As finance chiefs are asked to take the lead on challenges beyond traditional finance — including technology, legal and operations — they confront their own limits of time and knowledge. BILL Holdings CFO Rohini Jain uses artificial intelligence to overcome such limits.

“When I joined BILL, there are so many parts of being a CFO that I had to learn and grow into and without AI, I would have really struggled,” Jain told CFO Dive in an interview. The San Jose, Calif.-based company provides procurement, accounts payable and receivable and other tools to small and mid-sized businesses, according to its website.

CFOs need to be able to find and get acclimatized to information and responsibilities quickly in new roles. With AI, “I'm able to really do deep learning without having to ask anybody, without having to take any classes, without having to do a job for two years to learn something,” she said. “That ability to have accelerated learning curves and being open to learning in any shape,way or form that you can is going to be so critical for the next generation of CFOs.”

Fostering deeper communication 

An experienced financial professional, Jain joined the financial operations platform in July as part of a number of leadership shifts at BILL, according to a company press release.

Prior to BILL, she logged nearly a decade at payments processor PayPal, where she served in numerous financial roles including as its senior vice president and CFO for enterprise business and merchant platforms. Her previous experience also includes serving as senior director, FP&A for Walmart eCommerce and in various roles at eBay and General Electric, according to her LinkedIn profile.

For Jain, one of the top benefits of AI is its ability to give finance chiefs more of a critical resource: time. In taking the role of a CFO, especially at a public company, “the demands on your time just exponentially increase,” she said. “So how do you step away for a little bit and understand what's most important?”

Utilizing AI effectively can free up more time for finance leaders and their teams to focus on their strategic goals; for example, the technology can help CFOs wade through an expanding volume of data and turn that information not only into insights “but into action,” Jain said.

The tool can also help foster better communication. While the technology may not change the narrative a financial executive presents to the board or investors, for example, “with AI, I now have so many more tools to understand, potentially, the reaction and how what I’m saying is being received,” Jain said.

The AI learning curve

Jain is taking a deeper look at AI at a time when the shape, and the responsibilities, of the finance function have continued to evolve in a way that puts a widening importance on technology acumen and related skills.

Jain pointed back to her decision to join eBay as an example of how she has previously honed her tech skills, where she joined as a director, global product and tech finance and as a director of shipping finance and analytics. One of the reasons she took the role was “because, at that time, I was like, ‘Okay, the next generation CFO has to know big data,’” she said.

“So I led large analytics teams, learned how to do that, and I think what I'm pointing to is, you have to be open to learning things that you did not grow up with,” Jain said. “That's a really important part of being [in] finance.”

Jain has extended that philosophy to BILL as she looks to build out the finance team, looking not just for “traditional finance talent, but people who have the capability to use big data, write queries and drive insights,” she said.

These represent “very different skill sets, very different mindsets,” Jain said. “One is more problem solving, one is more portfolio management. But how do you start to create teams that have a bit of skill [in] everything so they can come together and learn from each other?”

That broad crop of skills is crucial as BILL seeks to expand its product suite: announcing two AI agent solutions for SMBs that can aid with reconciliation and W-9 filings on Oct. 28, for example. As the company grows, Jain is taking advantage of her expertise at larger companies to bring some structure to the business, she said.

“Sometimes, when you're doing too many things too rapidly, how do you put in a structure for it to be even more impactful?” she said. Before she joined as CFO, the company was “already on a journey to get to somewhat of a product structure where people own end-to-end product outcomes,” Jain said, a process she continued to foster upon taking the top financial seat.