Swetha Pandiri, Manager of FP&A Business Systems at Kaiser Aluminum, has issued a stark wake-up call to fellow finance leaders, revealing that many organisations are trapped in “transformation overload,” rolling out one AI and automation project after another without giving employees time to breathe.
While chief financial officers are racing to extract productivity gains from artificial intelligence – faster month-end closes, leaner processes and sharper forecasts – a hidden crisis is emerging in plain sight: exhausted finance teams
“The result is rising burnout, falling technology adoption rates and, ironically, stalled return on the very investments meant to make us more efficient,” Pandiri writes in a widely shared article published this week.
Drawing on hard-won lessons from enterprise-wide AI rollouts in the manufacturing sector, Pandiri argues that the most successful CFOs are no longer the ones who move fastest, but those who know when to pause.
She has distilled these insights into a practical leadership playbook called the PAUSE framework, designed to help finance leaders integrate AI without breaking their teams.
“People-first planning is non-negotiable,” Pandiri emphasises.
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“Before you pick the tool or set the vision with the people who will live with it every day. When teams co-create the change and see their real pain points addressed, resistance melts and adoption soars.”
She stresses that AI must be positioned as an augmenter of human talent, not a replacement. “Frame it as a force multiplier that removes drudgery so finance professionals can focus on judgment, strategy and relationships. Teams that believe ‘AI helps me work smarter’ deliver dramatically higher ROI than those who fear for their jobs.”
The framework also calls for heavy investment in upskilling, deliberate pacing of initiatives, and treating employee well-being as a core KPI alongside traditional cost-saving metrics.
“CFOs sit at the intersection of data, systems and people,” Pandiri concludes. “We have the power – and the responsibility – to set a tempo that compounds human potential instead of consuming it. The true return on AI won’t come from faster algorithms alone; it will come from engaged, confident teams that are ready for the next wave of growth.”
As finance functions across industries rush to embrace generative AI and robotic process automation, Pandiri’s message is resonating loudly: sustainable transformation requires not just technological ambition, but disciplined, empathetic leadership.
