Human Capital: Page 97

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    Job Losses Slow Down Dramatically

    The jobs picture may not be as bleak as many pundits feared, with total U.S. employment dropping by only 20,000 jobs in April. It was the fourth-straight monthly decline, but experts had expected as many as 85,000 jobs to be lost. In addition, the unemployment rate, which was anticipated to climb...

    By Stephen Taub • May 2, 2008
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    Wanted: Tech-Savvy Accountants

    The days of mere bean counting are long gone for accountants. The profession has always been rather technical, but these days the big firms are looking for signs that up-and-comers not only know numbers, but are fluent in technology too.“Thirty years ago, as a new CPA in public practice with a ‘B...

    By Alan Rappeport • May 1, 2008
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    No Flex, Please, We’re Skittish

    Your company may have gone to great lengths to create flexible work arrangements, but that doesn’t mean employees are comfortable with them. In a survey of more than 1,600 workers, Deloitte found plenty of concern that taking advantage of formal programs (such as telecommuting, flex-time, or part...

    By CFO Editorial Staff • May 1, 2008
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    CFOs on the Move: Week Ending May 2

    • New York-based financial solutions company E-Trade Financial Corp. said its CFO and general counsel will step down on or before May 9. CFO Robert Simmons will be replaced by controller Matthew Audette until a successor is found. The company did not explain the reason for the pair’s departures....

    By Eila Rana and Kate Plourd • May 1, 2008
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    Top 10 Concerns of CFOs

    The many interlocking parts of the current economic downturn add up to one overriding concern for CFOs: weakening consumer demand. For the second consecutive quarter, consumer demand topped the list of CFO worries in the quarterly Duke University/CFO magazine Global Business Outlook Survey. The r...

    By Kate O'Sullivan • May 1, 2008
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    Harvard University’s Elizabeth Mora

    To universities with smaller endowments, overseeing finance at the world’s richest school might seem easy. But Harvard University CFO Elizabeth Mora can tell you it is a juggling act. The 47-year-old CFO advises on a $35 billion endowment, and watches costs on everything from the school’s student...

    By Alan Rappeport • May 1, 2008
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    Making the Pieces Fit

    Soon after David Dreyer joined AMN Healthcare in 2004, he faced a personnel crisis. One of his divisional controllers was isolating himself from the team, not communicating with direct reports effectively, and hampering the productivity of the finance department.“His reaction to really minor thin...

    By Kate Plourd • May 1, 2008
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    Cowboy Up

    Growing up in Beverly Hills, Steve Freed didn’t hang out on tony Rodeo Drive. Instead, the current CFO of Steward Realty Management Co. was drawn to the real thing. “I got very into the western lifestyle,” says Freed, who spent summers teaching horseback riding and competing on the California Jun...

    By Kate Plourd • May 1, 2008
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    For Those about to Rock

    Eight years after Steven Goodwin dreamed of creating the world’s first rock-and-roll theme park, he can finally break out his air guitar. In June, Goodwin will celebrate with the likes of the Moody Blues and the Eagles at the grand opening of the $400 million Hard Rock Park, based in Myrtle Beach...

    By Kate Plourd • May 1, 2008
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    Courting Disaster

    See this year’s 401(k) Buyer’s Guide.Last summer, when a federal judge dismissed a suit brought by employees of John Deere & Co. alleging that they were charged unreasonable and poorly disclosed fees in their 401(k) plans, companies may have been tempted to breathe a sigh of relief. A number ...

    By Russ Banham • May 1, 2008
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    Lawmakers: Workers Use HSAs as Tax Shelters

    Health savings accounts were created on the premise that they would make employees more responsible for their health-care costs and help suppress the rising medical expenses at companies, and in the U.S. overall. However, it turns out that many participants of the high-deductible health plans are...

    By Sarah Johnson • April 30, 2008
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    Global Know-how: The Career Imperative

    On the career track to CFO, there seems no end to the list of events and circumstances that could derail the quest. Increasingly, though, just to board the train you have to be a seasoned traveler already.The idea that international experience makes an up-and-coming finance executive more appeali...

    By • April 28, 2008
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    CFOs on the Move: Week Ending April 25

    • Campbell Soup CFO Robert Schiffner will retire before August 1. Schiffner, who has been with the company since 2001, said he would leave the snack and soup company earlier if the company finds a replacement. • Starting in May, Don Grimes will oversee the finances at Wolverine World Wide Inc.,...

    By Kate Plourd and Eila Rana • April 24, 2008
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    Rare Career Path: CPA, JD, CFO

    The year was 1992. Richard Ramos, age 30, already had survived more than eight years of long days at KPMG, but with the partnership track lengthening at public accounting firms at that time, the payoff still seemed further off than he cared for.Jumping to a different firm might have helped him re...

    By • April 23, 2008
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    Companies Give “Web Search” a New Meaning

    The growth of social-networking Web sites makes it easier for job-seekers of all ages to find jobs. But new technology is also making it easier for companies — as well as individuals — to vet each other.From Facebook to LinkedIn, social networking has become professional networking, making it eas...

    By Alan Rappeport • April 21, 2008
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    Ford Taps CFO as Jaguar’s Top Cat

    Ford Motor Co. named David Smith, Jaguar Land Rover’s chief financial officer, to be acting chief executive officer at Jaguar Land Rover.He succeeds Geoff Polites, who died over the weekend in his home country of Australia at the age of 60. Smith, a 25-year Ford veteran, will hold the top positio...

    By Stephen Taub • April 21, 2008
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    Big Pensions Slash Stock Investments

    Instead of trying to gobble up big gains on the stock market, increasing numbers of the corporate sponsors of traditional pension plans are adopting a lower-risk strategy of only going for returns that match the plans’ liabilities, according to a recently released study of pension funding.For yea...

    By David Katz • April 18, 2008
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    The Cure for Burnout: Go Nonprofit

    Three years ago, Usha Chaudhary was deep in the doldrums. After 20 years at the same company, she was working about 80 hours a week, and she needed a change. In less than month of job searching, she received an offer from the United Way of America to become the nonprofit’s CFO. Soon, her finance ...

    By Sarah Johnson • April 17, 2008
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    CFOs on the Move: Week Ending April 18

    • Tito Lima has returned to his position as CFO of First National Bank, after serving three years as CFO of Sterling Financial Corp. He will also serve as FNB’s treasurer. He has been in the finance industry for 23 years. • CPI Corp.’s finance chief, Gary Douglass, was named president and CEO ...

    By Laura Cameron and Kate Plourd • April 17, 2008
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    Study: Bleak January Wiped Out 2007 Pension Gains

    With the stock market falling off a cliff in January, 100 of the biggest U.S. companies saw their defined-benefit pension plans lose more than a full year of 2007 gains in January 2008 alone, according to an annual pension study done by Milliman, a pension actuarial firm. But costs related to the...

    By David Katz • April 16, 2008
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    What’s Missing in Controller Education?

    The subject was Bear Stearns. The audience was controllers and aspiring controllers.Out by Chicago’s O’Hare Airport at the American Management Association Center, a dozen of them — from lines of business including healthcare, retailing, banking, and the garment industry — were engaged with vetera...

    By Roy Harris • April 15, 2008
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    Easing the Retention: Takeda Pays Merger Bonuses

    Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. is putting its money where its mouth is in its proposed $7.56 billion cash acquisition of Millennium Pharmaceuticals. When the Japanese drug company last week announced it would acquire Millennium, Takeda president Yasuchika Hasegawa said in a press release: “Millennium ...

    By Stephen Taub • April 15, 2008
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    Obama Pushes Say on Pay

    With compensation for corporate executives gaining status as a Presidential campaign issue, Sen. Barack Obama has come out with an endorsement of Say on Pay, the hot governance issue of the current proxy season that would allow shareholders to approve pay packages for the most senior executives.I...

    By Stephen Taub • April 11, 2008
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    Restating: The Career Killer

    In February Kevin Krakora, finance chief of Diebold, a maker of security systems and voting machines, found out he would receive no bonus, stock awards, or merit-based salary increase. The company had been forced to restate its results and revise its revenue-recognition policies after an investig...

    By Alan Rappeport • April 11, 2008
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    Breaking from the Bank

    Does a CFO’s office befit someone who drives a Buggati Veyron or Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren and smokes $400 cigars?More than 50,000 employees could be culled from Wall Street firms in 2008, as many as 7,000 from investment bank Bear Stearns alone. And it’s more than a little bit likely that some o...

    By • April 10, 2008