Waiting and Wondering

Health-care reform has followed a tortuous path so far, with various political factions coming together and then moving apart like glass beads in a kaleidoscope. At press time, at least six different plans were up for debate, including one directly from President Barack Obama and one from long-ti...

By Alix Stuart • Oct. 1, 2009

“It’s about Having the Best Products on the Shelf.”

Mark Buthman knows Kimberly-Clark from the inside out. In fact, he laughs, “it’s the only real job I’ve ever had.” Given that he went straight from college to the company, in 1982, the 48-year-old CFO isn’t kidding. Over the past 27 years, Buthman has held a number of positions at the $19.4 billi...

By Edward Teach • Oct. 1, 2009

Michael Vick to Pay Back $400,000 to Pension Plan

The U.S. Dept. of Labor has obtained a consent judgment requiring National Football League player Michael Vick and his company, MV7 LLC, to repay at least $416,461 to a pension plan sponsored by the firm. The judgment also requires the Philadelphia Eagles quarterback, who served a 23-month prison...

By David Katz • Sept. 30, 2009

How One CFO Left Links, Took Helm in Crisis

At 66, Michael Mancuso didn’t have to prove himself to anybody. After a career that spanned 22 years with General Electric, 7 years with United Technologies, and 14 years with General Dynamics (13 of them as CFO), he might have contented himself with “chasing a little white ball around the grass....

By David Katz • Sept. 30, 2009

Wanted: Strategic CFOs. Again.

For a position as important as CFO, the requirements of the job seem to change with astounding frequency, driven by the macro trends of the moment.In the first years after Sarbanes-Oxley took effect, many companies wanted finance chiefs with technical accounting skills and backgrounds as controll...

By David McCann and Lori Calabro • Sept. 28, 2009

CFOs on the Move: Week Ending Sept. 25

President Obama plans to nominate Elizabeth “Beth” Robinson to head finance at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Robinson, who is now the assistant director for budget at the Office of Management and Budget, was deputy director of the Congressional Budget Office from 2003 to 2005...

By Joan Urdang • Sept. 24, 2009

J&J CFO: Biggest Nightmare Is Public Health Option

Reflecting a widespread fear expressed by many finance chiefs at the CFO Rising West conference in Las Vegas, Dominic Caruso, CFO of Johnson & Johnson, said on Tuesday that the prospect of a health system run by the federal government is the worry that keeps him up at night most often these d...

By David Katz • Sept. 23, 2009

Taking the Back Door to Going Public

A small company offering a promising new technology needs financing to jump-start the drive toward financial success. Should it seek venture-capital funds? Make an initial public offering?Balqon Corp. (pronounced bal-con), which makes electric-powered trucks used to unload freight containers from...

By David McCann • Sept. 22, 2009

CFO Finds Signs of Life in the Rust Belt

Even before the downturn, the prospects for growth in America’s industrial heartland were grim. Now, with the troubles faced by the auto industry and its numerous offshoots, you might think that a CFO for a packaging and machine-parts manufacturer in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan — about 20 miles fr...

By David Katz • Sept. 22, 2009

CFOs on the Move: Week Ending September 18

Bob Eulau is the new finance head at electronics contract manufacturer Sanmina-SCI Corp. He comes to the company from Alien Technology Corp., where he was chief operating officer and CFO.Andrew Hajducky III has resigned as CFO and treasurer of financial-market data and analytics provider Interact...

By Joan Urdang • Sept. 18, 2009

DoL: Let GM Fund Benefits with Company Stock

Perhaps unleashing employer demand to fund benefit-plan liabilities with shares, the Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration Thursday proposed to allow General Motors to transfer common stock, preferred stock, and a $2.5 billion promissory note to a health plan set up for ...

By David Katz • Sept. 17, 2009

The Power of the Balance Sheet

During the second quarter, sell-side analysts noted, the stock of Duke Energy Corp., the third-largest electric-power company in the United States, outperformed the utility index. Yet in that quarter, Duke reported flat earnings before interest and taxes compared with the same period last year, w...

By Marie Leone • Sept. 11, 2009

CFOs on the Move: Week Ending Sept. 11

Electronic-payment provider First Data Corp. has selected W. Patrick Shannon to head finance. Previously, he was CFO of BellSouth Corp. until its merger with AT&T Corp. Shannon replaces Phil Wall, who has been named CFO of Bank of America Merchant Services, an alliance between Bank of America...

By Joan Urdang • Sept. 11, 2009

CFO: Stop Treating Your Inventories Like Fine Wine

Last year’s serious dip in consumer demand gave CFOs headaches over bloated inventory levels and forced companies to absorb big discounts — to the benefit of their customers but to the detriment of their earnings. But just as one person’s trash is another’s treasure, the dilemma for CFOs with swo...

By Sarah Johnson • Sept. 10, 2009

“This Is What You’ve Trained For All Your Life”

It’s a rare CFO who has had much fun during the recession. Earl Fry, who heads up finance for Informatica, a vendor of enterprise data-integration software, certainly isn’t one. And that’s despite the possibility that the economic ills ultimately will prove to be quite fortuitous for the company....

By David McCann • Sept. 10, 2009

Will Caterpillar’s Walgreens Deal Shrink Drug Costs?

Hal Rosenbluth, who, as president of Walgreens’s health and wellness unit, may have an interest in buttering up finance chiefs, observes that CFOs have an “innate” ability to find out the true cost of goods or services their companies are spending money on.Rosenbluth, whose company launched a dir...

By David Katz • Sept. 4, 2009

CFOs on the Move: Week Ending Sept. 4

United American Healthcare Corp. has appointed Anita Davis to head finance. She takes over from Stephen Harris, who resigned from his position with the company but will continue on as a director. Davis is the founder and managing member of accounting firm Haynes, Maufus & Davis PLLC.Jeffrey A...

By Joan Urdang • Sept. 4, 2009

The Aging Workforce: How to Fight the Risks

The workforce is aging fast, and stakeholders — companies, governments, and others — have a narrow window of time to adapt. So says the World Economic Forum, which Wednesday issued an 80-page report outlining strategic options to address how stakeholders can strengthen financial sustainability, q...

By David McCann • Sept. 3, 2009

Getting Back to Black Drives Toyota CFO

Editor’s note: Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. CFO Tracey Doi will be a featured speaker at the CFO Rising West conference, September 21-23, 2009, in Las Vegas. For more information, click here.The word “excess” isn’t in CFO Tracey Doi’s vocabulary. As the finance chief of Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A., sh...

By Sarah Johnson • Sept. 3, 2009

I Pledge Allegiance…to My Pension Fund

Of all the ways they might cut back, CFOs don’t seem to be targeting pension plans. A recent survey of 191 U.S. finance executives by CFO Research Services on behalf of Towers Perrin finds a majority saying they plan to keep their plans rather than ditch them, and that they have the cash flow to ...

By David Katz and Alix Stuart • Sept. 1, 2009

The Crackdown Continues

Amid an explosion of proposals to limit and regulate executive compensation, public-company finance chiefs face a double whammy: the prospect of new constraints on their own earnings and new responsibility for providing an unprecedented level of disclosure about compensation in financial statemen...

By Josh Hyatt • Sept. 1, 2009

“This Is the Future.”

It’s a good time to be in the pharmacy business — just ask Walgreen Co. Despite the recession, the $59 billion drugstore chain is on pace to grow its revenues by 7% in fiscal 2009 (down from 9.8% growth a year ago). While other companies were cutting their dividends, Walgreen raised its own in Ju...

By Edward Teach • Sept. 1, 2009

The Pros and Cons of Interim Finance Gigs

Richard Block had been CFO of Avicon Group, a start-up supply-chain management consultancy and software maker, for eight years when it ran out of steam in 2006. His last duty was helping to dissolve the company. Then things really started to get tough.Despite his long finance career, which includ...

By David McCann • Sept. 1, 2009

Advise and Shine

It is certainly much easier to be a motivational leader when the news is good and there are plenty of perks to dole out. When your latest pep talk includes a mention of free baseball tickets or, better yet, bonuses, you can be sure the troops will love you. But when the company is under intense p...

By Kate O'Sullivan • Sept. 1, 2009

Women, Testosterone, and Finance

That the risk-taking end of the financial industry is dominated by men is unarguable. But does it discriminate against women merely because they are women? Well, it might. But a piece of research just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by Paola Sapienza of Northweste...

By Economist Staff • Aug. 28, 2009