Bob Greifeld, Nasdaq: Diversification’s Dividend
Bob Greifeld, Nasdaq’s chief executive, may live in a world of bulls and bears, he told a class from New York University Stern School of Business at their recent graduation, but his passion is for...
View ArticleLead Workers, Not Just Employees
Have you heard phrases like “non-employment work arrangements,” “freelance talent platforms” and “labor market intermediaries”? They reflect an emerging trend in which work and workers exist “beyond...
View ArticleImprove Job Satisfaction and Abolish Meetings
Like fashionable facial hair for men, my professional ambitions have evolved in perplexing ways. In my twenties I aspired to be known as a kind of universal problem-solver, with success measured by the...
View ArticleCompany Knowledge: Intangible, Invaluable
Aficionados of gangster films know that the “Vig” is the percentage that bookmakers, casinos, and loan sharks take off the top of all money that changes hands. If the Vig — short for vigorish, the...
View ArticleSleep, Eat and Seek out Your Friends to Get You Through Trouble
My company is looking at a rough year ahead, a merger, restructuring and a mountain to climb in terms of targets. I have always been a solid performer, but worry that I’m suddenly going to struggle....
View ArticleMaking Room for a Healthy Dose of Gut Instinct
As a longtime finance executive, Steve Graham freely admits to being the type who “quantifies many things, certainly,” adding that his numbers “are all based upon good information.” Make that almost...
View ArticleThree Keys: How to Be a Model Service-Company Leader
As the founder and CEO of a fast-growing staffing company with revenues of roughly $60 million, Tom Gimbel could choose to keep himself busy by acting the visionary, thinking about long-term strategic...
View ArticleThe Ridiculous Myth That Ego Can Ever Be Left at the Door
Last week I received an email inviting me to join a panel of self-important people talking about something I do not know much about. I said no. It wasn’t my sort of thing. I know you hate egos, the...
View ArticleThe Messaging System That Has Nothing Left to Say
Delete is our default,” warns Snapchat, the popular messaging and photo application used by many teenagers and millennials, in its terms of use. The young prefer it to the cumbersome, inefficient and...
View ArticleTo Attract Top Talent, It Pays to Have an Authentic – and Transparent –...
If you are looking to recruit through social media, what should you do and which platforms are best? “Be present,” says Chris Brown, director of UK talent solutions at LinkedIn, the professional...
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Special Operations: How a High-Performance Finance Function Adds Value
As CFOs around the globe continue to shift the focus of their finance functions from tactical to strategic, many are trying to find ways for their finance operations function to take part in that...
View ArticleWomen in Business – Eisha Armstrong
Eisha Armstrong is an MBA graduate of Harvard Business School. She now advises chief financial officers on talent, overhead cost management and investor relations at global advisory company CEB. She...
View ArticleThe CFO Candidate Pool Is Shrinking
First, a disclaimer: If all CFOs were replaced by internal successors, I would be out of business. That said, a trend that’s played out over the last several years could be problematic for mid-career...
View ArticleThe Art of the Deal: Three Ways that Finance Can Preserve Itself in the Midst...
As the market for M&A activity continues to sizzle, executives and employees who work within the finance function at service firms can’t help but worry about getting burned. During the first half...
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Millennials Cite Stagnant Pay as Top Reason for Quitting
Minimal wage growth is the top reason why U.S. millennials quit their jobs, according to an Ernst & Young survey. Seventy-eight percent of millennials questioned as part of E&Y’s Global...
View ArticleNo End in Sight to the Clichéd Metaphor of the Corporate Journey
In my first job that did not involve beer or sliced ham, I worked in the corporate affairs department of a pharmaceutical company. One day some consultants came to pitch for the account to design our...
View ArticleLeading Questions: Four Reasons Why Asking is Better than Telling
Winners answer their own questions. WATOQ, as it’s known, is one of the sacred management tenets at Scroll, an ambitious service firm that wants to disrupt the book business. Employees are instructed...
View ArticleA Blast of Common Sense Frees Staff from Appraisals
Last week I did the most unexpectedly uplifting thing I’d done in ages. I was in need of cheering as I’d just sat through a documentary in which the brilliant, bulimic Amy Winehouse drinks herself to...
View ArticleDennis Arriola of SoCalGas: Inside the Mind of a CFO-turned-CEO
CFOs who aspire to their bosses’ job need to take an inventory of the useful traits they have already acquired—such as quick-fire analytical skills and leadership-strength formality—and those...
View ArticleThree Steps to Take You From CFO to CEO
This is part two of a two-part series. Click here to read the first part. It’s easy to imagine the traits that characterize successful financial executives at service firms—and why those same qualities...
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