What Happens When Shareholders Socialize?

Let’s face it: CFOs and other executives can be a little old school when it comes to social media. Companies don’t always want to expose their inner workings on Twitter or Facebook, and for good reason — not the least of which is the risk of violating Regulation FD. But when it comes to corporate...

By Marielle Segarra • Sept. 1, 2011

One Way to Ease Audit Committee Pressures

Can you take the heat? The air in boardrooms has thickened in recent years, as outside pressures and demands have increased on directors, who in turn have passed their stress on to senior executives. For audit committees, that means CFOs often bear the brunt of increasingly tough questions and di...

By Sarah Johnson • Sept. 1, 2011

Explore the Trendline➔

Tax policy shifts: What CFOs need to know to stay ahead

Discover how evolving tax policies are creating new opportunities and challenges for CFOs.

By CFO.com staff

The Daughter Also Rises

Zhang Yin (also known by her Cantonese name, Cheung Yan) was the eldest of eight children of a lowly Red Army officer who was imprisoned during the Cultural Revolution for “capitalist offenses.” Today she is one of the world’s richest self-made women, with an estimated fortune of $1.6 billion. In...

By Economist Staff • Aug. 31, 2011

The Global Effect on Governance

In recent years, a plethora of laws, rules, and cases has made companies and their senior executives, especially CFOs, more accountable for the manner in which they manage their organizations. The spread of higher standards for corporate governance can be seen worldwide, from the passage of Dodd-...

By Theodore Roosevelt Malloch • Aug. 25, 2011

Clawback Policies Rise

Under the Dodd-Frank Act, all listed companies will eventually be required to institute a mechanism for recouping executive pay that had been granted under misstated earnings. But such clawback policies have already been on the rise among large companies (see chart below). Just over 84% of Fortun...

By Sarah Johnson • Aug. 15, 2011

Committed to Fraud Prevention

Do a Web search for corporate compliance committees, and you’ll get hundreds of thousands of results. As compliance issues move front and center thanks to the new U.K. Bribery Act and a renewed focus on the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), compliance committees have become a hot new topic. B...

By Tracy L. Coenen • Aug. 10, 2011

Say on Pay Makes for More Proxy Tinkering

Less than 2% of U.S. public companies were hit with negative say-on-pay votes this year, the first year in which proxies were required to let shareholders say whether they approved of the compensation packages for top executives. Still, a vast majority of companies are planning or considering cha...

By David McCann • Aug. 3, 2011

Five Rules for Hiring the Right CIO

If it has been four years since you hired your last CIO, you are probably ready to replace him (or her, if you are one of the 9% of companies that has a female CIO). The short tenure of CIOs is nothing new, and it’s no wonder: the IT function – and its value to the company – continues to be a mys...

By Martha Heller • Aug. 1, 2011

Is Your Company in Denial About FCPA Risk?

If your company conducts significant business overseas, you’ve likely heard a four-letter “F” word uttered in more than a few meetings. Assuming you work in a professional setting, I’m not thinking of the first “F” word that probably comes to mind. No, I mean the FCPA, short for the Foreign Corru...

By Russell G. Ryan • Aug. 1, 2011

The Schizophrenic CFO-CIO Relationship

A productive CIO-CFO relationship is critical to the successful exploitation of technology.  And, in general, CIOs find the relationship difficult and frustrating to navigate.One of the root causes of the frustration stems from the fact that when it comes to IT, CFOs serve multiple and often conf...

By Susan Cramm • Aug. 1, 2011

Compensation Confrontation

Down in the weeds of executive compensation, things can be pretty hard to fathom. Not just for ignorant folk, but for experts, too. “Even for people like me who are in it every day, it’s still hard to understand sometimes,” confesses Aaron Boyd, head of research for Equilar, a compensation-resear...

By David McCann • July 15, 2011

Creating a Culture of Compliance

Cell-phone markets in Central America and Southeast Asia were booming early in the decade, and Alcatel SA paid dearly to get in on the action, in more ways than one.The Paris telecommunications giant doled out $8 million in bribes to “consultants” (including a well-connected perfume distributor i...

By Kimberly Blanton • July 15, 2011

Who Owns Risk?

Nearly half of executives in a new study report their company has a chief risk officer (CRO), up from 33% two years ago. The elevated role in the C-suite has resulted in CFOs losing the top spot as the primary owners of risk management.The survey of nearly 400 executives, conducted by Accenture a...

By Sarah Johnson • June 29, 2011

SEC Puts Proxy Firms on Notice

The Securities and Exchange Commission plans to issue a proposal this fall that will address the role of proxy-advisory firms, SEC chairman Mary Schapiro said on Tuesday. “When we catch our breath from our Dodd-Frank responsibilities, I want to return to the issue of what we call proxy plumbing,”...

By Sarah Johnson • June 21, 2011

How to Manage Risk Management

Risk management is not just about managing financial risks, such as risks relating to currency movements or changes in the price of commodities. It’s not just about managing the risk of failing to comply with laws and regulations. It’s not just about the risk of errors in the financial statements...

By Norman Marks • June 15, 2011

Ghost of Enron Wreaks New Havoc on Exec Pay

It’s reasonable to expect that directors and senior management at many public companies will be considering changes to executive pay packages in the coming months. As of June 6, there were more than 30 public companies with failed “say-on-pay” votes and several others with significant levels of n...

By Andrew Liazos • June 13, 2011

Giving Shareholders More Say

After a decade of conceding on various shareholder demands (majority voting, annual director elections, expanded disclosures) and nearly one year after the Dodd-Frank Act gave investors a say on pay, companies are rethinking how they communicate with shareholders — and whether they should do it m...

By Sarah Johnson • June 1, 2011

At BP, the Cleanup Continues

Nearly one year after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded, killing 11 workers and releasing millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, BP is still cleaning up the mess on nearby beaches — as well as its reputation with investors.The latter activity was evident on Thursday at the compa...

By Sarah Johnson • April 14, 2011

Poison Pills Haven’t Lost Their Potency

Last week Family Dollar Stores joined the handful of companies this year that have implemented a shareholder rights plan — aka poison pill — to fend off a takeover. The retailer’s board rejected an unsolicited $7 billion bid by hedge fund Trian Group, saying the offer “substantially undervalues t...

By Sarah Johnson • March 10, 2011

Going Public by Accident

Facebook has long been associated with a blurring of the line between private and public. How many people, after all, have joined the social-networking site in order to tighten their ties to an inner circle of friends and family, only to find the details of their Bruce Springsteen obsession or pi...

By Russ Banham • March 1, 2011

In the Minority on Majority Voting

At Apple’s annual meeting next month, the company’s seven directors up for election — including CEO Steve Jobs, who recently took a medical leave of absence — will very likely keep their seats. Six of them have been on the board for at least three years and one board member, Ronald Sugar, former ...

By Sarah Johnson • Jan. 27, 2011

Boardroom Focus in 2011: Growth

Many CFOs can expect less stressful, more positive board meetings in 2011, with an emphasis on strategy and growth, say corporate-governance experts.Take the issue of cash. For the past few years, anxious directors have been asking finance chiefs how they intend to raise or preserve it. Now, with...

By Sarah Johnson • Jan. 13, 2011

Executive Comp: Say When

CFOs’ compensation packages will be exposed to shareholders’ scrutiny next year, thanks to the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which imposes mandatory advisory votes on publicly traded companies. But how often investors get their so-called say on pay will depend on anot...

By Sarah Johnson • Dec. 17, 2010

A Guide to Board Diversity

Although women and minorities have been seeking seats on corporate boards for many years, progress toward diversity in the boardroom continues to be glacial. More than half of public companies do not have a single minority director, while almost one out of three companies lacks a female director,...

By Kate O'Sullivan • Nov. 23, 2010

A Fix for “Proxy Plumbing”

Finance executives want shareholders to come out of hiding, if for no other reason than to lower the costs of communicating with them.Toward that end, for the past several months the Securities and Exchange Commission has been soliciting comments on so-called proxy plumbing, the processes that de...

By Alix Stuart • Nov. 1, 2010