Julia Denman

Corporate Vice President and Chief Risk and Audit Officer at Microsoft. Former CFO. Director, The Clorox Company. Author of The Clarity Quotient.

About

Julia Denman is a CFO by training who has spent more than three decades in senior finance and risk roles at Procter & Gamble and Microsoft. Since 2019 she has been Corporate Vice President and Chief Risk and Audit Officer at Microsoft, leading internal audit, enterprise risk, compliance and investigations, and reporting to the Audit Committee and the Microsoft CFO. Her team has rebuilt how the function works with AI, moving from sample-based testing toward full-population analysis and earlier risk signals. That work received the 2025 Protiviti / Institute of Internal Auditors Audit Innovator Trailblazer Award and is the subject of a Stanford Graduate School of Business case.

Previously at Microsoft, she was CFO of the Global Marketing and Consumer Business, with about fifty billion dollars in sales across Windows, Surface, Office and Bing advertising, and CFO of the Microsoft Devices Group, where she set up the finance organization for the new division and led the integration of the Nokia acquisition. Between those roles she led the financial integration of the $26 billion LinkedIn acquisition and the sale of the feature-phone business. Before Microsoft, she spent more than 20 years at Procter & Gamble in seven countries. Her roles there included Vice President and Assistant Treasurer, responsible for global capital markets and share repurchases, CFO of P&G France, CFO of North America Family Care, and Senior Director of Corporate Acquisitions and Divestitures.

She has been a director of The Clorox Company since 2022 and serves on its Audit Committee. She is also an inaugural member of the Institute of Internal Auditors' GRC Council. In 2026 she was named one of the Puget Sound Business Journal's Women of Influence. She holds BA and MA degrees in Economics from the University of Cambridge and is a Chartered Management Accountant. A dual US and UK citizen, she lives in Washington State.

The Book

The Clarity Quotient

The leadership discipline for the AI era

Julia's first book distills more than thirty years of practitioner experience into three disciplines leaders can build into habit: Clarity of Thinking, Clarity of Inquiry, and Clarity that Lands.

Publishing early 2027 with Fast Company Press.

Take the five-minute self-assessment at clarityquotient.org →

Or run your own work through the free Clarity Review tool →

Speaking

Julia speaks on leadership, clarity, and working in the AI era, drawing on three decades of executive experience at Microsoft and Procter & Gamble. Recent and upcoming engagements include the Stanford Director College, Google, Walmart Global Audit, KPMG Global Leader, and the Microsoft CIO Summit.

Speaking topics, recent engagements, and video samples →

Essays

Julia writes two essay series. When AI Meets Audit, published on Tuesdays, looks at what changes for audit and assurance when AI does the work. AI, Judgment and Risk, published on Thursdays, is for a broader audience: how leaders and boards should oversee AI that acts on their behalf, and how people build judgment when AI takes over the work that used to teach it.

Earlier essays include the Trailblazer series on rebuilding audit, risk and compliance for AI, and short pieces on clarity in leadership. All of them are at clarityquotient.org.

Read the essays at clarityquotient.org/essays →