a way that resonates with their department’s goals and the company’s goals. If leaders in other areas of the business can understand the how and the why behind the CFO’s budget and purchasing input, they’re more likely to factor that input into their decisions and strategies. 

AI continues to reshape accounting and finance functions

In 2024, only 34% of finance departments had implemented standard AI use cases, and just 11% were using generative AI. Those numbers will almost certainly grow in 2025, as more organizations implement use cases like automating accounts payable, accounts receivable, and monthly closing tasks, so that people can shift their time to value-added work. 

More organizations may also adopt AI-powered forecasting and budgeting, so these become real-time processes rather than static activities that only get updated once a year. Challenges for finance and accounting leaders who want to leverage AI include standardizing data for AI models and monitoring the AI model’s output for accuracy. 

Talent shortages will require new strategies

A dwindling pipeline of accounting graduates and employees’ increasing desire for better work-life balance will force CFOs and accounting managers to find new ways to get the work done. Without the option to simply hire more full-time employees or to expect people to work 80-hour weeks, automating basic tasks with AI may allow organizations to get the same amount of work done with fewer employees. The use of outsourced talent will also continue to grow in 2025, as smaller companies seek people to handle their workloads and larger companies use outsourcing strategically.

Even the CFO role can be outsourced. The use of fractional CFOs — contract CFO talent that works part-time for multiple clients — can help companies maintain stability while they search for a permanent CFO or cover for a CFO who’s on leave. Smaller companies and early-stage startups that don’t need a full-time CFO can benefit from working with a fractional CFO to set strategy and focus on value creation. This kind of temporary leadership role has grown by 57% since 2020 and is likely to keep growing as more companies discover the benefits of accessing CFO expertise without a full-time commitment. 

Cybersecurity becomes a CFO concern

CFO collaboration with security will be increasingly important in 2025 because of the rise in AI-enabled security threats. These include cyberattacks on organizations’ networks to steal data or disrupt operations, email attacks designed to steal funds or employee network credentials, and brand impersonation attacks on customers that can inflict heavy damage on brand reputation and trust. 

The potential for financial losses to theft, reputational damage, compliance penalties and post-attack recovery gives CFOs an urgent need to collaborate with IT leaders on their organizations’ security efforts. For example, the average cost of a data breach in 2024 was $4.88 million, the highest figure yet. But only a third of midmarket organizations put the CFO in charge of cybersecurity budgets in early 2024. As attacks get more expensive, look for more companies to loop in the CFO on cybersecurity investment decisions or change how CFOs staff and utilize different team members.

These skills will matter more in 2025

People in accounting and finance will need some new skills to make the most of the technology, security and strategy trends we expect to see in 2025. One area where almost everyone needs to upskill is data literacy, to support AI initiatives. Employees don’t need to become data scientists in addition to accountants or finance leaders, but everyone in the organization needs to understand how to look at data, spot anomalies and analyze them.

Soft skills will matter even more. Effective collaboration, storytelling and relationship building skills can help everyone, especially CFOs who may be called on to work with a growing number of other leaders and groups within their business. 

Strengthening data literacy and interpersonal skills are ways to build another critical skill for 2025, which is staying adaptable to change. Flexibility is a requirement in today’s accounting and finance landscape, which is changing faster than ever, as these trends indicate. CFOs and accounting professionals who can keep up will be in the best position to create value for their organizations in 2025.