When Jean Compeau joined Sonar as CFO in March 2025, AI coding was not yet dominating industry conversations. By the summer and fall that followed, however, the landscape had shifted dramatically. Today, AI agents are producing software code at a pace that humans cannot easily verify, creating both opportunity and risk.
That shift sits at the center of Sonar’s mission. The company is the global leader in AI code verification and governance in what it calls the agentic-centric development lifecycle, or “ACDC, just like the band,” Compeau tells us. The scale is significant. Sonar is trusted by 7 million developers, processes 750 billion lines of code daily, serves 25,000 paying customers, and counts 75 percent of the Fortune 100 among its customers, Compeau tells us.
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For Compeau, growth is measured through both financial and operational signals. ARR, NRR, GRR, and EBITDA remain core metrics, she tells us. But she also watches utilization, adoption, lead generation, pipeline activity, and free-to-paid conversion rates because these indicators can reveal future performance before financial results arrive.
That perspective shapes how finance participates in strategic decisions. As Sonar invests in new AI-driven products, finance evaluates not only bookings potential but also the company’s long-term position in the AI market, Compeau tells us. The finance function remains involved throughout the process, helping operationalize everything from product introduction and revenue tracking to order management and cash collection.
For Compeau, finance’s role is not simply to measure growth—it is to help shape it.
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CFOTL: So we might have a few more career-related questions a little later. Right now, we want to talk to you about Sonar, where you stepped in as CFO in March 2025. Tell us about this company. What’s it about today?
Compeau: I’m very excited to share. Sonar is the global leader in AI code verification and governance in the agentic-centric development lifecycle. We call it ACDC, just like the band. Just to give you a little bit of information on the scale of Sonar, we’re trusted by 7 million developers, we process 750 billion lines of code daily, and we have 25,000 paying customers. Of those, 75 percent of the Fortune 100 are our customers. So I’m very proud to be part of this journey.
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CFOTL: Could you tell us a little bit more about the growth journey? How has that evolved over time?
Compeau: Last year, when I joined the company, AI coding wasn’t being talked about as much. Then last summer and fall, AI coding became really popular. Today, AI agents are writing massive volumes of complex code faster than any human can verify. AI code is less reliable and more complex, and only 3 percent of developers highly trust the accuracy of AI code. AI tools are also generating more verbose code, meaning expanding lines of code. AI code tools are generating about 50 percent more lines of code than developers to complete the same task. That gives you a sense of the magnitude. This puts Sonar in a mission-critical position to verify this exponentially growing volume of code and help enterprises increase reliability, maintainability, auditability, and, most importantly, trust in AI code.
CFOTL: So tell us, what numbers are you looking at to understand how the company is performing or growing? What are these metrics?
Compeau: We measure quite a few metrics. Financially, we look at ARR—annual recurring revenue. NRR and GRR are pretty common financial metrics, and of course profitability. We look at EBITDA, but we also look at a lot of leading indicators. The KPIs I mentioned are lagging indicators, so the leading indicators I look at are in various areas. For example, in product, I look at utilization, because utilization drives adoption, and eventually your ARR and NRR will grow. I also look at marketing data in terms of leads and pipeline generation. We also have a free-trial online business, so traction in the online business and free-to-paid conversion are early indicators of how the business will do.
CFOTL: Are these being watched weekly, or can you give us a sense of the frequency with which you’re taking a dive into these numbers?
Compeau: At least weekly. We have regular dashboards and regular monthly reporting. There are dashboards that the management team looks at closely to analyze the data. I would say that is a big part of the finance organization: to monitor and look around the corner to see what could go wrong, and then be able to work with the business to get ahead before the problem really becomes a problem.
CFOTL: Could you tell us how, when a major product investment is going to be made, that is done at Sonar in relation to finance being at the table? Departments or product areas come forward and ask for a sizable investment because they see an opportunity. What unfolds?
Compeau: Take this AI shift, for example. The product team at Sonar has been working on agentic products for some time, and it has been in open beta since late March. The process begins with seeing the market shift. It’s critical to ensure there is no gap in our product that we need to address proactively. In any product organization, there are teams that work on new features and new products, and there are teams that support and maintain the current products. In a high-growth technology company like Sonar, we invest heavily in new features and new products. From finance’s seat at the decision table, we look at the return—not just in terms of bookings, but also in terms of the company’s position in the AI revolution. We look at how we are going to track AI ARR and AI revenue. All of that is part of finance’s responsibility in new product introduction, in addition to operationalizing the entire process from taking the order all the way to collecting cash.
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