When Twitter permanently banned former U.S. President Donald Trump's account, the company's Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal was the first to break the news during a CNBC interview about the microblogging platform's first-quarter earnings.

"If anyone (violates our anti-hate speech guidelines), we have to remove them from the service," Segal said at the time. "Our policies do not allow them to come back."

Appearing as a company spokesperson on matters beyond finance is not unusual for Segal. He left his position as senior vice president at Intuit in 2017 to become Twitter's CFO.

In late July, shortly after Twitter reported its second-quarter earnings, its CEO Jack Dorsey spoke at avirtual bitcoin conference panelat length about bitcoin's potential to create a better future, because as a decentralized currency, it shifts monetary control away from institutions, thereby empowering individuals.

"I hope (bitcoin) can create world peace," Dorsey said. "We have all these monopolies... and individuals have no power. The costs and distractions of today's monetary system are real, and they divert attention from bigger problems."

These remarks left some people confused. The next morning, Segal stepped in as the clarifier.

"Jack Dorsey has these big ideas, and I don't always understand what he's talking about," one CNBC Squawk Box anchor told Segal. "I look forward to talking to you, so maybe you can explain bitcoin to me in a way I can understand. How does this all play out? What's the big theory? What does it mean in numbers?"

Segal then connected Dorsey's remarks about bitcoin as a decentralized currency that empowers individuals to Twitter as a decentralized communication platform that empowers users.

"If you step back and think more broadly about decentralization, we want tweets to be bits that can be organized in different ways across the internet," he said. "You could see them on millions of websites, not just on Twitter. We want to hire talent around the world, not just where we have offices. We also want to help people find their customers on Twitter, and decentralized currency will help us do that across borders. That's part of what (Dorsey) was saying."

Decoding the 'Spokesperson CFO'

Segal is far from the only CFO who gives interviews as a company spokesperson on matters beyond finance.

Analysts' job is to dig deep into company data, and they often trust CFOs who know the data inside out. More importantly, CFOs' disciplined ability to closely align the company's vision with reality increasingly makes them the go-to figures for publicly discussing company policy.

Grant Johnson, chief marketing officer of SaaS company Emburse, told CFO Dive that the CFO is the "obvious choice" as a company spokesperson because they are less prone to "gaffes or huge egos" than CEOs or other executives. He said CFOs, typically polished through investor or financial meetings, are naturally likely to give measured responses.

Another benefit: by familiarizing analysts, journalists, and the public with key figures at the top of the organization, companies can ensure their reputation does not rest entirely on the CEO—who is often a charismatic visionary but can sometimes also become a liability.

"Apple did well with Steve Jobs, and Salesforce with Marc Benioff, but there can be risks," Johnson said. "Think of Uber's Travis Kalanick or WeWork's Adam Neumann. If they are the face of the company and their personal brand is damaged, it can drag down the whole company."

Beyond this liability risk, companies also have an interest in showing they have deep talent reserves, which cannot be effectively demonstrated if the CEO is the only publicly visible executive. This is especially important for companies trying to attract investors or eventual acquirers.

"As a private company seeking an exit in the coming years... potential investors need to have confidence in the entire leadership team," Johnson said. "Whether it's our CFO, chief product officer, or chief people officer, having different executives participate in interviews to showcase thought leadership is crucial to demonstrating the overall quality of our leadership team."

The Practice of Strategic Partnership

The rise of the CFO as the CEO's strategic partner is a key reason why finance chiefs increasingly appear as company spokespeople, Rich Sullivan, former vice president of FP&A at Twitter and current CFO of Acorns, told CFO Dive.

"Since I started my career over 20 years ago, the CFO role has evolved to be seen as a strategic partner," he said. "The CFO's job is to help execute and articulate financial strategy. In that capacity, being able to communicate the company's strategy while also executing it is an important part of the role today."

This communication doesn't just mean internally. Today, CFOs are expected to talk to journalists and anchors about the company's plans, growth expectations, and challenges in a more quantitative and detailed way than a CEO might, said Eric Fischgrund, CEO of New York-based FischTank PR.

As a result, he added, during quarterly earnings or other news events, many CFOs—rather than CEOs or PR heads—appear on camera as the company's spokesperson or figurehead to tell the right story.

"If an experienced journalist asks a CEO a financial question he or she can't answer, that can be a missed opportunity," Fischgrund said. "If it happens in real time, it becomes a disadvantage."

He added that investors and banks may struggle to determine the true value of private companies. "Any CEO will give you the market opportunity and best-case potential, but CFOs are usually more cautious," Fischgrund said. "Especially because that company may not be the last stop in their career."

It's also worth noting that CFOs often rise to CEO, whether at their own company or elsewhere, said Charlyn Lusk, managing director at Stanton Public Relations.

She pointed out that discussing company strategy and performance on earnings calls and answering questions from journalists can serve as a training module for eventually becoming the top executive.

'Trusted Executives'

Ultimately, the main reason companies want CFOs to speak to the media is that they are inherently trustworthy, according to Alex Jorgensen, who leads investor relations at PR firm Prosek Partners. "People trust technical experts more than spokespeople," he said. "And the CFO is the ultimate technical expert."

He added that the CFO's position as the actual leader of the team that closes the books, and their close connection to the company's finances, makes them ideal but underutilized spokespeople.

"It's relatively common, especially among Fortune 500 companies, to arrange for the CFO to give media interviews," he said. "I've seen this more and more over the past five years. CFOs are very open to these opportunities, and I think it comes down to trust and a desire to build a direct connection with investors."

Finance chiefs "may be a bit drier than a charismatic CEO or a polished CMO, but they tend to share ideas from a factual standpoint without the sales slant sometimes inherent in interviews," said Dick Grove, CEO and founder of INK Inc, a Kansas City, Kansas PR firm. "Journalists appreciate that, and I think readers who form opinions based on reliable information do too."

The Natural Credibility of CFOs

Analysts and consumers saw a good example of the trust CFOs command in 2015, when a series of contamination and E. coli outbreaks at Chipotle Mexican Grill locations across the United States led to consumer hospitalizations.

Then-CEO Steve Ellsappeared on television broadcaststo apologize directly to consumers and detail the company's renewed commitment to food safety.

As an expensive solution to the problem, hetold Bloombergthat Chipotle would use high-resolution DNA testing to screen small batches of produce for pathogens. "Can everyone afford it immediately? No," Ells said. "Will we help? We will. Will it work everywhere? Maybe not."

Throughout the coverage, Ells spoke more abstractly about the chain's resolve to do better, while its longtime CFO Jack Hartung added specific numbers.

"Chipotle CFO Jack Hartung spoke more directly," Bloomberg noted in the interview.

"We love the local sourcing program and think it's important, but given what just happened, we have to make sure food safety is absolutely our top priority," Hartung told the outlet. "If there's a trade-off between testing and safety and stepping back on local sourcing, we'll choose the former, and hopefully it's temporary."

The Impact of Democratized Investing

There's another reason CFOs are appearing more in the media: the rise of consumer-facing investment platforms. As people increasingly manage their own stock trades, hearing directly from CFOs can provide retail investors with insights that aid decision-making.

"Throughout the pandemic, we saw an increase in retail investing through apps like Robinhood, and opportunities emerged for barriers between CFOs and investors to be removed," Jorgensen said. "Some people are doing Q&As on Reddit and Clubhouse."

The general public genuinely desires and values these opportunities to engage with CFOs, he said.