Genesco Inc. has appointed Jonathan Collins as its senior vice president of finance and chief financial officer, effective August 3. The footwear retailer announced the leadership change as it seeks to solidify its financial executive team. Collins brings more than three decades of senior financial experience to the role.
He most recently served as the CFO of America’s Car-Mart, Inc. Prior to that position, Collins held a series of executive leadership roles at Walmart from 2012 through 2025. His tenure at the retail giant included serving as the CFO of Walmart Africa, chief accounting officer for Flipkart Group, and chief accounting officer for Walmart itself.
Mimi E. Vaughn, who serves as the president and CEO of Genesco, has acted as the interim CFO since March. She will continue in her executive leadership capacity while Collins assumes the financial role.
In a separate corporate development, Papa John's International Inc. is searching for a permanent chief financial officer following the departure of Ravi Thanawala. Thanawala is leaving the pizza chain to accept a CFO position at another public company.
Chris Collins, who currently serves as the senior vice president of corporate finance and principal accounting officer at Papa John's, has been appointed to the additional role of interim CFO, effective immediately. Thanawala will remain available to the company in an advisory capacity until July 31. The pizza chain has initiated a search process to identify a permanent successor for the financial leadership position.
Separately, a report from the Pew Research Center indicates that artificial intelligence adoption among U.S. adults is increasing. Approximately half of American adults now report using AI chatbots, with roughly one in four utilizing them on a daily basis. The data shows that 44% of users specifically employ ChatGPT.
The most frequent applications for these tools include information searches, cited by 42% of users, and work-related tasks, used by 38%. Despite the rising usage rates, public sentiment toward the technology remains skeptical. Forty percent of respondents believe AI will have a negative impact on society over the next 20 years.