The tribe of finance leaders commonly identified as “SaaS CFOs” are today busily developing the tools and management practices destined to reshape the finance function. It was not quite 100 years ago that Donaldson Brown arrived inside the offices of General Motors Corp.’s finance department. The future GM CFO had distinguished himself years earlier by […]
A Talk with Itzik Revach, CFO, Arison Investments.
CFOTL: Tell us about your arrival, about the key career milestones that helped prepare you to become a finance leader. Revach: Prior to Arison, I served as CFO at Amdocs Global Operations and IT Division. I directed worldwide financing and controlling activities in this position, where I was able to instigate complex financial processes and […]
Creating a Dynamic Finance Function, Rich Pirrotta, CFO, Logicalis
As More Midmarket CFOs Sharpen Their Customer Focus, More Are Smitten with the Cloud
A business realm long populated by headstrong entrepreneurs and family-owned businesses, the middle market is experiencing a wave of technology adoption that seems intent on further upending the traditional laws of business competition as it diminishes the size advantage that large enterprise companies have long enjoyed. When it comes to the middle market’s growing appetite […]
As IT Spending Drives Bigger Returns, CFOs Retool Their Metrics
It wasn’t too long ago that IT spend as a percent of revenue was the time-honored metric of choice among finance executives determined to keep their firm’s IT spending within the light of day. In fact, many finance chiefs arguably still rely on the metric to provide a quick snapshot of their firm’s appetite for […]
DocuSign CFO Mike Dinsdale on Integrating Finance and Strategy
Energy Firm CFO Touts the Virtues of Analytics
When it comes to commercial businesses and the weather, insurance firms and rock salt makers are known for keeping meteorology top-of-mind. However, when a firm counts 32 weather observation stations in the Northeast alone among its strategic partners — it’s a pretty good bet these days that the professional firm deals in kilowatts. And so […]
Your Budgeting Blues: Rethinking “The McKinsey Way”
When it comes to the history of budgeting, America’s appetite for hot dogs is as good a place as any to reveal how the notorious business process became so deeply rooted in business enterprises. It seems that the revelry of 1920s triggered an unforeseen uptick in the sale of wieners, and the folks at Armour […]
Jack Sweeney Speaks to BackBone Media About The Power of Podcasting
The CFO Thought Leader and Middle-Market Thought Leader podcasts are today helping middle-market business leaders contribute their stories to a larger collective narrative for middle market businesses — a narrative that is finally exposing the critical role that middle-market firms play in the world economy. Learn more…
Ethan Carlson’s Four Priorities for Cloud Adopters
Why Finance Executives Must Own Their Own Narratives
“Yet while he was universally admired throughout the company, and known as a truly wise person, most managers wanted as little to do with him as possible. They simply could not understand a word he was saying. He was dependent on the CEO to translate him.”1 It was with these words and others like them […]
The Management Narrative Makes Room for Finance
In an earlier column titled “The Drucker Curse,” I argued that Peter Drucker, the much acclaimed 20th-century management thinker, could be found guilty of drawing an “iron curtain” across the corporation, a barrier designed to segregate a fledgling but maturing management narrative from a robust and authoritative finance function. I wrote that his influential writings […]