Insights / Topic
40 essays on this topic.
On 31 December 1999, Citigroup stood as the colossus, while JPMorgan trailed as the also-ran. $10,000 invested in each, with dividends reinvested, has grown to $131,000 and $5,300 today. The gap comes from arithmetic and from decisions taken in the good years…
'Culture eats strategy for breakfast' gets quoted but rarely designed for. Culture isn't the enemy of a good plan — it's the container the plan has to live in, and when the two don't fit, the container wins every time.
Most CFOs are trained to make the balance sheet efficient. Buffett spent his career arguing the opposite — that its first job is to be unkillable, and that the reward for building it that way is the freedom to act when no one else can…
For forty years Warren Buffett has been making the same quiet argument about the CFO function. Most CFOs still haven't fully internalised it — and the cost of not internalising it compounds…
The next great finance hire may not look like a traditional finance hire at all. Finance is shifting from a processing engine to a decision engine, and the talent stack has to follow…
I've been thinking about this a lot lately, and I've come to believe there are really only two types of financial leadership — and the difference between them isn't talent or in…
A 10-part series — 8 parts on this topic
Over the last 25 years in finance - more recently as CFO - one thing has become clear to me:
Example: A CFO saying, “I believe our company should diversify into crypto trading.” That’s a view.
Being a CFO in fintech sounds cool—until it’s 2:47am and you're wide awake, wondering if your fraud controls holds, your Series C runway will stretch, or your compliance stack i…
Ill thought tariffs, and unthought taxes are squeezing margins. Populist political agendas are resulting in unwanted (and shall I say unnecessary) challenges to the fragile busi…
As we approach the close of 2024, I find myself revisiting the series of articles I’ve shared here on LinkedIn over the past twelve months. When I began posting about a year ago…
I often find myself reflecting on how companies, teams, and even individuals measure success. In my opinion there are three distinct approaches : output focus, outcome focus, an…
Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are often seen as a fast track to growth, innovation, and market expansion. With what is possibly the beginning of interest rate cuts on both side…
Trust is the foundation of any meaningful relationship, whether personal or professional. In the workplace, it is the glue that binds teams together, fosters collaboration, and…
In November 23, I had posted a personal viewpoint on strategy, culture, and execution, in the context of a company. I took the stance that execution is the key differentiator. I…
This piece is a bit off-the-track as far as my usual writing goes - its neither finance, nor AI, nor anything that that needs any specialist knowledge. Yet, it is relevant to ev…
In November 2023, I had written a post explaining why storytelling is a CFO’s secret superpower. Having seen firsthand how compelling narratives can transform dry numbers into i…
In a society that reveres stories of heroism and dramatic success, the image of a decisive, action-oriented leader dominates our collective imagination. This leader, lets call h…
Self-confidence and self-doubt play pivotal roles in business and personal growth. While the former is often viewed as a hallmark of success and leadership, the latter is typica…
In a world where change is the only constant, the art of building great teams requires more than just matching skills to roles. It demands a deeper understanding of the innate q…
Today, I'm writing about a topic that marries the ancient wisdom of collective decision-making with the cutting-edge challenges faced by modern CFOs. Inspired by the recent re-r…
In the heart of Vietnam War history lies a powerful lesson on resilience and faith, known today as the Stockdale Paradox. This concept was named after Admiral James Stockdale, w…
This week , I am departing from writing about something topical, but rather expressing a \strong\ point of view on why Treasurers should be considered as top candidates for CFO…
Generally, finance is a world of numbers, graphs, and cold, hard data. Nevertheless, behind the world of spreadsheets and financial models, there is a very human sea of emotions…
In continuation of my recent post on the Future of GPT, I have been thinking about the role of leadership in the swiftly evolving landscape of General Artificial Intelligence (G…
Generative Pretrained Transformers (GPT) are a breakthrough, in the field of intelligence. They have completely revolutionized our understanding of what machines can do with the…
In this age of information, the significance and usefulness of traditional financial statements, for assessing a company’s wellbeing have become a topic of intense debate. As a…
As a CFO, my perspective on business strategy has always been grounded in the principle of focus. In a competitive marketplace, companies often face the temptation to diversify…
In the world of finance, numbers reign supreme. But what happens when the CFO decides to take a page out of a storyteller's book? Magic. Here are ten compelling reasons why the…
In the grand symphony of corporate management, the perennial debate between strategy and culture often takes center stage. As CFOs, while we may be inclined to lean towards stra…
It’s more than a year since I posted on LinkedIn about the 10 commandments for the newbie CFO. It got over 4,000 impressions (number of times the post was displayed on a screen)…
1. Thou shalt help the Board in setting (& execution of) of corporate strategy.