Shore Up Those Shortcomings

Unfortunately, positive thinking only goes so far.Take careers, for instance. Blindly playing up strengths while downplaying weaknesses may look great on a resume, but it can prove troublesome down the road. For executives, ignoring weak spots can actually be a career-buster.That’s the contention...

By Lisa Yoon • Feb. 26, 2003

Dropped by Ahold: More on Meurs Resignation

Michael Meurs resigned Monday as CFO of Royal Ahold NV, along with chairman and chief executive Cees van der Hoeven. The two are stepping down because of accounting irregularities that resulted in Ahold’s earnings being inflated by at least $500 million between 2001 and 2002.Henny de Ruiter, chai...

By Lisa Yoon • Feb. 25, 2003

GE Comes Up With New Formula

General Electric Co. is changing the way it pays top executives by disregarding pension income, according to Friday’s Wall Street Journal.Currently, GE calculates the pay of senior executives based on several factors, including earnings per share. This model lets the conglomerate include any inco...

By Lisa Yoon • Feb. 24, 2003

Are You Experienced?

These days, there’s no shortage of advice for out-of-work executives. Indeed, in the past six months alone, CFO.com has run scores of articles exhorting the unemployed to beef up their skills by going back to school, starting a company, or enlisting at a not-for-profit.But what about managers who...

By Lisa Yoon • Feb. 20, 2003

More on the Melodrama at Universal Health

As CFO.com reported Tuesday, hospital operator Universal Health Services Inc. ousted CFO Kirk Gorman and replaced him with controller Steve Filton.The company maintained that the integrity of its financial statements was not a problem. But investors appeared alarmed, sending the stock price plung...

By Lisa Yoon • Feb. 19, 2003

Leticia Baldridge Was Right

The devil, they say, is in the details.In no other endeavor is this more true than in the job-search process. For instance, you can submit the killer resume and ace all the interviews, but did you remember to write a thank-you note to the interviewer? If so, did you send it promptly?Such a slip-u...

By Lisa Yoon • Feb. 18, 2003

Unions Targeting Executive Pay

No doubt in response to shareholder criticism about executive compensation, companies are examining compensation and benefit packages before their annual meetings this spring. The AFL-CIO labor federation is currently in talks with companies about curbing executive pay packages, according to the ...

By Lisa Yoon • Feb. 13, 2003

Performance Reviews Get Poor Reviews

When it comes to performance reviews, 52 percent of employees agree on one thing: they do nothing to actually help their on-the-job performance.That’s according to a new survey by business writer Gene C. Mage, who writes the syndicated column “Making It Work.”The report, based on a nationwide sur...

By Lisa Yoon • Feb. 12, 2003

What Dreams May Come

In last week’s New Yorker, author Hendrik Hertzberg relayed an anecdote in which Secretary of State Colin Powell reportedly remarked, “I sleep like a baby… Every two hours I wake up screaming.”According to a survey released Monday, Powell is not alone.In the poll of more than 1,000 workers by onl...

By Lisa Yoon • Feb. 11, 2003

Health Costs #1 Benefit Worry, Survey Finds

What are the primary benefit concerns of 2003? It all depends on who you ask.Employers regard the need to control rising health and welfare costs as the top priority for the fourth consecutive year. Meanwhile, employees say retirement and investment issues are the primary benefits concerns in 200...

By Stephen Taub • Feb. 11, 2003

Hear What I Say

During the Nineties, when the CFO role grew to encompass such chores as investor relations and IPO road-show presentations, more companies began looking for finance chiefs who were good communicators. Hence, finance chiefs out in the job market needed to project a more outgoing, with-it persona.B...

By Lisa Yoon • Feb. 10, 2003

The Wrong Stuff

Having spent two years as CFO of EPIX Holdings Corp. before becoming CEO last year, Thomas Taylor knows exactly what he is looking for in a finance chief: someone just like him.It would be a tall order. Taylor was valedictorian of his MBA class at Notre Dame, is a CPA who spent seven years at Pri...

By Russ Banham • Feb. 7, 2003

Old Boys Network: On the Fritz

It’s getting easier for women to find companies where they can succeed. Or at least, that’s the takeaway from this year’s survey by the National Association for Female Executives (NAFE).In the NAFE’s list of “Top 30 Companies for Executive Women,” Avon Products once again took the top spot. That’...

By Lisa Yoon • Feb. 6, 2003

A Lesson in Public Speaking

Sometimes it’s best to stick to the script.Henry M. Paulson, Jr., chairman and CEO of financial-services firm Goldman Sachs Group proved just that when he discussed the possibility of future layoffs at the firm at a recent investment conference, according to the New York Times. The comments were ...

By Lisa Yoon • Feb. 5, 2003

Benefits Nearly 40% of Payroll, Study Finds

It’s getting real expensive to provide benefits to employees.The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Monday reported that employee benefits comprised more than a third of company payroll costs in 2001, up slightly from the prior year.Benefit costs averaged 39 percent of total payroll costs among employers s...

By Stephen Taub • Feb. 5, 2003

Intervention Needed? FMLA Abused, Says Survey

It’s coming up on the tenth birthday of the Family and Medical Leave Act — and some benefits experts think the act is due for a makeover.The good news for workers, according to a survey by Society for Human Resource Management, is that many companies go beyond the minimum requirements of the law ...

By Lisa Yoon • Feb. 4, 2003

Boards Getting Creative With Exec Comp

Corporate directors are feeling like they’re stuck between a rock and a hard place when it comes to executive pay.On one hand, board members are wary of the bad press that revelations of exorbitant pay packages for top executives can invite. What’s more, with Congress outlawing loans by companies...

By Lisa Yoon • Feb. 3, 2003

Downsizing: Limbo Lower Now

Corporate managers thought that recent cost cuts would push their companies out of the doldrums — or at least boost earnings enough to please shareholders. That hasn’t happened. Is another round of cuts in order?Lawrence Serven, a principal at ButtonwoodLLP.com, a Stamford, Connecticut-based mana...

By Lori Calabro and Lynn Doan • Feb. 1, 2003

Pulling the Plug on Exorbitant Pay

David FitzPatrick might be a tad nervous these days. The new CFO of Tyco International Inc. landed a $21 million pay package just as shareholder activist groups began promising a crackdown on excessive executive pay.In fact, during the coming proxy season, bloated executive pay will take center s...

By Lori Calabro • Feb. 1, 2003

Multiple-Choice Problems

In an effort to encourage diversification in 401(k) plans, companies are continuing to add investment options to their menus. One-third of companies recently surveyed by Hewitt Associates say they’re planning to boost the number of funds they offer this year. Lifestyle funds, fixed-income funds, ...

By Alix Stuart • Feb. 1, 2003

Got a Good Job in the Citi

Deborah Hopkins, new head of corporate strategy at Citigroup, will be a key player in the company’s attempts to recover from the research-analyst debacle at its Salomon Smith Barney unit — if she sticks around.The peripatetic executive was CFO at Boeing for just a year and a half before decamping...

By Joseph McCafferty • Feb. 1, 2003

Out of Work? Start a Company

Ever fantasize about ditching the corporate establishment to start your own business? Former Vital Link Business Systems CFO Steve Peterson took that leap last September, when an investor-led management reshuffling left him out of work. After weeks of job-hunting and soul-probing, the veteran of ...

By Alix Stuart • Feb. 1, 2003

Canned!

As CFO sackings go, Kent Kalkwarf’s firing by Charter Communications was a blindside hit.For months during a grand-jury investigation of Charter’s accounting practices, it was the COO, David Barford, who was under the microscope, having been put on paid leave by the company. CFO Kalkwarf, meanwhi...

By Roy Harris • Feb. 1, 2003

Bitter Medicine

Companies are singing the health-care blues again, thanks to another year of double-digit premium increases.This year’s hike will be particularly stiff — the average company expects health-care costs to rise 14 percent, according to the National Survey of Employer-Sponsored Health Plans 2002, by ...

By Joseph McCafferty • Feb. 1, 2003

Feeling Employees’ Pain

You’ve heard it a million times before: A happy and motivated workforce boosts the bottom line.In fact, so important is this concept that the Harvard Business Review dedicated its January issue to the theme of motivating employees. What’s more, it seems every other week a consultant releases a se...

By Lisa Yoon • Jan. 30, 2003