7 Ways CFOs Can Create Value With ERM

More than ever, CEOs, boards, and cross-functional partners are looking for their CFO to bring structure to the decision-making process. While they need support in clarifying and executing their business strategies, there is also a desire for greater assurance over the viability of these strategi...

By Steve McNally • Sept. 6, 2022

Bed Bath & Beyond CFO Gustavo Arnal’s Death Follows Stock Fraud Allegations

Gustavo Arnal, CFO of Bed Bath & Beyond (BBB), reportedly jumped to his death on Friday, September 2, from a New York City skyscraper where he lived. Arnal, a veteran finance executive who held the role of CFO at BBB since May 2020, was among a number of defendants recently named in a class-a...

By Andy Burt • Sept. 5, 2022

3 Ways Finance Is Armoring Up for a Future of Disruption

The office of finance has navigated organizations through one of the most disruptive periods in living memory. Unfortunately for the finance teams directing the front lines of business, there’s no time to take a breather. Teams that fail to facilitate responsiveness in strategic and operational d...

By Alessio Lolli • Aug. 15, 2022

4 Ways SMBs Can Recession-Proof Their Businesses

Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are known as the backbone of the U.S. economy and play a major role in most economies, with tremendous contributions to job creation. They represent about 90% of businesses, and more than 50% of employment worldwide.Although some continue to thrive, many S...

By Michael Levine • Aug. 4, 2022

Is Your Internal Control Environment Up to Date?

Amid the upheaval of recent workforce shifts such as the Great Resignation and remote work, it's likely your financial processes have been disrupted more than you realize. As a result of constantly adapting over the past two and a half years, many companies find themselves vulnerable to weaknesse...

By Mary Wisenski • June 28, 2022

3 Rising Risks CFOs Must Navigate in Second Half of 2022

The COVID-19 pandemic revealed some systemic weaknesses in the global supply chain, changes in customer and investor preferences, an increase in remote working models, and the need to reconfigure third-party risk service models. In short, the pandemic has transformed the meaning of risk for execu...

By Simone Grimes • June 9, 2022

How Litigation Funding Can Protect a Small Company’s Cash Flow

For companies of all sizes and in all jurisdictions, a common emphasis is on reducing risk exposure and costs while still looking for opportunities to maximize revenues, market share, and advance business objectives. When the prospect of litigation arises, companies can struggle with issues such ...

By Grant Farrar • April 19, 2022

A CFO’s Guide to Carbon Offsets

In March, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) released a proposal to mandate companies disclose climate-related risks that could impact their businesses. The proposal is open for a 60-day comment period and will almost certainly face legal scrutiny after. Should it be codified, organizat...

By Suzy Taherian • April 13, 2022

Cryptocurrency Case May Lead to Disclosure of Investment Risks

For CFOs considering adding digital assets to their cash management strategy, there hasn’t been much guidance from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. As a result, answers to such questions as “What are the risks?” and even “Are digital assets subject to SEC regulation?” are unclear.But ...

By Matthew Heller • April 7, 2022

What the Ukraine Crisis Means for CFOs

Why should American financial officers care about the business impact of the Ukraine conflict? After all, Russia and Ukraine combined account for under 2% of global GDP, and relatively few U.S. companies have direct supply or partnership links with them.  Lou LongoBut this terrible war has huge i...

By Lou Longo • March 29, 2022

Managing Legal Risks Without a General Counsel

In a 2016 article for the Harvard Business Review, former General Electric general counsel Ben W. Heineman, Jr., wrote, “The CFO-GC alliance has always been important because the finance function and the legal function are truly the nervous system of the corporation — sending critical signals to ...

By Andy Brownstein • March 22, 2022

Supply Chain Turmoil: Applying the Lessons

Will all suppliers learn from the disarray and turmoil of the COVID-19 pandemic? Unfortunately, no, according to Kevin Linderman, chair of the supply chain and information systems department at Penn State University. After such an event, firms can engage in “antilearning” behavior, wrote Linderma...

By Vincent Ryan • March 15, 2022

Weekly Stat: Will PPI Continue to Predict Rise in Overall Inflation?

On fourth-quarter earnings calls, anecdotal evidence clearly showed the prices of many goods and services produced by U.S. businesses were outpacing consumer inflation.For example, packaged food company Conagra Brands endured quarterly gross inflation in the double digits. In early January, CFO D...

By Vincent Ryan • Feb. 22, 2022

The DOJ Targets Fraud: 5 Things to Know

The costs to build and run a company compliance program can run into the millions or tens of millions of dollars. But the cost of non-compliance — in the form of fines, loss of customer trust, lost productivity, and operational expenses related to remediation — can be double or triple that.On Oct...

By Russ Banham • Feb. 18, 2022

Is Your Organization Too Risk-Averse?

Risk is a huge factor in business success. Taking a risk, that is, especially in the form of investments in innovation.Victoria Mendoza, CEO of Media Peanut and a former CFO, said that companies too averse to risk have a “bad strategy.” The pandemic may have added to the problem. It has made some...

By Karen Epper Hoffman • Feb. 9, 2022

Large Deals Meet Resistance

More than 37% of significant U.S. merger investigations resulted in an antitrust complaint or an abandoned transaction in the Biden administration's first year. That’s the highest observed since the Dechert law firm began tracking enforcement activity in 2011. “These outcomes indicate that the vo...

By Matt Heller • Feb. 7, 2022

Do You Spend Enough Time Assessing Strategic Risks?

Strategic risks, such as the potential for a major supply chain disruption, a failed venture, or a massive cyberattack, can be difficult to assess. But companies have found effective ways of drilling into these risks and developing quick-response action plans. This month, we look at the averag...

By Perry D. Wiggins • Jan. 26, 2022

2022 Regulatory Outlook: A Year of Big Developments?

The first year of the Biden administration featured ample discussion on proposed shifts in U.S. regulation. But given the usual changeover in regulatory heads, it was just that: discussion.2022 could be much more interesting. Several hot-button areas of interest to chief financial officers — invo...

By Matt Heller • Jan. 25, 2022

Supreme Court Rejects Workplace Vaccine Mandate

The U.S. Supreme Court delivered a major blow to the Biden administration’s anti-COVID 19 efforts on Thursday, striking down its vaccine-or-test mandate for large businesses.The court’s six conservative justices said the mandate exceeded the authority of the Occupational Safety and Health Adminis...

By Matthew Heller • Jan. 18, 2022

Three Charged in $4.7M Insider Trading Case

This story has been corrected to clarify the relationship of David Shottenstein to board members of DSW.The founder of designer sunglasses company Prive Revaux has been charged with using inside information to trade in advance of market-moving announcements involving companies with which his fami...

By Matthew Heller • Jan. 7, 2022

COVID-19 Costs Insurance Sector $44 Billion

The COVID-19 pandemic has been the third most catastrophic event in history for the insurance industry though policy exclusions may have helped to keep the damage well below initial projections.According to broker Howden, the pandemic has so far cost insurers and reinsurers around $44 billion, be...

By Matthew Heller • Jan. 5, 2022

Taxicab Lender Manipulated Its Valuation and Touted Stock Illegally: SEC

This story was updated at 11:34 a.m. Eastern to include a statement from the company.When ride-sharing companies like Uber and Lyft decimated the taxi markets in major cities, the business of lending to taxicab owners and operators fell through the floor. Medallion Financial, whose core business ...

By Vincent Ryan • Jan. 5, 2022

SEC Allows Apple Shareholder Vote on NDAs

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has cleared the way for Apple shareholders to vote on a proposal requiring its board to review its use of non-disclosure agreements and other concealment clauses.In the proposal, activist investor Nia Impact Capital said Apple’s concealment clauses do n...

By Matthew Heller • Dec. 23, 2021

Thieves Nab $100M in Pandemic Relief Funds

Fraudsters have stolen nearly $100 million from pandemic relief programs for businesses and the unemployed, according to the Secret Service.The amount of stolen funds represents roughly 3% of the $3.4 trillion dispersed under the Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program, the Ec...

By Matthew Heller • Dec. 22, 2021

SEC Issues Risk Disclosure Guidance for Chinese Issuers

In another move to step up its oversight of China-based companies, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has issued new guidance on how they should disclose legal and operational risks to investors.The guidance issued on Monday in a sample comment letter covers both Chinese companies that s...

By Matthew Heller • Dec. 22, 2021