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CFO Buzz – week ending December 4, 2015

CFO BuzzCFO Buzz is a news feature capturing top stories affecting CFOs. This feature is published Fridays so that CFOs can gain perspective over the weekend, allowing them to challenge themselves and think about how to improve their lives, careers and companies.

1) CFOs continue to find it difficult to hire and retain

Supply and demand are not new concepts to CFOs. While CFOs are able to apply this in innovative ways to operational and financial issues in their business, they continue to face challenges in solving the supply and demand side issues for talent hiring and retention. From my perspective, the focus on short-term results continues to hamper good talent planning and decision making.

Companies Seek to Acquire and Hire – CFO.com

2) Executives need to build a leadership brand

When an executive starts at a new company, they inherit a team. Building leadership and trust is one of the key immediate challenges a new executive has. Many CFOs I speak with realize this is a challenge when they begin, but some do not give it the priority it needs. If you lead your team to where you need them to go, you will succeed. There are good ideas in this article.

Executive transitions: Your team is your brand – Deloitte University Press

3) Fixing ethics in a company culture

This is one story of a CFO fixing a broken company culture to rebuild a strong, ethical group that would impact the business positively. These are important lessons to keep in mind to ensure the culture of the organizations we are responsible for stay ethical.

5 steps one CFO took to fix a broken culture and build strong ethics among employees – Business Insider

4) CFO: Add “Storyteller” to the job description

It is no longer sufficient for a CFO to know what the numbers mean. She has to be able to tell a story, and be convincing, authoritative, authentic and trustworthy. This is all part of the transition of the CFO role from keeper of the numbers to leader driving the business.

The fine art of telling the story behind the numbers

5) Communication: It’s not about you

The ability to connect well with others is a strength that top CFOs have. CFOs accomplish a lot when they are able to get different parties with varied interests working together towards a common goal. Communication skills development is a worthy investment. Here are some good tips on connecting well with others.

5 Ways to Instantly Connect With Anyone You Meet – TIME       

Some of Samuel’s other CFO stuff this week

CFO Moves – Moves across the USA – week ending November 27, 2015

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CFO Buzz – week ending November 20, 2015

CFO BuzzCFO Buzz is a news feature capturing top stories affecting CFOs. This feature is published Fridays so that CFOs can gain perspective over the weekend, allowing them to challenge themselves and think about how to improve their lives, careers and companies.

1) CFO Decision Making – Gut Feel or Analytics?

CFOs are called upon daily to make decisions. The modern CFO who has invested in access to data and proper analytics is able to make decisions based on the facts or trends, while the CFO who does not have this ready access to this information is making decisions based on a feeling. CFOs need to move towards decision making based on information. How do you make decisions?

Are CFOs Relying on Gut Instinct Too Much? – C-Suite UK

How ‘Data-Driven’ CFOs are Leading the C-Suite – CFO.com

2) CFOs can Impact HR

Finance and HR are both important support functions in an organization. I find that there is always work to be done to improve the relationship and the impact both have on the organization by work. Here are 4 tips for Finance to immediately improve HR.

CFOs can immediately improve HR with these 4 simple changes – Business Insider

3) More Strategy, Less Spreadsheets

How does the CFO move beyond the traditional number-crunching and have an impact across the organization in areas of strategy, people and culture? By spending more time across and outside the organization as listeners and advisors. Remember, if you are being hired just to manage the numbers, you are not adding value.

The New CFO: Performance and Culture Champion – Forbes

4) Why Interim CEOs are not good for your business

CFOs can find themselves having to work with an interim CEO. When this happens, it is important to be aware of the potential biases and challenges that exist when your boss is not committed for the long term. What has been your experience?

Interim CEOs Are Prone to Inflating Earnings – CFO.com

5) CFOs called on to integrate major acquisitions

This interview with Mark McCollum of Haliburton allows us to appreciate some of the challenges he faced when his company acquired their largest competitor, Baker Hughes. There are some good lessons shared here.

CFO as Chief Integration Officer: Mark McCollum of Halliburton – Deloitte Wall Street Journal

 

Some of Samuel’s other CFO stuff this week

CFO Moves – Moves across the USA – week ending November 13, 2015

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CFO Buzz – week ending November 13, 2015

CFO BuzzCFO Buzz is a news feature capturing top stories affecting CFOs. This feature is published Fridays so that CFOs can gain perspective over the weekend, allowing them to challenge themselves and think about how to improve their lives, careers and companies.

1) 9 Key Elements for CFO Communications

A big part of a CFOs responsibility is to communicate properly with various internal and external stakeholders. It is not enough just to share information with others, but communication is a two way street, allowing you to get the information you need to manage expectations and add value. Deloitte CFO Insights discusses nine key elements for successful CFO Communications. How many of these elements do you do? How many of them do you do well?

Creating an effective communications program – Deloitte CFO Insights

2) What should a Director get paid?

This article spoke to me, specifically because a CFO of mine asked me this very question recently. While a lot of information on executive compensation is available, director compensation is difficult to compare. It is easier to compare executives working full time with similar responsibilities in companies that are in similar industries and similar sizes. The biggest challenge for comparing director compensation is that the time spent and risk involved can vary significantly. This article is worth the read.

How Much to Pay a Director? There’s No Clear Answer – New York Times

3) Is it worth cutting out office snacks?

We have seen or heard of companies that cut office snacks and drinks to staff when under budgetary pressure. While the dollar value of the cost can easily be quantified, the negative impact on employee productivity and goodwill may be significant. As CFO, have you cut these costs? Did the cost savings outweigh the impact?

Why Getting Rid of Free Office Snacks Doesn’t Come Cheap – Bloomberg

4) Should your children become Accountants?

If the future of accounting will be automated and based on artificial intelligence, maybe recommending that your children become accountants is not a good idea. While I personally believe there will continue to be room for added value from people with real intelligence in accounting and finance, the perspective is worth considering.

Don’t Let Your Children Grow Up To Be Accountants – Forbes

5) Do CFOs care just about the numbers?

Mark Garrett, CFO at Adobe, shares his perspective on the importance of people to the CFO. Garrett thankfully takes the position that all business decisions impact people, and even tough decisions need to take the people impact into account. I guess CFOs are human after all.

Why People Matter to a CFO – Adobe Blog

Some of Samuel’s other CFO stuff this week

CFO Moves – Moves across the USA – week ending November 6, 2015

 

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CFO Buzz – week ending November 6, 2015

CFO BuzzCFO Buzz is a news feature capturing top stories affecting CFOs. This feature is published Fridays so that CFOs can gain perspective over the weekend, allowing them to challenge themselves and think about how to improve their lives, careers and companies.

1) More CFOs are losing their best talent

This article is not Finance specific, but it does discuss a trend I hear about more and more from my CFOs – they are losing their best talent. CFOs are responsible to ensure that they put the right efforts in place to build the best finance team possible and keep the best talent. Retention is way cheaper than recruitment.

One Downside of an Up Economy: Employee Turnover – New York Times

2) Talent Development – Investment or Cost?

With so much work to get done, how can the justification be made for spending money and time on developing talent? This article, written by a former CFO, makes the case that spending on developing talent is an excellent investment, and helps CFOs understand their role in linking talent strategy with organizational strategy.

Finding the Right Talent for Projects: A Gift that Keeps on Giving – CFO.com

3) Group CFOs and Divisional CFOs – Partners in Success?

Jeff Thomson, president and CEO of the IMA, interviews the new CFO of Hewlett Packard Enterprise on the value of CFOs working together in a matrix organization.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise CFO On How Divisional And Group Finance Chiefs Partner For Success – Forbes

4) The Risks of M&A to the CFO

M&A activity continues to be a significant part of the purview of the CFO. This article, while discussing the External Auditor issues relating to M&A, should be considered a gentle reminder to CFOs with M&A activity under their responsibility. While the CEO is more likely to be involved in the deal making, the CFO needs to not only support the deal while it’s happening, she needs to remember that there is A LOT of work post-merger that can add significant risks to Finance, as well as the career of the CFO. Beware.

Rise in M&A Deals Key Factor in Audit Deficiencies – AccountingWeb

5) CFO / CEO Collaboration

This article refers to an EY study discussing where CFOs collaborate with their CEOs, and areas for improvement. Worth reading and comparing to your situation.

How CFOs can support the transformation to a digital business model – CGMA Magazine

 

Some of Samuel’s other CFO stuff this week

CFO Moves – Moves across the USA – week ending October 30, 2015

5 CFO Opportunities for the Future of Finance

Good news CFOs: The Future of Finance Looks Bright (But Only if you Plan and Act)

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5 CFO Opportunities for the Future of Finance

Earlier this week I shared a new research report by CFO Publishing sponsored by SAP with some insights on the Future of Finance.

Thack Brown is general manager and global head of Line-of-Business Finance at SAP, and I had the opportunity to speak with him about the report. I have had the opportunity to speak with Thack numerous times over the years, including for my book, and I continue to find his perspectives and insights relevant, useful and enjoyable.

I would like to share 5 points that Thack shared with me that I thought CFOs should hear, listen to, and think about further. (This is an excerpt from my conversation with Thack and has been edited for clarity).

1) This is a platform play at the end of the day.

Companies in the general market are currently revaluating their platforms, their ERP, their financial systems, all of that stack, and saying “it’s all changing”. It’s time for me to place the next bet that will be my platform for the next 10-15 years.

2) Know that the CFO opportunity is a big one.

CFOs need to be ready to make the step out of the finance field, into a more comprehensive involvement understanding of the entire workings of the company. CFOs need to expand their role and take on more responsibilities.

3) You are not alone.

Finance professionals are usually challenged when it comes to networking. We tend to be so overworked and focused on our profession that sometimes we can fall into that trap of believing that our problems are only our problems. Talk to your peers. Network, brainstorm and problem solve. This is a valuable resource and should not be overlooked.

4) The next big thing.

© CFO PUBLISHING LLC

Automation. This has been talked about in the finance world forever. The need to move more effort out of the back office and automate it so you can spend more time in the front office. Move past the shared services environment to full automation. The back office of the future will be a just a few highly skilled experts handling, enabling and ultimately evolving the automation.

5) Advice to midsize companies and their CFOs.

Mid-size companies need to keep an eye on the technology transformations of automation and simplification, because this may be not their opportunity to catch up the big boys, but actually leap-frog them entirely. As an example, they could skip the entire shared services phase.

So, CFOs, what do you think?

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Good news CFOs: The Future of Finance Looks Bright (But Only if you Plan and Act)

A new research report released today by CFO Research and sponsored by SAP shows that while Finance has improved a lot over the past years, there is plenty of opportunity to Finance to deliver more value to the organization.

The report, Thriving in the Digital Economy: Four Reasons Why Finance Is Excited About the Future has four key findings that CFOs, senior finance executives and board members will find of significant interest:

Finance professionals are embracing their influence in their enterprises—and looking forward to a bright future as their profession evolves.

The good news is that finance professionals are more influential than ever in their organization, and have opportunities to go beyond core traditional areas of ‘old’ finance. The biggest challenge with this opportunity comes from ensuring that talent with leadership potential in finance can grow beyond the core additional areas.

© CFO PUBLISHING LLC

© CFO PUBLISHING LLC

The organizational scope of the finance function—already broad— continues to expand to encompass risk management, IT, M&A, and other key functions.

Again, as Finance becomes the central organizational address for all administrative and support functions within an organization, can the talent planning match this need?

Finance teams will be challenged to fulfill their core performance management mandate in the face of rapid change and greater business complexity.

High value-add within finance can only happen with the right people, processes and technologies in place, especially as business gets more complex and change continues at a faster pace.

Finance professionals see the rising wave of digitalization and automation as the key to their ability to partner with the business to manage performance.

In a conversation with Thack Brown, general manager and global head of Line-of-Business Finance at SAP, he said that the impact of technology opportunities (digitization and automation) will radically change how the transactional part of finance is being managed, even by those following current best practices.

Stay tuned as I will be sharing parts of my interview with Thack Brown. The insights he offered were fascinating, and combined with this report, provides excellent food for thought for the CFO who is looking to be the best business partner possible to their organization.

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CFO Buzz – week ending October 30, 2015

CFO BuzzCFO Buzz is a news feature capturing top stories affecting CFOs. This feature is published Fridays so that CFOs can gain perspective over the weekend, allowing them to challenge themselves and think about how to improve their lives, careers and companies.

1) CFO: Strategic Advisor to CEO?

CFOs have heard all about how the CFO has become an indispensable partner to the CEO. Yet ask some CFOs if they feel that they are, and you’ll get some puzzled looks. Here are some ways for the CFO to move themselves closer to the CEO.

CFO and CEO: key allies in value creation – EY

2) CFOs that speak English

This article brings out that Ruth Porat, new CFO at Alphabet / Google, has a tendancy to speak clearly and simply. This is an important reminder that CFO speak is not always understood by the people we are speaking with, and that we all need to simplify what we say.

Why investors love Alphabet’s new CFO – Fortune

3) Finance will soon look nothing like it does today

Or so this article says. While I certainly do believe that finance is going through transformational change, most finance groups at companies are still stuck living in the past. Certainly there are leaders out there, but these leaders are some of the larger and established companies. For the mid-sized engines of our economy, there is a lot of opportunity to make Finance better. Food for thought.

Death by Digital: Good-Bye to Finance as You Know It – CFO.com

4) Who is the better negotiator?

Do men negotiate better than women? I don’t know, and won’t try to answer it. Personal style and attributes certainly has an impact on the ability to negotiate. This article touches on some important points to be aware of.

Women and Negotiation: Are There Really Gender Differences? – Knowledge@Wharton

5) Career sponsorship – how it can help

Here is one CFOs story of how sponsorship by someone more senior in their organization made a difference to their career. Do you have a career sponsor?

Sponsors are key in unlocking your career potential – The Globe and Mail

 

Some of Samuel’s other CFO stuff this week

CFO Moves – Moves across the USA – week ending October 23, 2015

A CFO Success Story: Mark MacLeod

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A CFO Success Story: Mark MacLeod

Mark MacLeod – Founder, SurePath Capital Partners

The following is from an interview with Mark MacLeod. Mark left his position as CFO of Freshbooks and started his own advisory firm – SurePath Capital Partners, as announced in CFO Moves Canada. This interview was edited for clarity.

SD: Mark, you’re not like other CFOs. You have gone in and out of being CFO so many times, and because you’ve been on multiple sides of the board table, I felt it would be interesting to hear your perspective. So to start off – which job do you prefer – the CFO Job or the outside advisor job?

MM: It’s not as simple as that. I live to do two things – One is to advise founders and management teams, and the other is to do complex financial transactions. The thing that I liked about being a CFO at start-ups is that they were often in need of both. When I created SurePath Capital Partners, I created a company that only does both those things. When I had been a CFO and had been a close advisor to the CEO’s that I’d served and got to work on lots of transactions, then I’m a really happy guy. If I’m the CFO of a company and it’s well capitalized and were not doing acquisitions, and we’re not being acquired – if we’re just kind of running the ship, then that’s not so great for me.

  • Quick Takes from Mark on…

    Thinking out of the CFO box

    You need to go way beyond finance. You need to step up and fill other operating capacities.

    Relationship between CEO and CFO

    Synergy – if the CEO is the technical founder, take on the more outward-facing aspects; if the CEO is outward-facing and a rainmaker, try to take on as much of the internal operations as possible.

    Create an informal network of your peers

    There are always folks who are a little bit ahead of you in terms of scale and experience and complexity, and you can learn a ton from them. Branch out to other Venture funded CFOs.

    Capable management

    The whole thing about being a C-level executive in a venture backed company is that your competency and leadership need to scale faster than the company is scaling.

    Keeping sight of the bigger picture

    Remember to not only work IN the business, but to also work ON it. Similarly, to not just work IN yourself, but also to work ON yourself. Delegate lesser tasks to free up time to work on growing your capacity.

SD: Let’s talk about what it takes for a technology CFO to be successful. You’ve played that role, you’ve advised people in that role, what makes a successful Tech CFO?

MM: Well, I’d say it is the ability to go way beyond finance. I think, when a company isn’t fund raising, the financing role is pretty simple, and you have to find other ways to add value. Often the management teams at start-ups are incomplete and so there’s room to go way beyond finance and fill in other operating capacities. I’ve definitely done that a lot. I’d say within the finance realm, first of all you have to have a very clear understanding of all the nuts and bolts in the business, particularly because often those businesses are burning money and so you must understand ‘good burn’ vs ‘bad burn’. Most businesses these days hinges on profitable unit economics, and so even though the business as a whole might be in the red, if these customers are profitable, and you understand the nuances of customer mass, that’s kind of crucial. And then I would say the ability to translate. For example, if you’d just walk in to an exec meeting and rattle off a bunch of numbers and metrics, it’s sort of somewhat useful, but you have to go way deeper. As an example, if “churn” (the number of people who cancel your service) has moved in one direction, its somewhat useful to give the data points on the movement, but it is far more useful to understand the root cause and give good guidance. So again, it’s being able to go beyond the numbers.

The approach I’ve always taken to the CFO world is to define the role in a way that gives the CEO maximum leverage. What I mean by that is – if the CEO is very technical founder, then I’ve always tried to take on some of the outward facing aspects, so that the CEO would be able to be building and shipping product. Whereas if that CEO is a very outward facing CEO and a rainmaker, then I’ve tried to take on as much as the internal operations as possible, so that person could be out of the office and know that things are still running. To me the CFO is the right hand of the CEO, and therefore you have to govern yourself or kind of define the role in a way that has the most impact on the CEO.

SD: You’ve been a CFO on a full time basis and CFO on part time basis. What’s the difference?

MM: Huge difference. Again, take everything I’ve said about taking on more operating responsibility, in the context of full time. If you think about the core of a business – the core of any business in the technology business is building product and selling product, just to generalize. The rest is in support of that. In that context, finance is always important, but it’s not a core thing. It’s relatively horizontal. It can transfer the same functions from one company to the next. And so outsourcing the core nuts and bolts of finance makes all kind of sense. But where you run into trouble is when you outsource finance to someone, but then try to get that someone to do a whole bunch of other things – that just doesn’t work. So the big difference for me is that when I was full time I was going way beyond the finance role, whereas when I was part time I stuck to the core nuts and bolts of running a very tight back office, investor relations, budgeting, fundraising, reporting, etc.

SD: I’ve asked number of tech companies who are looking for finance help “what do you need?” and they said “well, we would like a Mark MacLeod”. You have a brand to you that says “start-up tech CFO”. How would you recommend they find their own Mark MacLeod?

MM: That’s a tough one. You know it’s funny. In retrospect, it might have taken the hard way to get my experience. My first start up was a client of mine and I came in with absolutely no experience and just kind of stumbled along. And because I was very focused on deals and fund raising in particular; if I didn’t feel like that company was on the trajectory to really grow massively, I’d move on. And that resulted in a bunch of things. I exited positively in a relatively short time frame, or me concluding that they weren’t going to be exiting in a relatively short time frame. But the point of all that is my learning and development was compressed and accelerated by moving to different companies and getting exposure to different start-ups, different stages in their life cycle, and that whole bit. So that’s one path.

I was very lucky because I got into start-ups very early, back in the late 90’s when anyone with a pulse was getting funded. The environment was pretty forgiving. So that could be a path today – someone who has kind of hustled around and has been involved in some fund raising, and has shown a propensity and an aptitude to be able to talk about things that are beyond the numbers.

But I’ll tell you… the whole thing about start-ups and venture capitalists is it’s all about the outliers. And while I’ve been part of some great businesses, the biggest learning opportunities and the biggest development, the most scope and the most exposure is when I was part of the outliers. Like Shopify and Freshbooks. So the point of that is hiring someone with that pedigree, even if they haven’t had the CFO title. If you’ve gone through Shopify’s growth, from 100 to 700 people, if you’ve gone through all the things that come with that and you understand how systems scale and you understand how to do really amazing investor reporting, and how to build sophisticated budgets and how to scale a finance function, that’s amazing experience. I’ve learned through trial and error that QuickBooks falls apart when you cross 100 employees. And then you end up having to go to a NetSuite or an Intact or something. Knowing that coming in, because you’ve come from a place with scale, would be pretty interesting.

So it’s really 2 different profiles. It is someone who is really helpful and has had some exposure through a few different companies so that they can pattern match. Or it’s someone who has come from a bigger company, one that the start-up aspires to be.

SD: Am I correct in saying that nobody can really hire Mark MacLeod because Mark learned it from the companies that he did the work in? I mean, you’re beyond that start-up age CFO that is young and has just enough experience but not too much, who’s not looking to take home too much cash and is more willing to put it down for the future. Do I understand that correctly?

MM: If someone wants to hire a Mark MacLeod, well a Mark MacLeod has been 2 decades in the making and is still being made, you know what I mean? They don’t exist. You have to hire someone who looks nothing like what I look like now. Hire someone who I was like 15-20 years ago, which means you’re really taking a chance. I got in because the environment was so frothy. And I would say that I stayed for 2 reasons – 1 maybe as you said, I don’t look like most CFO’s, because it’s never been just about the numbers for me, it’s always been about the strategic context around the numbers. So it was always the bigger picture. I’d say the thing that really helped make me stand out is I had a huge passion for venture capital. And for getting into the venture community and making deals happen. If a company is running out of money and hiring you helps them get money, then that should really sell itself. But in the early days that’s really how I got into a lot of start-ups.  When I was doing the part time CFO stuff, the real sweet spot was that I would take companies and get them ready for the next round of funding, I would raise it for them, and then stay on as their CFO. That’s how I was kind of paying my way. So it’s a different context.

SD: What’s the ideal CFO for you to work with?

MM: I don’t know that there is just one to be honest. If I am helping a company fundraise or helping them prepare for an exit, I think that in both cases the deal will very much be driven by the strength of the management team. It’s not like I simply want a technician in there because I can handle the strategy stuff. I’d be more than happy to work with a very strategic deal-making CFO. I think that doing great big deals is a team sport, not like an individual hero sport. I think I’m equally happy to work with an internal deal maker, as I am to work with someone who’s got super tight back office. I think the takeaway is that one way or the other, we need both. So if the person is just the big deal maker and the back office is not super tight, that’s going to make it harder for me to do what I do. One way or another we have to have both the substance and the spot.

SD: What advice would you give to new CFOs who are just at the start of their career?

MM: Talk to peers a lot. There’s always folks who are a little bit ahead of you in terms of scale and experience and complexity, and you can learn a ton from them. You could also create an informal network, talking to other venture funded CFOs and the portfolio. Makes a ton of sense. I think this is true not just for CFOs but for any role. The whole thing about being a C-level executive in a venture backed company is that your competency and leadership has to scale faster than the company is scaling. And so in that context, having a coach who can help you work through issues and help you scale is super important as well.

SD: How did you make time for important things? Things that were related to your career and employer, but there was no deadline attached to it?

MM: I think I have a certain level of self-awareness. So I knew that I needed to not only work IN the business but also work ON it. And similarly to not just work IN myself, but to also work ON myself. I never have been the kind of technician who is always dotting I’s and crossing T’s. As a result I was able to push that kind of work down to the right level and that gave me capacity to work on growing my capacity, if that makes sense.

+++++++

A CFO Success Story is a feature of Samuel’s CFO Blog, where Samuel Dergel follows up on his book, Guide to CFO Success, speaking with CFOs featured in CFO Moves and CFO Moves Canada, Samuel’s popular and comprehensive weekly report on CFO Movement across the USA and Canada.

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CFO Buzz – week ending October 23, 2015

CFO BuzzCFO Buzz is a news feature capturing top stories affecting CFOs. This feature is published Fridays so that CFOs can gain perspective over the weekend, allowing them to challenge themselves and think about how to improve their lives, careers and companies.

1) CFO Survivor

Imagine two CFOs on a deserted island in the Pacific having to fight for the opportunity to remain CFO. Sounds like a far-fetched TV reality series plot, yet this happens regularly in companies going through an M&A process (without the sand and blue water). So, as CFO going in to an M&A situation where only one CFO will survive, what can you do to ensure you’re the one? Here are some tips.

Gunning for your job: Securing the CFO role in a merger – Financial Director

2) CFO Confessions: Mark MacLeod

Mark is a long time Startup CFO who has been involved with tech startups as Internal CFO, outside advisor and VC. His perspectives are always interesting – take 30 minutes and listen to his interview on this FEI podcast.

Confessions of a Startup CFO: The Financial Executive Podcast – FEI Daily

3) CFO as Business Partner

Ask most CFOs if they are a partner to the business, and they would most readily agree. Ask others in the business if Finance is a true business partner in their business, and less will agree. Here are some tips for CFOs and finance leaders to make their group have more impact on the business.

The 5 traits finance professionals need to be effective business partners – Business Insider

4) Internet of Things (IoT) for the CFO

Most CFOs would have heard of IoT by now. But do they really understand the impact of IoT on the business they are leading? Here are some points to be aware of and considerations for CFOs that Deloitte thinks you should know about.

Capitalizing on the promise—and the power—of the Internet of Things : CFO Insights – Deloitte

5) Finance Team Talent Dilemmas

You need the best Finance team possible to be the best CFO possible. Yet, your team is regularly on your list of items causing you grief. While Finance Team planning is important, the tactical day to day issues can be a challenge. Here are some ideas to deal with some of the recurring contentious issues.

3 talent dilemmas and ways to tackle them – HR Times Blog

 

Some of Samuel’s other CFO stuff this week

CFO Moves – Moves across the USA – week ending October 16, 2015

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CFO Buzz – week ending October 16, 2015

CFO BuzzCFO Buzz is a news feature capturing top stories affecting CFOs. This feature is published Fridays so that CFOs can gain perspective over the weekend, allowing them to challenge themselves and think about how to improve their lives, careers and companies.

1) Women on the Road to CFO

There are not many women CFOs. Depends on who you ask, females make up between 13% and 33% of all CFOs. The questions as to why this is has been asked many times. I do think that the conversation needs to continue, especially considering that female make up the majority of entry level accounting and finance jobs. Here are two articles that discuss the subject further.

The number of successful women who are CFOs is set to rise – Financial Post

Google CFO: Hiring women is good for business – CNet

2) Flexible Finance Staffing

Should consultants be a part of an effective finance team? If so, how reliant should a finance leader be on outside talent that are not fully committed to the organization? What should the right mix be? Does a CFO really own their finance talent, or are they renting it anyway? Discuss.

Why CFOs are hiring more consultants – CGMA Magazine

3) Is it time for a CFO as President?

With well-known CEOs making a run for President, would a CFO have what it takes to run the USA?

Could a CFO Run for President? – CFO.com

4) How to work for someone younger than you

You’re experienced, knowledgeable, and have years of experience, and now you find yourself reporting to someone who is younger than you. Those that have experienced this have found it to be challenging. This article provides some advice for those who find themselves in this situation.

When Your Boss Is Younger than You – Harvard Business Review

5) CFOs: Embrace Technology or Fall Behind

The CFO of today could not get their work done without technology. But do they have the right technology for their needs today? Most will admit that they are lacking, and the others don’t know that they don’t have what they need. In this article, SAP America’s CFO discusses why finance executives need to embrace technology. What I can add is that there is a good chance that those CFOs who don’t get on the tech train can find themselves out of work.

SAP America’s CFO says finance execs need to embrace technology or they’ll get left behind – Business Insider

Some of Samuel’s other CFO stuff this week

CFO Moves – Moves across the USA – week ending October 9, 2015

Tweet of the week

Contact Information

You can reach Samuel by:

Telephone
San Francisco: +1 (415) 738-2070
Montreal: +1 (514) 907-0925

Email: [email protected]