New today: The 2026 Fortune Global 500 list is out this morning, ranking the world’s largest corporations by revenue for the 2025 fiscal year. Now in its 37th year, the companies, in total, represent about two-thirds of the world’s GDP, with $43.1 trillion (up 3%) in revenues, $3.4 trillion (up 14%) in profits, and 70.2 million employees. The top 50 companies alone account for a third of total revenue and 39% of profits. Fortune subscribers get exclusive access to the list.
Leaderboard
Ashwath Bhat was appointed CFO of Capitolis, a financial technology company, effective Aug. 3. He will succeed Lindsey Baptiste Fiedler, who will remain with Capitolis in an advisory role for a transition period. Bhat brings more than two decades of financial leadership experience. He most recently served as CFO at Fractal, leading the company’s IPO in February. Before that, Bhat spent more than a decade in senior finance leadership roles at Nielsen, including CFO of global media, product and technology, and CFO of Gracenote and the Nielsen Portfolio, as well as regional CFO for Africa and the Middle East.
Jacinto J. Hernandez was named CFO of Cadiz, Inc. (Nasdaq: CDZI, CDZIP), a water solutions and natural resources company, effective Sept. 1. Hernandez succeeds Stanley E. Speer, who will retire after 17 years with the company and continue in an advisory role through Dec. 31. Hernandez is the founder and principal of Cummings Consulting & Management. Previously, he spent 22 years with Capital Group and its subsidiary, Capital World Investors, where he served as a partner and investment analyst.
Big Deal
In a new report from global professional services firm Alvarez & Marsal (A&M), “,” the CFO Services team examines how AI is fundamentally reshaping the finance operating model—from one-time transformation programs to continuous evolution—and what CFOs and finance leaders must redesign now to build competitive advantage before the market moves past them.
According to the report, three anchors redefine finance’s next chapter and how the function creates value. The shift is from optimizing processes to owning decisions, with work, talent, and digital moving together across finance.
Going deeper
“Meet the ‘AI Centurions’—6 formerly sleepy stocks that now have market caps over $100 billion” is a Fortune article by Shawn Tully.
Tully writes: “There’s a whole cadre of old-line companies that have mined the AI boom to multiply their valuations many times, and sprinted to join the $100 billion-plus valuation club.” Read more here.
Overheard
—Simon Lin, chair of Wistron Corporation, a technology company based in Taiwan, said in an interview with Fortune. Wistron (No. 198 on the Fortune Global 500) has a classic corporate comeback story: It teamed up with Nvidia at the lowest point in its history, then rode the AI boom into a new era of growth. Read more here.
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