Former UBS Finance Chief Named co-CEO of Deutsche Bank

John Cryan, the former UBS chief financial officer who led the Swiss bank from the brink of collapse during the financial crisis, is now charged with leading the recovery of beleaguered Deutsche Bank.Germany’s largest bank on Sunday appointed Cyran, 54, as co-chief executive, effective July 1, fo...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • June 8, 2015

CFOs on the Move: Week Ending June 5

Matthew J. Audette Broker-dealer LPL Financial has named Matthew J. Audette, CFO of  E*TRADE Financial, as its finance chief. He fills the role previously held by current LPL president Dan Arnold and will join the firm effective Sept. 28.At E*TRADE Financial, meanwhile, current chief risk officer...

By David Katz • June 5, 2015

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

Most Firms Boosting Community Investment

U.S. companies are increasing their community investment, making it an “essential measure” of business performance, according to a new survey.The Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy reported that more than half (56%) of the CEOs it polled said their companies increased giving from 2012 t...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • June 3, 2015

OECD Cuts Growth Forecast On Q1 Slump

The world economy will expand 3.1% this year, lower than the earlier forecast of 3.7%, and lower than 2014’s growth of 3.3%, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said Wednesday said in its semi-annual report.OECD Chief Economist Catherine Mann told Bloomberg the group mainly ...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • June 3, 2015

Windows 10 Set for Release on July 29

Microsoft has set a July 29 release date for Windows 10, which includes features that may make this version of the operating software more appealing to business users than its predecessor.Rumors have been swirling around a July release date for Windows 10 since April. Microsoft released a “techni...

By Matthew Heller • June 1, 2015

April Data Show Modest Recovery From Q1 Slump

A flurry of economic reports released Monday on balance show an improving, though weak, economy in the beginning of the second quarter.Personal income increased $59.4 billion, or 0.4% in April, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. However, consumer spending was flat, falling $2.6 billion...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • June 1, 2015

Revised Data Show Q1 GDP Declined 0.7%

U.S. gross domestic product actually shrunk 0.7% in the first quarter, instead of rising 0.2% as the government initially estimated, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced Friday.“The GDP estimate released today is based on more complete source data than were available for the ‘advance’ estima...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • May 29, 2015

Consumer Prices Rise Slightly in April

The Consumer Price Index rose 0.1% in April on a seasonally adjusted basis, after increasing 0.2% in March, the U.S. Department of Labor said Friday.The all items index fell 0.2% for the 12 months ending April, a slightly larger downtick than the 0.1% decline for the 12 months ending March, accor...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • May 22, 2015

How to Make Money With the Internet of Things

There seems to be a consensus that the Internet of Things is going to change the world. We’ll be connecting up our homes, our cars, and all manner of personal and medical devices. It will change the nature of work and the nature of business.That’s what we’ve been hearing, and it’s certainly a wor...

By Scott Pezza • May 21, 2015

A CFO Does Her Part to Reinvent Health Care

One thing there’s no shortage of these days is efforts to reinvent the U.S. health-care sector. The search for a better way is teeming with innovation, from the Affordable Care Act to the rise of accountable care organizations to a host of potentially revolutionary ideas from individual companies...

By David McCann • May 20, 2015

Company’s Goal: Give Profits to Charity

Here’s an idea for running a company that could cause a CFO hearing about it to spill his or her coffee, or perhaps pass out cold: Don’t try to maximize profit, even over the long term. Don’t try to maximize shareholder return. In fact, whatever profit you don’t reinvest in the company, give most...

By David McCann • May 14, 2015

Beware of Leaky Apps

Intrigued by the fact that his more than 70-year-old mother had begun using WhatsApp, an up-to-the-minute, cross-platform instant messaging application, Vinny Sakore googled the app and found a wiki page that seems to have amused him a great deal.Speaking at a session on cybersecurity for mobile ...

By David Katz • May 6, 2015

Ambitious Growth Plan Takes Wing for Gogo

Gogo has set its sights sky-high — literally. The company, which went public two years ago, provides wireless Internet connectivity to 2,100 commercial airplanes and more than 6,600 business jets.Gogo also has set its sights sky-high figuratively. It currently serves about 20% of the world’s comm...

By David McCann • May 6, 2015

Data Analytics Grows Sears Appliance-Repair Unit

There hasn’t been a lot of good news about Sears Holdings in recent years, but a divisional finance chief for the owner of Sears and Kmart showed up at a CFO conference last month to present a success story about its use of data analytics.One thing the company still has going for it is bulk. It’s...

By David McCann • April 22, 2015

A Startup’s Finance Chief Is a Cat in the Hats

In just over a year as finance chief at PlaceIQ, Matt Novick has managed not only finance but also, for various lengths of time, sales, business development and marketing. “Especially at a startup, a CFO has to be ready to answer the call of the CEO and the company when needs dictate,” he says.Pl...

By David McCann • April 21, 2015

Forecasting the Future of the Internet of Things

Every now and again I get asked to do work to predict how some topic of interest will develop over the long term, usually at least ten years. I’ve been doing this for a long time – and I’ve learned that the best you can generally do is to get general directions and macro effects approximately rig...

By John Parkinson • April 8, 2015

From Quarterly Pressure Cooker to Ultimate Long-Horizon View

Like many executives at large public companies, Carmelle Giblin traded down to a smaller one in order to get her first CFO job. But the cultural shift had to do with a lot more than scale.Giblin spent 21 years at Illinois Tool Works (ITW), currently a $14 billion company, where she was a division...

By David McCann • April 2, 2015

Dip in Jobless Claims: Rare Economic Bright Spot

There were fewer-than-expected jobless claims last week, a bright spot amid other reports indicating a slowing economy.In the week ending March 21, there were 282,000 seasonally-adjusted initial claims , a decrease of 9,000 from the previous week, the Labor Dept. said Thursday. Economists on aver...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • March 26, 2015

CFOs on the Move: Week Ending March 13

Eric Aboaf has been named finance chief at Citizens Financial Group, effective April 6. He takes over for John Fawcett, who is retiring at the end of April. Aboaf joins the firm from Citigroup, were he was global treasurer and before that, CFO of its Institutional Client and North American Consum...

By Joan Urdang • March 13, 2015

The Problems of Prosperity

U.S. finance executives have started out the year building confidence in a continued economic recovery, according to the most recent Duke University/CFO Magazine Global Business Outlook survey. The first-quarter survey tabulated the views of 547 senior finance and corporate executives from U.S. c...

By David W. Owens • March 11, 2015

Fewer Companies Able to Detect a Cyber Breach

These days, it seems, one of the most important jobs of an IT staff would be to detect a cyber attack.Actually, though, companies are increasingly reliant on third-parties to notify them that their security has been compromised, according to a new report from FireEye’s Mandiant unit.Companies are...

By Matthew Heller • Feb. 25, 2015

YRC Keeps on Truckin’

This is an introduction to a series of six articles about the volatile financial misfortunes and turnaround of trucking company YRC Worldwide. See parts one, two, three, four, five and six.In the fall of 2013 I started thinking about doing an in-depth look at a big-company finance department from...

By David McCann • Feb. 10, 2015

Lead Workers, Not Just Employees

Have you heard phrases like “non-employment work arrangements,” “freelance talent platforms” and “labor market intermediaries”? They reflect an emerging trend in which work and workers exist “beyond employment.”John Boudreau Many leaders have hardly noticed the rising frequency with which these t...

By John Boudreau • Jan. 26, 2015

Global Cellular Network Ripe for Hacking

The global “hand-shaking” network that allows cellular carriers to route calls, texts and other services to each other is vulnerable to hackers, spies and criminals, putting the privacy of billions of cell phone users at risk, German researchers have found.The Washington Post said the flaws disco...

By Matthew Heller • Dec. 19, 2014

End-of-Year Economic Outlook: The U.S. Leads the Way

End-of-year results from the quarterly Duke University/CFO Global Business Outlook survey leave us with a muddled outlook for the global economy. The confidence of U.S. finance executives in both the domestic economy and their own companies remained relatively strong. U.S. confidence levels were ...

By David W. Owens • Dec. 10, 2014