Private equity Chief Financial Officers face a myriad of challenges. They are usually responsible for a wide variety of company operations, including accounting and finance, human resources, risk management, health, safety and environmental, procurement, tax, and a maybe even commercial operations. Adding to this broad list is the compressed timeline of the private equity world.... Continue Reading →
This article originally appeared on the CFO Leadership Council blog. Mentorship relationships can be immensely valuable. A sage, experienced mentor bringing up a younger protégé is a time-honored idea that ensures an orderly passage of knowledge across generations. As senior-level executives, it can be challenging to enter into such a relationship, either as the mentor... Continue Reading →
Finance professionals are often in a unique position to be able to identify and respond to risk in a different way than line operating managers. One of the tools I've found to be useful is a heat map. There are many different ways to think of risk, but what follows is an example of what... Continue Reading →
You have the right technology, with the right price. The product that will help oilfield customers produce more and reduce cost. The rest is easy... Just let customers know what your product can do, and they will beat a path to your door, as they say. All that's left is deciding which luxury vehicle you'll be... Continue Reading →
Years ago, a mentor taught me a lesson that forever changed the way I think about running a business. The advice was to run the business like it would be for sale tomorrow. The implications of this thought experiment are far-reaching and foundational. The point of the advice was to help focus every day's activities... Continue Reading →
There are hundreds of articles circulating the internet explaining how the latest software can reduce the time to close and report monthly financial results, while also improving accuracy. The fact of the matter, though, is that based on my years of experience, most businesses already own more than enough technology to achieve this same outcome.... Continue Reading →
There's one thing of which your CFO should be more terrified than anything else. This thing is usually an apparently humble, harmless document, but your CFO knows that it can sink your company if it's not managed right. This document is the purchase order, affectionately known as the "PO." The ubiquitous PO is provided to... Continue Reading →
Art of the CFO 