The Heller Report: At Academy Sports + Outdoors, AI Is a Team Sport

Sumit Anand, CIO and executive vice president at Academy Sports + Outdoors, tells Martha Heller in this article for CIO.com that his team pursues an AI strategy that sought business value from the start. To pursue this, he employs a cross-functional AI Council, agent-based tools, and a disciplined approach to data architecture. “We’re applying it where it can improve the customer experience, accelerate decision-making, and help the business move faster and more effectively,” Anand says.

Today’s security leaders can no longer operate as gatekeepers focused solely on blocking risk, argues Matt Hillary, chief information security officer at Drata. Instead, CISOs must serve as strategic business advisors who help organizations innovate responsibly, and build trust at scale. “When security teams position themselves as enablers instead of blockers, they become much stronger partners to the business,” Hillary says in this interview, part of our Cyber Means Business series.

Managers of startup private equity firms are finding that more investors expect the CFO hired to run the young business should be able to manage complex funds and drive their companies to build an AI-driven future, Buyouts Insider reported. In an interview for the article, Heller CEO Martha Heller noted that this CFO hired often wears several hats. “It’s incredibly important for them to be jack of all trades,” Heller told the publication. She added that the criteria for potential candidates needs to extend widely, beyond finance and accounting.

The 2026 World Cup, begun this month in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, is replete with new camera- and sensor-enabled views of the action to improve officiating in the 104 matches among 48 national teams. Sixteen stadium cameras will collect “around 150 million data points per game,” The Athletic reported. “They will also track every player’s skeleton in detail, with 3D scans of 1,249 players used to create their own AI avatar.” All of this means officials will have more views to call offsides faster, award corner kicks with more precision, and determine if a ball has gone off the field prior to a goal.