AT&T names Jennifer Biry to succeed retiring CFO Pascal Desroches
Pascal Desroches will retire at year-end, as Russell Reynolds data points to rising CFO exits into retirement and board roles.
By Hana Yoshida · Markets Reporter
3 min read
AT&T will replace chief financial officer Pascal Desroches with Jennifer Biry at the start of 2027, the company said, putting a succession plan in place as more finance chiefs leave their posts. The move matters because AT&T is one of the largest U.S. companies and Desroches helped steer a major reshaping of its business.
AT&T said Desroches, senior executive vice president and CFO, will retire on Dec. 31. Biry will join as deputy CFO on July 6 and become CFO on Jan. 1, 2027, according to the company.
Biry previously spent more than two decades at AT&T in finance roles, according to Fortune. She most recently served as chief financial officer and chief operating officer at McAfee, the cybersecurity company.
The change comes during a period of elevated CFO turnover. Russell Reynolds Associates said in its Q1 2026 Global CFO Turnover Index that 60% of outgoing CFOs worldwide retired or moved into board roles during the first quarter of 2026. That was up from 56% a year earlier and above the seven-year first-quarter average of 39%, according to the firm.
Desroches announced his planned retirement in a LinkedIn post Wednesday. He wrote that “progress isn’t linear” and said his career had required “discipline, resilience” and difficult decisions made for longer-term goals.
Before AT&T, Desroches held senior finance and administrative jobs tied to major media assets, according to Fortune. He was executive vice president and CFO of WarnerMedia, administrative officer of Turner Broadcasting System, Turner’s CFO and global controller at Time Warner.
His AT&T tenure overlapped with a large strategic reset, according to Fortune. During that period, AT&T separated DirecTV, divested media assets through the WarnerMedia-Discovery transaction, cut debt, reset its dividend and shifted attention back toward telecommunications infrastructure.
Fortune reported that AT&T also increased spending on 5G and fiber while working to simplify its balance sheet and cost structure. Desroches has described those steps as part of refocusing AT&T on its core telecommunications business, according to Fortune.
AT&T CEO John Stankey credited Desroches with helping strengthen the company and narrow its strategic focus, according to a company statement cited by Fortune. Stankey also said Biry’s range of experience would support the company’s next phase of execution.
Biry described the return to AT&T in a LinkedIn post as a “full-circle moment” and said it felt like coming home. Her appointment gives AT&T a successor with both company history and recent operating experience outside the telecom group.
Desroches also used his LinkedIn message to point to the relationships that shaped his career. He cited colleagues who challenged him, teams that performed under pressure and leaders who trusted him as the parts of the job he would carry forward.
This story draws on original reporting from Fortune.