Investment in artificial intelligence is a “non-negotiable” area for newly-appointed Checkr CFO Tim Yarbrough as the identity verification business targets growth: eyeing a $40 billion opportunity as the business looks to expand beyond employment verification into areas such as tenant and mortage verification, he told CFO Dive.  

The rapid evolution of AI has “fundamentally changed the calculus” when it comes to both identity verification and the fraudsters trying to thwart it, enabling bad actors to generate synthetic identifies, false credentials and fake employment histories “in ways that traditional verification methods weren't designed to catch,” Yarbrough said.

Yet “AI cuts both ways,” Yarbrough said. The technology is “also what makes it possible for us to stay ahead of that threat at scale. That includes allowing Checkr to move toward continuous verification: “understanding whether what you know about someone still holds over time, not just at the moment of hire.”

Yarbrough joined the San Francisco-based company after 11 years at ZipRecruiter, which included four years as the hiring platform’s CFO, according to an April 22 press release announcing his appointment.

In emailed responses, Yarbrough talked with CFO Dive regarding his approach to AI investment, how he is thinking about hiring and other strategic decisions, and what first drew him to the role at Checkr. This Q&A has been edited for brevity and clarity. 

CFO Dive: What drew you to the CFO role at Checkr?

Tim Yarbrough: A few things came together in a way that's pretty rare. The first was timing. The world is changing fast, and the question of who to trust, and how to verify that trust, has never been more complex or more consequential. AI-generated fraud, synthetic identities, fabricated credentials — these aren't edge cases anymore. They're reshaping how companies, landlords and individuals have to think about the people they work with and let into their lives. 

The second was the business itself. Checkr has a core data asset that only gets stronger as more decisions run through it. That's a compounding advantage that's genuinely hard to build, and we're still early in how far that can go. The move beyond employment screening into identity, income and tenant verification represents a massive and largely untapped market. When you see a company with that kind of foundation and that much runway, you want to be part of building what comes next.

 CFO Dive: What will be your top priority upon taking the CFO seat?

Tim Yarbrough: My top priority is making sure the financial foundation keeps pace with the ambition. Checkr is expanding from a leading position in employment screening into new markets…and that kind of expansion has to be thoughtfully resourced and sequenced. You can have the right strategy and still execute it poorly if the financial scaffolding isn't there.

My job is to make sure we're allocating capital where Checkr has the clearest right to win, that our cost structure scales efficiently as revenue grows, and that every team across the company has the financial visibility they need to make good decisions quickly. The mission and opportunity in front of us is too important to let financial friction be the thing that slows us down.

CFO Dive: Where will your focus be in your first few months as CFO?

Tim Yarbrough: Listening and learning. I can come in with a framework, but the most important thing in the first few months is understanding the specific drivers of this business: what's working, what needs investment, and what the teams are seeing on the ground that doesn't show up in the financials yet.

I spent a lot of my career learning that the best financial decisions come from being close to the business, not just the models. So I'm spending time with product, sales and operations, understanding the nuances of each product line and each customer segment. The insight you get from those conversations shapes everything else: how you build the budget, where you invest, and how you think about trade-offs. I want to earn the right to have a real point of view before I start pushing for it.

CFO Dive: Can you expand on the $40 billion verification market Checkr is targeting, and how you plan to approach that market as CFO?

Tim Yarbrough: The $40 billion opportunity spans new and established markets...where the demand for trusted, technology-driven decisions are growing quickly, where the incumbent solutions are often slow, fragmented, or manual. Checkr's approach to background checks already demonstrated that you can modernize a high-stakes, data-intensive process in a way that's faster, more accurate, and fairer for everyone involved. The thesis is that the same playbook applies across these adjacent markets.

My job is to be disciplined about how we sequence that expansion. We have real advantages: 130,000+ customers who already trust Checkr, a data infrastructure built for exactly these use cases, and a team that knows how to execute in regulated, compliance-heavy environments. The question isn't whether the market is there. It's how we move into it in a way that compounds our strengths rather than spreads us thin.

CFO Dive: What are some of the avenues for growth you're thinking about coming into the CFO chair?

Tim Yarbrough: There are a few layers to it. The most immediate opportunity is deepening relationships with the customers we already have... we have the relationship and the trust, it's a matter of broadening the value we deliver.

Beyond that, there are new customer segments that haven't historically had access to the kind of technology-driven verification Checkr offers. As we build out continuous verification products, the ability to verify not just at the point of hire or application, but on an ongoing basis, we open up an entirely different model for how customers engage with us over time. The market is big, the use cases are expanding, and the underlying need for trustworthy verification is only growing.

CFO Dive: Can you touch on your plans for capital allocation, hiring, and investment at this stage at Checkr?

Tim Yarbrough: The principle I try to apply is: invest heavily where the data and competitive position is strongest, and be disciplined everywhere else. For Checkr, that means continued investment in the core technology: the AI and data infrastructure that makes our verifications faster and more accurate than anyone else. It also means investing in the people and products needed to open up new markets thoughtfully. Hiring follows strategy here. I want to make sure we're building the capabilities that the next phase of growth actually requires, not just adding headcount for its own sake.

There's also a finance-specific piece of this. I want to run a finance function that enables the business rather than slowing it down.

CFO Dive: How might your experience at ZipRecruiter and other high-growth companies inform how you drive growth at Checkr?

Tim Yarbrough: ZipRecruiter was a formative experience in a lot of ways. I joined when it was a high-growth private company, saw it through IPO and into the public markets, and lived through the different phases of what it means to scale a two-sided marketplace — building the financial infrastructure, navigating macroeconomic cycles, and making resource allocation calls under real uncertainty.

What you learn in that environment is that the numbers are a lagging indicator. By the time something shows up in the financials, the underlying cause is usually a few quarters old. The best operators I've worked with understand that, and they stay close to the leading signals: what customers are doing, what the pipeline looks like, and what the team is actually feeling.

Checkr is a different business but the core discipline is the same: understand the business deeply, build financial models that reflect reality rather than aspiration, and make sure the company is allocating its resources toward the bets most likely to compound over time.

CFO Dive: What challenges or roadblocks do you foresee as Checkr seeks to drive growth?

Tim Yarbrough: A few come to mind. The first is the external environment. AI is accelerating the sophistication of fraud faster than most people appreciate...The threat landscape is evolving quickly, and staying ahead of it requires constant investment and innovation.

The second is execution complexity. Expanding into new verification markets means navigating different regulatory regimes, building for different customer workflows, and earning trust in categories where Checkr isn't yet the incumbent name. Checkr has already done this in the most heavily regulated industries, background checks, and our confidence in being able to do that in new markets is high. But we know that it takes time and focus. The way you manage that is through disciplined prioritization and clear sequencing, not trying to do everything at once.

And the third, honestly, is talent. We're competing for people who can build at the intersection of AI, data infrastructure, and compliance-heavy industries. That's a specific profile, and the market for it is competitive. Building a culture where those people want to work, and stay, is a real priority.