How the register is made

The records

CFO Spotlights reads three open files published by CFO Tribune, the public record of chief financial officer appointments built from SEC filings: the verified moves (427 records, filings from June 1, 2026), the seats taken from 10-K signature pages (830 companies, annual reports filed from September 2025), and auditor-change and restatement disclosures (read, not shown here). Each record carries the filing on sec.gov it was taken from. The site keeps a dated snapshot of the files and rebuilds from it; these pages reflect the records as of 2026-10-28.

A person gets an entry when the record has at least one verified move or 10-K seat in the name: 1,167 entries today. An entry that rests on a single 10-K signature line (546 of them) is published so the index is complete, but asks search engines not to index it until the record grows.

Form, Item and accession

The accession number is read from the filing's own address on sec.gov. The form type and the Item numbers are read from EDGAR: for each filer, the submissions file at data.sec.gov lists every accession with its form and Items, and the site copies those two fields for the filings it cites. 681 of 681 move rows have a form and Items from EDGAR; the rest print "not stated". A seat row is a 10-K by the record's own definition. In all, 1419 of 1419 docket rows carry a form. Item 5.02 (departure and appointment of officers) is set in bold where EDGAR lists it.

One person, or two

Records carry names as filings print them, not an identifier for the person. Records join into one entry only when the filings tie them: the same company; a filing that names the other company as the appointee's previous employer; or affiliated filers reporting the same succession, between the same people, on the same day. Two records that merely share a name stay as two entries, each noting the other. Names of people are never normalised. Company names are: each filer is printed in one form throughout, its name on the 10-K seat record (EDGAR's) where there is one, with a word set in capitals printed as another record of the same filer prints it.

The seat strip

Each entry opens with a strip: one lane per company, on a time axis that runs from the earliest date in the entry to the records date, 2026-10-28, and stops there. A bar starts at an appointment's effective date and ends at a departure's effective date, both as printed. A seat no filing dates the start of (one known from a 10-K signature, or from a departure filing alone) runs open to the left edge of the axis, dashed up to the first filing that shows it, because that filing does not say when the seat began. A seat the record calls current is drawn solid to the records date with an arrow meaning held as of that date; an end a filing gives for a later day is said in words, never drawn into the future. Where no filing ends a seat that is not current, the bar stops at the last filing that shows it and continues as a short dashed outline. Where two filings disagree (on when a tenure ends, or on who held the seat), neither is drawn as fact: the bar stops where they agree, the rest is a dashed outline, and the entry says "The filings differ" and cites both. A seat of a few days is drawn at a minimum visible width. An appointment whose filing gives no effective date adds a tick, never a bar. Each tick is one filing and links to it.

Blue is a permanent seat held as of the records date, slate one that has ended, and the hatched amber outline an interim spell. Every strip carries the same facts in words beneath it.

Dates and quotations

Dates are printed as the filing gives them: an effective date the filing hedges is shown to the month; one it does not give is shown as not stated. A seat is called current only when its latest filing is under 18 months old and no later filing at the company names someone else. Quotations are whole sentences from the filing that name the person, 40 words or fewer; a longer sentence is left out rather than cut, and no quotation stops inside a name or an abbreviation.

Career-path figures

The career-path pages are computed from the same records at build time. The prior-role groups are a published rule applied to the filing's wording, printed on the page, with every appointment listed so the grouping can be checked line by line. Internal promotion and first-time status are the record's fields; where a filing does not settle them they are counted as not established, never guessed.

What is never printed

No photographs, portraits or likenesses. No family, health, home or pay details. No pronouns the record does not give: entries use the name once, then the role or the company. No reason for a departure beyond the filing's own words, and no judgement of anyone's performance. A change of CFO is not offered as a signal about a company's shares.