Rohini Jain, Chief Financial Officer, BILL.
Like many finance leaders, I built my career in a function where expertise came through deep repetition. You learned by doing the work, spotting patterns and building judgement over time.
AI is changing that by taking on more of the structured work that finance teams have historically done manually.
I use AI myself to accelerate learning and pressure-test early thinking in new areas where I need to gain insight quickly. It has reinforced something I believe strongly: Deep expertise still matters, but mental agility matters just as much.
AI saves finance teams an average of 21 hours per week, according to BILL research. That’s half a work week, making AI’s impact immediately tangible. That’s more than efficiency gain; it’s a structural shift in how work gets done.
As AI takes more busywork off the plates of finance teams, I believe the advantage will go to organizations that use that time not just to move faster, but to rethink the finance function and how we look at talent.
Redesigning Finance Roles Around Judgment
Finance is one of the clearest examples of the structural shift that AI brings because many workflows are structured and repeatable. Tasks like data entry, reconciliation, coding and reporting are all being automated. In this environment, judgment grows in importance.
Today, in addition to relevant experience, I make hiring decisions based on mental agility. Finance team members need the ability to use tools and data in an agnostic manner, to learn quickly and to be willing to step into unfamiliar territory. They still need technical grounding, but that foundation is no longer enough by itself.
When AI gives finance professionals meaningful time back, it can make the role more strategic and advisory. Mastering the repetitive work that many professionals built their careers on taught discipline, pattern recognition and exception handling. If AI reduces more of that routine work, leaders cannot assume the traditional talent development model will keep working on its own. We will have to be much more intentional about how finance talent grows.
That means building teams with people who are flexible, curious and fluent in leveraging tools and data in more technical ways. Some of the most interesting people to bring into finance now may not come from traditional finance backgrounds alone. They may bring engineering instincts, data fluency or a different problem-solving mindset. The strongest teams combine deep finance knowledge with people who can rethink how work gets done.
Thinking Beyond Tasks Earlier In Your Career
For finance professionals earlier in their careers, my advice is to not confuse repetition with long-term advantage. The advantage will go to people who step outside their job description and solve real business problems. Being curious is what separates good finance professionals from excellent ones. Ask questions, learn the business, see what’s happening industrywide. And then overlay that with your finance acumen and expertise to drive business outcomes.
Finding the courage to embrace discomfort can yield meaningful benefits. Some of the biggest leaps in my own career came from moving into roles where I was no longer the expert in the room, whether it was leaving finance for a product role or jumping into a new industry where I had to learn fast. That’s where real growth happens.
What will remain evergreen is the ability to adapt, develop new skills and operate across different parts of the business—not narrow expertise in a single lane.
Making Reclaimed Time Count
Reclaimed time is only valuable if you use it intentionally. If AI is going to give your finance team meaningful time back, use it wisely.
The role of finance and financial planning and analysis teams is to understand what matters most, not just to produce more numbers faster. Use reclaimed time to strengthen business partnerships, improve forecasting and think more strategically about the outcomes that drive your business.
Hiring Differently
Also use this time to invest in people deliberately. I want to hire people who are curious enough to step outside their lane—people who ask questions and understand how the business works, not just their own specific function. Of course, they need to learn the business mechanics, but also understand how it all connects.
But hiring the right people is only half the equation. You also need to structure teams so they can grow together and operate at their best. I structure my team to mirror the business itself. Each person is aligned to a specific business partner. Those team members spend way more time with their business partners than they do with me. That structure forces them to understand the business deeply, to be advisory, to think operationally.
I’ve seen how this plays out in practice: One of BILL’s clients, with a three-person finance team, used time freed up by automation to support close to 200 client accounts without adding headcount, focusing instead on building stronger business partnerships.
I also believe in seeding teams with people who bring different skill sets. You need people who bring fresh exposure to the latest tools and who are using AI naturally. You need people with engineering instincts and data fluency and people who have made career leaps. You also need deep subject matter experts. When you combine those diverse perspectives with deep finance knowledge, everybody starts to grow. The work becomes more interesting, the thinking becomes sharper, and suddenly people are solving problems in ways they couldn’t have imagined before.
The Opportunity In Front Of Finance Leaders
AI is giving finance teams a rare opportunity to reset. To gain the most benefit from this change, don’t simply automate more work. Rather, use that additional time to build better judgement, stronger partnerships, more adaptable talent and a deeper curiosity about what comes next.
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