How to track CFO changes: the record, the data, RSS and the roster

CFO Tribune is a public record of who holds the chief financial officer seat at US public companies, built from SEC filings. It has two parts. The moves record follows changes as companies report them on Form 8-K. The roster records who signed each company's latest 10-K as principal financial officer. This guide shows how to use each part, and the feeds and files built from them.

As of this page's last build, the record holds 418 verified moves, filed from June 1, 2026 to October 23, 2026, and 483 roster seats, covering 830 companies in all.

Why the filings are the source

Item 5.02 of Form 8-K requires a company to report when its principal financial officer "retires, resigns or is terminated from that position," and when it "appoints a new" one. General Instruction B.1 gives it "four business days after occurrence of the event," and the Instruction to Item 5.02(c) lets it file an appointment on the day it otherwise announces it. So the 8-K is both the earliest required public record of a CFO change and the most complete. The Item 5.02 guide explains what it must contain.

Form 10-K complements it. General Instruction D says the annual report "must be signed" by the company's "principal financial officer or officers," and the signature page prints the name and capacity of each signer. That makes the 10-K the best single document for who held the seat on its filing date.

News reports are not used as a source on their own. A record publishes only when a filing on sec.gov backs it.

The moves record

Moves lists every verified CFO change, newest first. Each record is one of four events:

• Appointment: a new CFO named, with no departing officer on the record. The record holds 74.
• Departure: a CFO leaving, with no successor named. The record holds 82.
• Transition: a departure and a named successor in the same filing. The record holds 168.
• Interim: an officer named to act in the role. The record holds 94; see interim CFOs.

Each record page shows the company, the people, the effective date at the precision the filing gives it, the filing date, a link to the filing, and the filing's own words. For incoming officers it also shows whether the filing establishes an internal promotion; see internal promotion or outside hire and first-time CFOs.

Company and people pages

Companies has one page per company with a move or a roster seat. Each page states the current seat as the record establishes it:

• Named: the officer from the latest filing on the record.
• In transition: an 8-K reported a change that has not taken effect, or a departure with no successor on the record yet.
• Not established: the filings on the record do not establish who holds the seat. The page says so and gives the reason.

A later 8-K on the record replaces a roster seat, so the company page always reflects the newest filing the record has. Every person named in a move also has a page under people, listing each record that names them.

The roster

The roster is the coverage project: one seat per S&P 500 company, read from its latest 10-K signature page. The record names an officer only when a principal financial officer or CFO title is printed with that person's own conformed signature. Of 483 roster seats, 438 name an officer and 45 are not established. The 10-K signatures guide explains what a signature page shows and what it does not.

A roster seat is shown as "verified" on the 10-K's filing date, never "since." The signature establishes who held the seat that day, not when the person took it.

The open data

Open data has every verified move as a file:

• moves.json, with a metadata envelope, for programs;
• moves.csv, for spreadsheets.

Each row has the company, ticker and CIK, the event, the people, the effective date and its precision, the filing date, the internal promotion value, the filing's own words, the filing URL and the record URL. The files are rebuilt with every publication. They are free to use with attribution to CFO Tribune and a link to the site.

A few practical notes:

• Filter on datePrecision before computing time between dates. A month-precision date is stored as the first of the month.
• Treat unknown as unknown. It means the filing does not establish the value, not that the answer is no.
• Join on cik, not on company name. A company's name can change while its CIK stays the same.

RSS

The RSS feed carries the newest verified moves and analysis pieces, with the filing's own words as the description. Any feed reader can follow it. It updates when the site rebuilds, which happens with each publication and nightly.

Reports and analysis

Reports has weekly and monthly recaps, computed from verified records when the site builds. Analysis has written pieces, each with its own data table, and every number in a piece appears in its table.

Corrections

Every published record stays correctable. If a record says something its filing does not, or a filing changes it with an 8-K/A, the corrections page explains how to report it and lists every correction of substance. The methodology explains how a filing becomes a record and how each record is re-checked against its filing before it publishes.

A routine that works

• Follow the RSS feed for new moves.
• Check a company's page before citing who holds its seat, and cite the filing linked there.
• Pull the CSV or JSON when you need counts, and keep the unknowns as unknowns.
• Read the filing itself before you characterize any departure. The record quotes the filing and adds nothing to it, and that is the safest standard to follow.