Accordion, an AI and data-powered financial consulting firm focused on private equity, today announced the promotion of Kyle Roemer to Global Head of Data & AI. In this expanded role, Roemer will lead Accordion’s data, analytics, and AI capabilities across the firm’s global footprint, guiding the strategy behind the fastest-growing part of the business, which has doubled since he joined in October 2024.

Sponsors have made their expectations clear. Accordion’s 2026 PE AI Adoption Benchmark survey of 150 AI, data, and technology Operating Partners found that 86% expect buyers to pay a premium for AI-enabled finance capability within two years. Most CFOs are not ready for that conversation. Only 17% have claimed AI transformation as a strategic mandate, and just 14% of portfolio finance functions have moved past back-office automation into genuine decision intelligence.

“Closing that gap takes more than deploying tools faster,” said Nick Leopard, CEO of Accordion. “It takes a data foundation, engineers embedded inside the business, and the people who understand a CFO’s world well enough to make the first two matter. Most firms are strong in one of those areas. A few are strong in two. We’re the only firm we know of that has built real depth in all three, on staff, purpose-built for private equity. Kyle has spent his career building exactly that combination, and this role puts him in position to scale it for sponsors and portfolio companies everywhere.”

Roemer joined Accordion’s Data, Analytics & AI practice in 2024 and has played a central role in building the firm’s engineering and technology capabilities, including its work in agentic AI, data platforms, and AI-enabled analytics. He also hosts Accordion Intelligence’s podcast, AI & PE: The Future of Value Creation, where he and guests from firms including Charlesbank and Searchlight Capital examine what is actually working, and what is not, as AI moves into portfolio company finance functions.

His promotion reflects Accordion’s continued investment in the practice, which now spans three core areas:

  1. Data platforms and foundations, which builds the modern data estate, knowledge graphs, and semantic layer that agentic AI reasons over.

  2. AI and value creation analytics, which identifies where AI creates EBITDA and designs the agentic workflows to capture it.

  3. AI product and engineering, which builds and runs AI-native systems in production, including Accordion’s own suite of finance products. This group is also scaling the firm’s embedded engineering and global delivery capacity to deliver that work at portfolio scale.

Accordion’s own research has found that 98% of sponsors have told their portfolio company CFOs to prioritize AI, yet only 37% of CFOs feel confident in their AI strategy today. Closing that confidence gap, at scale, across a global team of more than 1,700 finance and technology experts, is now Roemer’s mandate.

“CFOs don’t need another automation project,” said Roemer. “They need AI that changes how value gets created across the hold period. That work starts with fixing the data. From there it takes engineers embedded inside the business who build agentic systems for how a hold-period company really operates. Get the foundation, the engineering, and the functional expertise working together, and AI stops being a tool the finance team uses and starts becoming the thing that moves EBITDA and writes the exit story. That’s the future of finance, and we’re building it one portfolio company at a time.”

About Accordion

Accordion is the CFO’s partner in value creation. Built for the modern finance function, we are the only firm at the intersection of deep CFO domain expertise, technology, and leading-edge AI and data. Our roots run through private equity, where speed, rigor, and accountability are the baseline, and we bring that same discipline to organizations everywhere. Accordion works with clients to transform and drive value across the entire enterprise, through core accounting, FP&A, analytics, technology enablement, transactions, operational improvement, and turnaround and restructuring. The firm is headquartered in New York, with 11 offices and 1,700+ professionals around the globe.

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