Artie Minson, whose decades-long career has included stints as co-CEO of WeWork and CFO of AOL, says his his journey from finance leadership to the CEO seat was a natural progression.
“I was more of an operating CFO — someone who was sort of heavily involved in the inner workings of the business,” he said in an interview. “Becoming a CEO was sort of a pretty natural extension of things I had done in the past. But probably once a CFO, always a CFO in terms of mindset.”
The number of finance leaders following the CFO-turned-CEO career path is slowly rising, according to a recent report from executive search firm Crist Kolder Associates.
In the first half of the year, about 7.5% of the sitting CEOs at Fortune 500 and S&P 500 companies came directly from a CFO chair, up from 7.1% in 2024 and 6.5% in 2015, according to the report.
Minson views his new role as CEO of AI-driven accounting software startup Trullion, a company he has advised in recent years, as a logical next step.
Trullion’s leadership change, announced Monday, comes as the New York-based company is focused on rapid growth in a fast-moving industry — the kind of challenge that Minson relishes.
“I think artificial intelligence will fundamentally change how CFOs, controllers and audit firms operate, and Trullion has a really unique opportunity to be a leader in the space,” he said.
Minson said he’s uniquely positioned to lead Trullion into its next phase of growth because of his CFO background as well as his history with the startup. He was an early investor in Trullion and has been one of its advisors and board observers for over five years.
“As an advisor and board member in the past, I think I was probably the one who had sort of worn a CFO hat and was able to offer some perspective on what I thought were big pain points and where to focus our efforts,” he said.
Most recently, Minson was president and CEO of wholesale cannabis platform LeafLink, where he tripled the company's revenue and led it to be named one of Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies in America, Trullion noted in a press release announcing his appointment.
During his tenure as president and co-CEO at WeWork, the company’s annual revenue jumped from about $100 million to over $3 billion. As CFO at Time Warner Cable, he helped negotiate the company's successful sale to Charter Communications. While serving as CFO and chief operating officer at AOL, he helped the company return to revenue growth, Trullion said.
Minson began his career over three decades ago as an audit manager at Ernst & Young, serving in that role for six years.
In his latest move, Minson is replacing Isaac Heller, who founded Trullion in 2019 and is now transitioning from the role of CEO to president, with a focus on new product development and strategic partnerships, while remaining as chairman of the board, according to the Monday release.
“This new leadership structure will allow us to accelerate the development of our product suite, expand our customer base, and grow our global footprint as we deliver innovative solutions to our rapidly growing client base,” Heller said in the release.
Corporate finance is a world that is currently in flux. Gartner predicts that at least 15% of day-to-day finance decisions will be made autonomously by 2030, as finance professionals transition from task execution roles to overseeing and coordinating AI agents.
The worldwide “office of the CFO software market” is expected to grow from $71 billion in 2023 to $131 billion in 2028, according to global investment bank Carlsquare.
The market is benefiting from several tailwinds as finance chiefs look to boost their efficiency and adapt to “evolving expectations,” the firm said in a report released earlier this year.
For its part, Trullion says it achieved record revenue growth in the last quarter. A spokesperson said he was unable to disclose specific figures.
Trullion provides a suite of AI-enabled accounting software tools for finance and audit teams. In May, the company launched Trulli, an AI agent designed to assist finance professionals in areas such as document analysis and policy interpretation.
The software provider currently serves more than 3,000 companies around the world and says it has tripled the number of audit firm clients using its platform over the past year.
Looking ahead, Minson said his top priorities as the firm’s new CEO include expanding its pipeline of customers, with a focus on the Big Four audit and accounting firms as well as scaling the company internationally and growing its partnerships in key markets like the U.K. and Australia.
“The speed at which markets in general and the AI market in particular are changing is somewhat unprecedented in my career, so I think it’s important for all companies like ourselves in this space to be moving really, really fast,” he said.
