Human Capital: Page 84

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    The Next Stage

    Have you mastered your job? Are you an expert in your subject matter? Do you work independently, show initiative, and take charge of projects?If so, you’re on your way to becoming an effective leader, according to Dave Ulrich, Norm Smallwood, and Kate Sweetman, who outline the “core rules” of lea...

    By Kate O'Sullivan • March 1, 2009
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    “This Is the World Series for Finance.”

    As Pepsi Bottling Group marks the 10th anniversary of its initial public offering this month, times couldn’t be tougher. Although the beverage company’s revenues have nearly doubled in the past decade, research on consumer spending during past recessions has found that carbonated beverages top th...

    By Kate Plourd • March 1, 2009
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    Layoff Train Loses Some Steam

    For the third straight week, only a small number of companies announced more than 1,000 planned job cuts, which is what qualifies as good news these days.Even the headline-grabbing announcement that JPMorgan Chase is eliminating 14,000 jobs — 12,000 stemming from the integration of Washington Mut...

    By Stephen Taub • Feb. 27, 2009
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    CFOs on the Move: Week Ending February 27

    Nanometrics has hired James Moniz as its CFO. Since April 2008 he had served as CFO of Photon Dynamics, Inc. He was also treasurer, CFO, and assistant secretary at Nextest Systems, and vice president and CFO of Millennia Vision. The casual dining restaurant chain DineEquity, Inc. has hired Jack T...

    By John Zhu and Kate Plourd • Feb. 26, 2009
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    In Management Shuffle, Yahoo! CFO Dealt Out

    The management structure that Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz is designing to make the Internet giant “faster on its feet” won’t include CFO Blake Jorgensen.As part of a major reorganization under Bartz, who came to the company last month, Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo said in a terse Securities and Excha...

    By Kate Plourd • Feb. 26, 2009
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    Financial Woes Spur Some Short-term Hiring

    While millions of jobs are being lost in the abysmal economy, a lower-profile trend involves companies — especially smaller ones — hiring temporary workers in response to the crisis.Employers that are determined to keep fixed-staffing costs at a bare minimum may need to expand their work forces f...

    By • Feb. 25, 2009
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    CFOs on the Move (Europe): Week Ending February 20

    German engineering company Schaeffler’s CFO Thomas Hetmann will leave the company by mutual agreement once his responsibilities have been transferred to a successor. Mary Jo Gresens, CFO from 1999 to 2006, will return to the company to act as a consultant in coming months.Real estate firm DTZ has...

    By John Zhu • Feb. 20, 2009
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    Vague Comp Limits Are Paralyzing Banks

    While the economic stimulus package was signed into law on Tuesday, it left unanswered many questions about how one of its most talked-about principles — limits on compensation for executives of firms that take federal bailout funds — will be applied in practice.Financial institutions that partic...

    By • Feb. 19, 2009
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    CFOs on the Move: Week Ending February 20

    John Killian will replace Doreen Toben as CFO of Verizon Communications. Toben last week announced plans to retire from the company in mid-2009. Killian moves over from his role as president of Verizon Business, which he has led since it was formed in 2006. Savient Pharmaceuticals had terminate...

    By Kate Plourd • Feb. 18, 2009
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    Profiting from Happiness

    Are firms with cheery workers more likely to make investors smile? According to Alex Edmans of Wharton, a business school, choosing to invest in a portfolio comprising companies that have happy employees (as measured using Fortune‘s “100 best companies to work for,” most recently published in Jan...

    By Economist Staff • Feb. 18, 2009
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    Media Chiefs Ask CFOs Where to Wield the Axe

    Chief executive officers in the media and entertainment industry are looking to their chief financial officers to show them how to cut costs, according to a survey released today by Ernst & Young.Of 27 M&E corporate chieftains responding to the survey, 30 percent said they are demanding “...

    By David Katz • Feb. 17, 2009
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    Manners Maketh the Businessman

    When Andrew Chadwick-Jones, a management consultant with Oliver Wyman in London, went to pitch to a private-equity firm late last year, he expected the usual: about 20 minutes and a brisk attitude. He was surprised to find the private-equity people instead explaining their strategy, offering intr...

    By Economist Staff • Feb. 17, 2009
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    Over Here, Over There, Job Cuts Everywhere

    There was the usual round of sizable layoffs this week, but this time, most of the headline-grabbing cuts were made by overseas companies, led by automakers.The biggest U.S. workforce reduction was also announced by a car company: General Motors said it will shed 10,000 white-collar jobs.The Wall...

    By Stephen Taub • Feb. 13, 2009
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    CFOs on the Move: Week Ending February 13

    Textron CFO Ted French has left after nearly nine years at the defense company. Textron Financial Corporation now reports to the company’s COO and president Scott C. Donnelly. French was chairman and CEO of TFC as well as the parent company’s finance chief. Senior vice president and controller Ri...

    By John Zhu and Kate Plourd • Feb. 12, 2009
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    Is It the End for Big Director Pay Raises?

    With executive compensation being thoroughly vetted — and not just at companies that take federal bailout money — will closer scrutiny of directors’ pay be far behind?Maybe not, though until recently, few shareholders have objected to board compensation, despite the fact that it has risen steadil...

    By • Feb. 10, 2009
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    Paying the Piper

    Creating political theatre by cracking down on executive pay may prove to be the easy part for Barack Obama. Coming up with a sensible and effective way to compensate senior managers at companies bailed out by the American taxpayer will be far trickier-and the new president’s first effort, unveil...

    By Economist Staff • Feb. 9, 2009
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    Job Market Goes from Bad to Worse

    The jobs picture is not only growing uglier by the week, it is worsening more than experts have been anticipating.The Labor Department reported Friday that 598,000 nonfarm jobs were lost in January and that the unemployment rate surged to 7.6 percent, up from 7.2 percent at the end of December. B...

    By Stephen Taub • Feb. 6, 2009
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    Delphi: No Health Care for Retirees

    Delphi Corp. is seeking permission to cancel health-care and life-insurance benefits for current and future salaried retirees, the Associated Press reports.The bankrupt auto-parts supplier told the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York it wants to cut the benefits to 15,000 retirees as soon as April ...

    By Stephen Taub • Feb. 6, 2009
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    CFOs on the Move: Week Ending February 6

    On the same day it announced a fourth-quarter net loss of $3.6 billion and the suspension of its quarterly dividend, Motorolasaid its prominent CFO,Paul Liska, is leavingthe company. Liska,a former finance chief of Sears, Roebuck, and The St. Paul Cos. who was at Motorola for less than a year, wi...

    By Kate Plourd • Feb. 5, 2009
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    Motorola CFO Paul Liska Departs

    On Tuesday, the same day it announced a fourth-quarter net loss of $3.6 billion and the suspension of the quarterly dividend, Motorola announced that its prominent CFO, Paul J. Liska, is leaving the company. Liska, a former finance chief of Sears, Roebuck, and The St. Paul Cos. who has been CFO o...

    By Stephen Taub • Feb. 3, 2009
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    Tax Issues Tie Up Washington

    Citing personal tax issues as the reason for their decisions, two of President Barack Obama’s nominees for prominent posts in his administration withdrew their candidacies Tuesday.Just hours after Nancy Killefer, the former Treasury department CFO who President Obama appointed chief performance o...

    By Kate Plourd • Feb. 3, 2009
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    Pension Investing: What’s the Right Level of Risk?

    Pension funds using liability-driven investment strategies in 2008 strongly outperformed those using a traditional asset-allocation approach, according to Watson Wyatt.The pension consulting firm constructed hypothetical LDI and traditional investment portfolios at the end of 2007 and tracked the...

    By • Feb. 2, 2009
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    Pension Plans Grow More Bearish

    Corporations should brace for a major pension shortfall over the next five years or so, according to a new study by Greenwich Associates.U.S. pension funds have sharply ratcheted down their expected investment returns from most major asset classes through 2013, Greenwich reported. The consulting ...

    By Stephen Taub • Feb. 2, 2009
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    Ready for the Worst

    When Robert McDonald was named CFO of Woolworths last October, he sounded like a man on a mission — and with good reason. The troubled UK retailer lost nearly £100m (€111m) in the six months to August 2008, and McDonald joined an army of new executives — including a new CEO — to turn it around. “...

    By Tim Burke • Feb. 2, 2009
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    The EBRD’s Manfred Schepers

    It’s rare today to find a bank that plans to increase its lending. But the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is no ordinary bank. Set up in 1991 to support the private sectors of countries in central and eastern Europe, it later expanded its investments into the former Sovie...

    By Tim Burke • Feb. 2, 2009