This story originally appeared on Forbes.com Back in August 2022, when Cardinal Health, Inc.’s finance chief, Jason Hollar, succeeded CEO Mike Kaufmann as the healthcare giant’s top executive, among the immediate challenges facing new CEO Hollar was filling the company’s CFO vacancy. At the time, an activist investor with an eye toward management change had […]
At Moderna, A CFO Vows To De-risk R&D As mRNA Tech Promises To Shorten Success Path
This article first appeared on Forbes.com Speed to market has always been critical in the life sciences industry. Companies that bring products to market quickly and efficiently are better positioned to succeed and improve patient outcomes. Or so the industry wisdom goes. For Moderna, the covid wunderkind that captured almost $40 billion in sales over the […]
A CFO Finds Traction Solving The Almond World’s Labor Equation
As California’s 2023 almond harvesting season nears its end, the management of Monte Vista Farming Company has begun to turn its attention from the almond producer’s seasonal flow of “almonds in” and “almonds out” to people and operations. “After what we pay our growers for the almonds, our number one cost becomes labor,” explains Mark […]
At GoDaddy, CFO McCaffrey “Made a Connection” With a CEO’s Strategic Vision
When 21-year PwC veteran Mark McCaffrey decided that it was time to open his post-PwC career, he briefed the firm’s U.S leadership about his plans, diligently outlined 24 months of departure prep, and set aside an extra helping of patience. Two weeks later, he had a CFO job offer from publicly traded Internet domain […]
How A Talent-Minded CFO Became Part Of The HHG Family
Among family-owned restaurants groups, Hofman Hospitality Group (HHG) weathered the pandemic better than most. As it turned out, though, the 75-year-old company found itself obligated to evolve with the times, adding food trucks and ghost kitchens (detached kitchens serving pickup and delivery only)—not to mention a chief financial officer. And just who the southern California […]
MedSpeed CFO’s M&A Roots Expose The Human Side Of Enterprise
For corporate finance executives, few professional experiences are as adeptly converted into social currency as those manifested inside the realm of mergers and acquisitions (M&A). It seems that regardless of whether a finance executive has been involved in one deal or 40, they are usually able to quickly share a takeaway or two. For finance […]
CFO Ana Chadwick’s Career Links Pitney Bowes’s 21st Century Ambitions With GE Capital’s Historic End Chapter
Back in 2020, the call that longtime General Electric veteran Ana Chadwick accepted from a recruiter would prove to be the one solicitation in a career’s worth of such outreaches that would ultimately result in an executive search fee. Still, while Chadwick would be a prize placement for any headhunter, it is clear that this […]
How Consumers Are Becoming First Among Equals At Levi Strauss
This article was originally published on Forbes.com When it comes time for Harmit Singh to brief Levi Strauss & Co.’s management team regarding the latest performance results, Levi’s CFO will often share a briefing document that features a front page bearing the heading “What’s Working and What’s Not.” “It’s more difficult to understand what’s not working, and […]
For CFOs, Turnaround Chapters Frequently Open Doors To Bigger Opportunities
This article was originally published on Forbes.com Back in 2015, after nearly two decades of diligent career-building across United Technologies, Paul Lundstrom fixed his career builder’s gaze upon the span of companies known as the Fortune 500. Like many seasoned finance executives who spend the balance of their careers inside large enterprise companies, Lundstrom had to confront the […]
When It Comes to Divestitures, Operations-Minded CFOs Are Always In Demand
This article was originally published on Forbes.com When the door to the CFO office at tech-security company SonicWall swung open for Ravi Chopra, there was a chair, a desk, and over $100 million in customer revenue. What was missing, however, were fully-staffed human resources and finance departments. So it goes inside the world of spin-offs and carve-outs, where newly divested organizations frequently lose some of […]
In Praise Of Public Markets: A CFO All-Star Pursues A Remedy For Wall Street’s IPO Blues
This article was originally published on Forbes.com “It’s not cheap to go public,” concedes CFO Steve Cakebread, echoing the oft-repeated refrain that founders and CFOs confront when considering the prospect of selling shares in their companies to the public. Concessions aside, it will come as little surprise to Wall Street and private investors alike that Cakebread—a […]
CFO Says Savings Strategy Is Helping Ingredion Thwart Recession’s Bite
This article was originally published on Forbes.com It’s the type of business restructuring capable of striking envy in the hearts of many a company board member—and particularly those known to favor one oft-repeated bit of business wisdom: Never waste a recession. At food ingredient maker Ingredion, where the recession’s bite is directly linked to the eating habits […]