Human Capital: Page

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    After the Storm

    Talk about silver linings: thanks to the recession, the core skill set of the CFO has been highlighted like never before. From working-capital management to cost control to scenario planning, the CFO’s expertise has proven to be the critical factor in corporate survival. Finance chiefs across the...

    By Kate O'Sullivan • Nov. 1, 2009
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    Are You “Strategic”?

    In case you haven’t heard, the strategic CFO is in vogue. Again. Not that any CFOs have confessed to being less than strategic — at least, not until after they leave their companies and can comfortably complain about how their former bosses held them back. But today, as companies gear up for post...

    By Alix Stuart • Nov. 1, 2009
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    When CFOs Take the Top Spot

    When Greg Ebel was promoted from CFO to CEO of Spectra Energy last year, he expected his job at the $5.2 billion (in 2008 revenues) natural-gas company to be a lot tougher. Instead, Ebel has actually found his current role to be less stressful than his previous one. “The finance chief is accounta...

    By Alix Stuart • Nov. 1, 2009
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    “The Worst Is Behind Us.”

    Financially, it wasn’t a great year for Cisco Systems. Net sales for the Silicon Valley giant fell by 8.7% in fiscal 2009, to $36.1 billion, and the stock fell below $14 in March before climbing back to nearly $25 in October. But strategically, it may have been a transformative year. Underscoring...

    By Edward Teach • Nov. 1, 2009
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    The War for Talent Is Still On

    The labor market is generally teeming with available talent, yet skilled finance and accounting employees are not necessarily any easier to find. Indeed, the accounting profession shed less than 2% of its jobs between September 2008 and September 2009, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics,...

    By Alix Stuart • Nov. 1, 2009
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    Apply Yourself

    Finally, there’s good news for job-hunting finance executives: you can stop worrying that your résumé will end up at the bottom of a chin-high stack on someone’s desk.That’s because hiring managers now read résumés on their BlackBerrys, deciding within 30 seconds which ones deserve attention. Tha...

    By Josh Hyatt • Nov. 1, 2009
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    Stock Gains Don’t Rescue Pension Funding

    The stock market’s 15% leap in the third quarter helped out companies on two fronts: their share prices rose, and they got a good return on their own equity investments. But one thing the bull run did not do was trigger a rise in the funded status of defined-benefit pension plans.Counterintuitive...

    By • Oct. 30, 2009
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    CFOs on the Move: Week Ending October 30

    Ed Fitzpatrick, a senior vice president at Motorola Inc., has been appointed chief financial officer after having served as acting CFO since February and corporate controller since January. The company credits him with driving significant cost reductions and focusing the company on working capita...

    By • Oct. 29, 2009
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    A Crash Course in Working Capital

    Black & Veatch CFO Karen Daniel got started early in finance. As a high school student, Daniel, now 51, worked for the Internal Revenue Service helping to process tax returns. Maybe that’s why she likes the idea of mentoring employees in the ways of finance, right from the start.Indeed, as pa...

    By Marie Leone • Oct. 28, 2009
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    You Don’t Need a Weatherman to Know Which Way the Wind Blows

    You might not expect to spot a finance chief on Capitol Hill, jawboning senators and representatives. Yet that’s where Susan Nickey of Acciona Energy North America found herself on February 11, just two days before Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, better known as “the s...

    By David Katz • Oct. 28, 2009
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    Doing What Needs Doing: A CFO as Sales Boss

    Amid the constant switching of hats that is a big part of life for most small-company executives, formal titles mean little next to doing whatever has to be done. At TeamQuest Corp., a $25 million vendor of information-technology-optimization software, Terry Wisner is not only CFO but chief opera...

    By • Oct. 27, 2009
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    Executive Comp Rules Will Be Narrow, Pay Czar Suggested

    At a 1:30 press briefing today, Kenneth Feinberg, the Treasury Department “pay czar” charged with setting compensation levels at companies bailed out by the federal government, is expected to lay out the Obama administration’s new pay requirements for those companies. While the orders will report...

    By Marie Leone • Oct. 22, 2009
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    CFOs on the Move: Week Ending October 23

    Color science and technology company X-Rite Inc. has named Rajesh Shah CFO and secretary. He comes to the firm from Cadence Innovation LLC, where he also held the top finance spot.Andrew Levy adds the title of president to his CFO role at Allegiant Travel Co. In his new post, he succeeds Maurice ...

    By Joan Urdang • Oct. 22, 2009
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    Credit Suisse Bets Others Will Take Its Cue on Pay

    With its announcement Tuesday of a revamped compensation model for executive managers and director-level employees, Credit Suisse is taking something of gamble that competing banks will move in the same direction.Key elements of the plan are revolutionary in terms of financial-services industry s...

    By • Oct. 22, 2009
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    Retirement Roulette

    The decline of defined-benefit plans and the growth of 401(k)-style defined-contribution plans has been widely reported. In 1996, both types of plans held roughly the same total assets, give or take a few billion (see chart, below). By 2007, defined-contribution plans held $3.73 trillion—oustripp...

    By Tim Reason • Oct. 21, 2009
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    Employee-Benefit Cost Pressures Plague CFOs, Survey Finds

    Of all the pricing pressures that senior finance executives are most worried about, employee benefits tops the list by far, according to the results of a Grant Thornton survey released Monday. Fully 77% of the 846 U.S. CFOs and senior comptrollers participating pointed to benefits-cost pressures,...

    By David Katz • Oct. 19, 2009
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    Waiting for the Dough

    Sometimes, attaining success is a matter of patience. That’s especially true for executives at start-up companies not likely to feature a black bottom line for years.At Sanuwave, a company that develops innovative, noninvasive medical devices that use shock waves to treat a variety of ailments, t...

    By • Oct. 16, 2009
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    CFOs on the Move: Week Ending October 16

    Mark Williams, CFO of Mediware Information Systems Inc., will resign from his position, effective November 4, for another business opportunity. Williams joined the company as controller in 2004 and took over the top finance spot in 2006. A search is under way for his replacement; in the meantime,...

    By Joan Urdang • Oct. 15, 2009
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    Ops-Savvy CFO Flies High

    Accounting and capital-markets backgrounds sustain many a CFO. But for Doug Penner, who heads finance at ThyssenKrupp Aerospace, 16 years spent working for various operating units at Boeing instilled an operations orientation that he says continues to pay solid dividends in his current post.Large...

    By • Oct. 14, 2009
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    Cooling Off the Cash Burn

    In 2005, just three years after the collapse of Arthur Andersen, the opportunities represented by the sudden exit of a giant professional-services firm loomed large in the minds of the founders of Integro, a privately held insurance-brokerage start-up. They looked around at the major insurance br...

    By David Katz • Oct. 9, 2009
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    CFOs on the Move: Week Ending October 9

    Mark Rosenbaum has been named the first CFO of social-networking site MySpace. Most recently, Rosenbaum was a consultant to MGM; before that, he was senior vice president, corporate finance, at Gemstar-TV Guide.Hitachi Global Storage Technologies has named Michael Murray to head finance. He comes...

    By Joan Urdang • Oct. 8, 2009
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    Bankers’ Bonuses Hang in the Balance

    A year ago, right after Lehman Brothers collapsed and the entire financial-services industry appeared to be within sight of a similar fate, eFinancialCareers.com asked 1,300 bankers about their expectations for their year-end bonuses. Thirty-six percent said they expected to get a bigger bonus th...

    By • Oct. 8, 2009
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    The Art of the Double Play

    If you think it’s tough trying to guide a company through a recession, how about two companies? But Scott Mattox, CFO of a pair of trucking firms with a common part-owner, is comfortable with their financial performances this year. Both had solid bottom-line gains through August compared with las...

    By • Oct. 5, 2009
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    CFOs on the Move: Week Ending October 2

    Neil Salmon has been elected to head finance at specialty phosphate producer Innophos Holdings Inc. Previously, he was CFO of the Adhesives Business Group at Imperial Chemical Industries PLC.Hanover Real Estate Partners has named Romano Orlando to lead the finance function. He comes to Hanover fr...

    By Joan Urdang • Oct. 2, 2009
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    DoL Eyes New Chrysler $5B Health-Benefits Deal

    If an exemption proposed by the U.S. Department of Labor goes through, the New Chrysler Corp. could transfer a promissory note of about $4.59 billion and company shares to a voluntary employees benefit association plan set up to fund health benefits for the retirees of the company currently emerg...

    By David Katz • Oct. 2, 2009