Branch CFO Focuses on Automation to Drive Growth

Matt Peterson aims to leverage automation and AI to scale the finance team and accelerate the payments provider's expansion.

Feb. 23, 2026 at 9:53pm

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Newly appointed Branch CFO Matt Peterson is making automation a key part of his strategy to help the workforce payments company reach its next phase of growth. Peterson, who has experience scaling usage-based technology companies, plans to automate manual finance tasks to free up his team to focus on more strategic work and enable the business to scale without significantly increasing headcount.

Why it matters

As Branch looks to build on its 1,200% revenue growth over the past three years, leveraging automation and AI in the finance function can help the company become more agile and adaptable to support its rapid expansion. This approach allows the finance team to focus on strategic planning and decision-making rather than getting bogged down in manual processes.

The details

Peterson is focused on aligning Branch's financial plan with its product roadmap, using automation to create more operational rigor and discipline. The finance team has already started automating daily journal entries and reconciliations, with the goal of enabling faster, tighter financial closes and freeing up time for more strategic work. Peterson sees automation as an amplifying tool rather than a replacement for skilled employees, allowing the finance team to upskill and take on higher-level responsibilities.

  • Peterson joined Branch as CFO in late 2025, about 100 days prior to the publication of this article.

The players

Matt Peterson

The newly appointed CFO of Branch, a workforce payments provider. Peterson has experience scaling usage-based technology companies and plans to leverage automation to help Branch reach its next phase of growth.

Branch

A Minneapolis-based workforce payments provider that has grown its revenue by more than 1,200% over the last three years and is looking to continue that trajectory by expanding its payment infrastructure and enterprise reach.

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What they’re saying

“If you really want to help a company grow and become an enduring business, you need to be just as agile as the products your company's making in the finance team.”

— Matt Peterson, CFO

“There's a lot of abstract software out there. It's not about just the tangible ROI; that's table stakes. It's, does it fit within my three-year roadmap? Does this software tool scale to x100 million or billion of revenue without me needing to replace it?”

— Matt Peterson, CFO

What’s next

Peterson plans to continue automating more of Branch's finance processes to enable the team to focus on strategic planning and decision-making to support the company's rapid growth.

The takeaway

By leveraging automation and AI in the finance function, Branch's new CFO aims to create a more agile and adaptable finance team that can scale alongside the business, freeing up time for strategic work and enabling the company to continue its impressive growth trajectory.