Key Takeaways

  • AT&T CFO Pascal Desroches announced via LinkedIn on Wednesday that he will retire at the end of the year, ending a nearly four-decade career, calling it "one of the most meaningful chapters." According to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Desroches will officially step down on December 31, with former company employee Jennifer Biry as his successor.
  • According to the SEC filing, Biry will serve as Deputy CFO starting July 9, 2026, and will officially assume the role of CFO on January 1, 2027. She previously spent 20 years at AT&T, holding various positions.
  • In a LinkedIn post on Wednesday, Biry said: "AT&T played a significant role in shaping my career. Returning at a pivotal moment in the company's transformation feels like a full-circle moment that truly feels like coming home."

Deep Dive

In the filing submitted on Tuesday, the company did not disclose compensation details for Biry's roles as Deputy CFO or future CFO.

According to AT&T's proxy statement filed on March 23, Desroches' total compensation for 2025 was approximately $13.6 million, including a base salary of $1.2 million, stock awards of $8.5 million, and approximately $3.1 million in non-equity incentive plan compensation.

Desroches' career spans multiple iterations of AT&T and its related entities. He first joined Time Warner in 2008 as Senior Vice President and Controller. Over the next two decades, he held various roles at the media and entertainment company, including CFO of WarnerMedia. In 2022, AT&T spun off WarnerMedia and merged it with Discovery Inc., creating Warner Bros. Discovery. With the merger completed, Desroches became CFO of AT&T in April 2021.

Reflecting on his career, Desroches wrote on Wednesday that he does not define his professional life solely by titles or positions, but rather views it as a series of chapters, each "shaped by transformation, challenges, and opportunities to help navigate pivotal moments."

"Along the way, I've learned that progress is not linear. It requires discipline, resilience, and sometimes a willingness to make difficult decisions for a greater, longer-term purpose," Desroches wrote on LinkedIn. "The most defining moments of my career came during times of transition—when the path forward was not always clear, but the conviction to move forward had to be strong."

Desroches' successor, Biry, is also a former WarnerMedia employee who hopes to apply lessons learned throughout her career to rejoining AT&T. After four years as CFO and COO of cybersecurity company McAfee, Biry will become Deputy CFO of AT&T.

As previously reported by CFO Dive, McAfee has appointed former Experian executive Brian Herb to succeed Biry as its finance chief.

Biry said on LinkedIn that her experience leading both finance and operations teams at McAfee gave her a "front-row seat" to software and cybersecurity innovation, "deepening my understanding of how quickly technology is reshaping the world."

She also said the lessons learned from McAfee "perfectly align" with AT&T's goal of building a "network for the future." In recent years, the company has focused on expanding its "converged connectivity" strategy, which combines 5G wireless with fiber networks. In March, the company announced it would invest $250 billion over five years to build the largest network and improve connectivity nationwide.

According to its latest earnings report released on April 22, the company saw strong growth in its connectivity business in the first quarter of 2026, with 45% of home internet subscribers also choosing its wireless products. AT&T reported first-quarter income from continuing operations of $4.2 billion and adjusted EBITDA of $11.8 billion.