Learning to Make Decisions as a Team

“Strategic Decision Making and Critical Thinking,” the subjects of an executive education program at Cornell University’s Johnson School, might be the most essential skills for executive success, says Prof. J. Edward Russo, the program director. Yet despite the importance of “thinking to a conclu...

By Lisa Yoon • Aug. 1, 2004

Switching Industries

After the long, hard slog of the past few years, you can’t blame senior executives for wanting to jump ship. What’s surprising is how many want to transfer to another fleet altogether. According to a study by the New York-based Association of Executive Search Consultants (AESC), nearly half the e...

By Kate O'Sullivan • Aug. 1, 2004

Investment Insight

By many accounts, it has been a good year for corporate pension funds. For the first time since 1999, assets for most pension portfolios showed positive investment returns, reducing deficits by more than $50 billion. Meanwhile, discount-rate relief passed by Congress in April has lowered required...

By Alix Stuart • Aug. 1, 2004

Loose Lips

Just two years after getting whacked by the Securities and Exchange Commission for violations of Regulation Fair Disclosure (Reg FD), Siebel Systems Inc. has been hit again. This time, the people accused of violating the rule, which prohibits selective disclosure of material nonpublic information...

By CFO Editorial Staff • Aug. 1, 2004

CFOs on the Move

Tyson Foods Inc. chief financial officer Steve Hankins has resigned, effective immediately, saying he wanted time to “pursue personal and family interests,” according to published reports. Hankins, who joined the company in 1983 and was named CFO in 1998, had also served as head of the company’s ...

By Ed Zwirn • July 30, 2004

Transparency Is Everyone’s Responsibility

Nearly three years after Enron filed for bankruptcy, corporate accounting scandals continue to make headlines.In the past few months, for example, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Siebel Systems with violating Regulation Fair Disclosure (Reg FD) for the second time in four years; th...

By Marie Leone • July 30, 2004

New Rules for Mutual-Fund Governance

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced that it adopted a rule, proposed in January, designed to improve the governance of mutual funds and similar investment companies. The new rule will likely add to the difficulties of finding independent directors that have mounted since the advent o...

By Ed Zwirn • July 29, 2004

Who Does What, and Why?

While it’s generally agreed that employees pose a greater security threat than hackers, virus creators, or other cybercriminals, what’s less well known is that some of the newest tools for ferreting out evidence of wrongdoing can play other roles within companies. That complicates the buying deci...

By DeeDee Doke • July 27, 2004

CFOs on the Move

EchoStar Communications Corp. announced that chief financial officer Michael McDonnell resigned, effective August 13, 2004, to relocate and take a position nearer to his family on the East Coast. McDonnell joined the Englewood, Colorado-based satellite-TV company four years ago after 13 years wit...

By Stephen Taub • July 23, 2004

The ART of Transferring Risk

Once upon a time, in the not-so-distant past, a finance chief could tell the difference between an insurance policy and a derivative contract.It was really a no-brainer. An insurance policy was a signed agreement under which your company paid a premium. In exchange, the company got to transfer so...

By David Katz • July 23, 2004

Gender Gap Endures for Finance Salaries

The gender gap for finance and accounting managers continues to narrow — but women are still paid less than men, based on more than 1,600 responses to a survey by the Institute of Management Accountants published in Strategic Finance magazine.In 2003, the survey found that the average salary for ...

By Stephen Taub • July 22, 2004

Big Severance Packages Mark Recent Deals

Sizable severance packages are alive and well, even after the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and despite a tepid economy.As proof, just look at the payouts that several top executives are poised to receive following a few recent high-profile deals.Wallace R. Barr, the chief executive officer o...

By Stephen Taub • July 20, 2004

CFOs on the Move

In a surprise announcement, Southwest Airlines announced that vice chairman of the board and chief executive officer James F. Parker retired for personal reasons. The company gave no reason for the change.Gary Kelly, who has served as Southwest’s executive vice president and chief financial offic...

By Stephen Taub • July 16, 2004

Pay Hikes Won’t Top 4 Percent in 2005

According to Mercer Human Resource Consulting’s 2004/2005 U.S. Compensation Planning Survey, 2005 will be the fourth consecutive year that pay hikes average less than 4 percent.The Mercer study, which analyzed responses from nearly 1,600 employers, found that among companies that plan to increase...

By Stephen Taub • July 16, 2004

Digging Out of the Pension Hole

At Wharton, the focus of executive education on pensions is shifting from the sell side to the buy side.In the past, faculty at the University of Pennsylvania’s business school dedicated courses to the asset-management side of the pension equation, says Olivia Mitchell, a professor of insurance a...

By Marie Leone • July 16, 2004

Caterpillar Retirees Face Health Expense

Caterpillar Inc. has informed its retirees that they will be required to pay for their health-care benefits beginning September 1, reported Reuters. A fund set up by the United Auto Workers in 1998 — which until now had covered the cost of health-care premiums for Caterpillar employees who retire...

By Stephen Taub • July 14, 2004

Oracle Lands Accenture Finance Chief

Oracle Corp. named Harry L. You as executive vice president and chief financial officer, replacing Jeff Henley.When Henley was elected chairman of Oracle’s board in January 2004 — replacing chief executive officer Larry Ellison, who retained the CEO title — he announced that after 13 years Oracle...

By Stephen Taub • July 14, 2004

Farewell, Finance

To hear it from Lim How Teck, the days of the finance function as we know it may be over. In his utopian vision, a sizable multinational — say with sales of US$5.5 billion — could get by with no more than a staff of 50, including the CFO, at its global headquarters. “Treasury, management accounti...

By Abe De Ramos • July 14, 2004

Morgan Stanley Settles Sex-Bias Suit

In a surprise announcement, Morgan Stanley agreed to pay $54 million to settle sex-bias charges rather than proceed with a trial, Reuters reported.The lawsuit had been filed nearly three years ago by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on behalf of more than 300 women who have worked...

By Stephen Taub • July 13, 2004

Steady Expansion for Finance Outsourcing

The global market for outsourced finance and accounting functions will expand at a 9.6 percent compounded annual growth rate and top $47.6 billion in 2008, according to a new report from technology consultancy IDC.IDC doesn’t expect that finance and accounting will become fully outsourced in the ...

By Stephen Taub • July 13, 2004

Campaign Contributions at the Office

A CFO analysis has found that 58 percent of companies in the S&P 500 have political action committees (PACs). And of the executives surveyed by CFO whose companies already have PACs, 40 percent reported that they give more now, since the passage of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002.“...

By Tim Reason • July 12, 2004

Fixing Long-term Incentive Compensation

When stock options first took off in the early 1990s, many investors greeted them as the answer to a long-standing problem: how to make managers act like owners without rewarding them even if they botched the job. Compensation committees embraced options for another reason: granting them incurred...

By Stephen Taub • July 9, 2004

CFOs on the Move

Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. hired Edward Dwyer as its new treasurer, according to Reuters, citing a person familiar with the matter. He is currently treasurer of AT&T Corp.Dwyer, who joined AT&T in 1983, has been treasurer since 1997 and has previously served as chief financial officer of AT...

By Stephen Taub • July 9, 2004

Better Carrots?

Expecting a revolution in long-term incentive pay? Don’t hold your breath.Change, to be sure, is occurring. And more is inevitable, if the Financial Accounting Standards Board finally succeeds in requiring the expensing of at least some employee stock options, as a rule it has proposed would do b...

By Don Durfee • July 9, 2004

Tech Companies Scaling Back Options

During debates on expensing the value of options granted to executives and employees, tech companies may be acting tough, but behind the scenes they’re quietly getting with the program.According to two studies by Mellon Financial Corp., the high-technology industry has decreased its use of broad-...

By Stephen Taub • July 8, 2004