From Cost Center to Value Driver: How Emanuel Pleitez and Finix Are Harnessing AI to Transform Finance
Last updated at 10.30.25
Emanuel Pleitez on AI and the New Era of Finance at Finix
For years, finance teams were often seen as the “cost center” of a company, a group primarily responsible for controlling budgets, approving expenses, and producing reports. Employees would approach finance for approvals or budget checks, receiving a simple yes or no. This limited view shaped how businesses approached finance.
Today, that perception is shifting. Emanuel Pleitez, Head of Finance at Finix, recently discussed this transformation during the PYMNTS B2B Payments 2025 series, “B2B.AI: The Architecture of Intelligent Money Movement.”
“Traditionally, the finance team was the gatekeeper of budgets and approvals,” Pleitez said. “But now, in an era of instantaneous data, global market volatility, and heightened investor expectations, CFOs are redefining finance as a creator of enterprise value.”
This evolution begins not with technology, but with mindset. Rather than being reactive gatekeepers, finance professionals are now expected to drive returns, ensuring that each dollar spent contributes measurable value.
“Every day, we are making financial decisions that need to generate ROI,” Pleitez emphasized.
Artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as a key enabler in this transformation, allowing finance teams to move beyond traditional reporting and play a strategic role in enterprise growth. At Finix, AI adoption is deliberate and ROI-focused, rather than experimental.
TL;DR
Finance is no longer just about budgets and compliance. At Finix, Emanuel Pleitez is redefining the finance function as a strategic value driver, leveraging AI to accelerate reconciliation, improve modeling, support planning, and drive ROI-focused decision-making. Instead of adopting AI for experimentation, Finix deliberately applies, starting with small, high-impact use cases grounded in clean, structured data.
Summary
Emanuel Pleitez, Head of Finance at Finix, highlights how finance teams are shifting from traditional gatekeeping roles to becoming strategic partners in value creation. With real-time data and investor expectations rising, finance now plays a central role in maximizing ROI and shaping business strategy. AI is a core enabler of this shift at Finix, where it is intentionally used to streamline reconciliation, enhance financial modeling, support liquidity planning, and accelerate month-end close cycles. However, AI’s effectiveness hinges on strong data intelligence and clean, structured data that ensures accuracy and reliability.
Rather than pursuing large-scale AI overhauls, Finix takes a practical, incremental approach: applying AI to focused areas that deliver measurable productivity gains and empower finance to operate proactively. The key takeaway is that mindset matters as much as technology. By thinking like investors and treating each financial decision as an opportunity to create value, finance teams can evolve into strategic drivers of growth.
From Cost Center to Strategic Partner
Finance has historically been reactive, focused on compliance, expense approvals, and report generation. While these duties remain critical, the landscape has shifted. Real-time data, advanced analytics, and AI now empower finance teams to actively influence strategy, assess risks, and optimize resource allocation.
Pleitez frames this change as a shift from a cost-center mentality to an investor-style approach. Finance leaders are now evaluating the returns on financial decisions, leveraging AI and analytics to guide strategic outcomes.
AI Applications That Deliver Impact
AI is no longer a futuristic concept; it is a practical tool for modern finance operations. At Finix, AI is used strategically, not for novelty, but to deliver measurable results. Some of the key applications include:
Reconciliation: With millions of monthly transactions and billions in annualized volume, manually reconciling data is time-intensive. AI speeds up the process, reduces errors, and shortens month-end close cycles.
Financial Modeling: The team uses Python scripts, SQL queries, and AI tools to optimize formulas, query databases, and improve forecasting accuracy. Even small AI applications, such as refining a single line of code, save significant time.
Liquidity and Working Capital Planning: AI supports scenario modeling and predicts changes in financial plans, helping the team mitigate risk before it arises.
“Even on a micro level, AI can enhance processes, whether that’s refining formulas in Excel, running a SQL query, or streamlining a financial model,” said Pleitez.
Why Data Intelligence Matters
Pleitez emphasizes that AI is only as effective as the data it uses. He distinguishes between artificial intelligence, the tool, and data intelligence, the quality and structure of the data powering that tool.
“AI depends on clean, structured data to function properly,” Pleitez explained.
Large-scale AI implementations require significant attention to data hygiene, ensuring structured and unstructured data are properly coded, categorized, and cleaned to prevent errors. However, Finix focuses on incremental, targeted applications that yield immediate productivity gains without undertaking a full enterprise-wide integration.
“You don’t need a massive budget to start benefiting from AI. Even small, focused applications can increase productivity by 5–20%,” he said.
This approach allows Finix to balance efficiency with risk management, extracting meaningful results without the complexity and potential pitfalls of a full-scale AI overhaul.
How Finix Uses AI Daily
At Finix, AI is applied in ways that deliver practical value:
Accelerating Month-End Close: AI reconciles large datasets quickly, ensuring invoice accuracy and enabling faster financial close.
Scenario Analysis and Risk Mitigation: AI helps test variations in financial plans, highlighting potential risks and suggesting safer alternatives.
Optimizing Formulas and Queries: From Python scripts to SQL queries, AI improves the efficiency of financial modeling and data analysis.
These applications not only improve operational efficiency but also foster a culture where finance functions as a proactive partner rather than a bottleneck.
A Shift in Mindset
Technology alone cannot redefine finance. Pleitez stresses that fundamental transformation begins with adopting an investor-style perspective. Each financial decision should be treated as an investment, and AI tools should serve to enhance analysis, speed, and decision-making.
“AI won’t solve everything, but when applied to specific tasks, it can be a powerful partner,” he noted.
Key Lessons from Finix
Finance leaders can draw several takeaways from Emanuel Pleitez’s approach:
Start Small, Scale Strategically: Use AI for high-impact tasks to quickly realize benefits.
Prioritize Data Quality: Structured, codified, and categorized data is essential for effective AI.
Think Like an Investor: Evaluate each financial decision for its potential return.
Iterate Incrementally: Focus on micro-applications first before attempting enterprise-wide integration.
Balance AI with Expertise: Technology enhances human insight but does not replace it.
Through this combination of mindset and technology, Finix demonstrates how finance can evolve into a strategic driver of value.
The Future of Finance at Finix
The evolution of finance at Finix mirrors broader industry trends. AI, once seen as experimental, is now integral to driving actionable insights, increasing efficiency, and supporting enterprise strategy. Emanuel Pleitez’s approach illustrates that true transformation is both cultural and technological: adopting AI while fostering a strategic, ROI-focused mindset.
“Every day we are spending money, and we need to get an ROI on it,” Pleitez said. At Finix, AI helps make that ROI tangible and positions finance as a central driver of growth and strategic insight.
Take the Next Step with Finix
Transform your finance team from a cost center into a strategic value driver. Finix combines advanced AI tools with an investor-style mindset to accelerate decision-making, boost productivity, and deliver measurable ROI.