CFO Bookshelf

When you think of iconic and successful CEOs, names like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Howard Schultz, Jack Welch, and Sam Walton probably spring to mind.Can you name a 4-time CEO who orchestrated overwhelming turnarounds at each of his stopping points?Hunter Harrison did, and he's the subject of the book, Railroader: The Unfiltered Genius and Controversy of Four-Time CEO Hunter Harrison.Our guest is the author of this biography, Howard Green. We talk about the CEO's childhood, the relationship with his father, 3 keys to his emerging success as a railroader, and much more.

I'm a huge fan of the book, The Management Myth by Matthew Stewart.During our conversation, we talk about the business gurus, strategic planning, management consulting, philosophy, and what is a great manager.

Lora Cecere needs no introduction, but she's a global thought leader on supply chain.She is the founder of Supply Chain Thought Leader and also writes for Forbes. She also publishes content on her website Supply Chain Shaman as well as on LinkedIn.Lora is the author of Supply Chain Metrics that Matter which was published in 2015. She is followed by more than 320,000 on LinkedIn, and her organization's Supply Chains to Admire is must-reading each year.

There are only three books I recommend on the topic of performance measurement. By far, the best title is Transforming Performance Measurement by Dean Spitzer.While working for IBM, Dean realized that training was not the path to better and transformation performance. As he started learning the good and the bad of performance measurement, he learned what was needed for organizational transformation - something The Balanced Scorecard could never deliver.The Big IdeasTraining alone does not improve organizational performanceChanging the measurement system precedes organizational changeThe strongest quadrant in the balanced scorecardThe 4 Critical Success Factors of Transformational Performance MeasurementThe dark side of measurementThe 10-30-60 RuleThe Chief Measurement OfficerExploratory vs confirmatory measurementTransactional vs Experience measurementThe IPOO ModelProfit-Sharing Plans and Performance Measurement

Steve Cakebread's current CEO at Yext says he is the master of taking technology companies public. Steve published his first book in 2020 entitled The IPO Playbook, and we talk about what happens before, during, and after the IPO.

CFO Dive's, Jane Thier joins CFO Bookshelf to discuss the top business stories of 2020. While COVID and PPP dominated the headlines, other stories and themes developed as well such as automation, pivoting to digital, and working from home.

Tax CPA Jeff Shore gives us some last-minute tax insights for 2020 along with tax ramifications of a new administration in 2021. We also talk about PPP, timing expense deductions, tax credits, and expense classification. Don't worry - this is not boring at all. Jeff is quotable and easy to understand as he demystifies some complex tax topics.  

I'm a long-time reader of the great blog posts at Interworks.com. One of those writers is Dan Murray who is their Director of Strategic Innovation. I was so lucky in getting to meet Dan at a Quantrix conference a few years ago - that friendship has continued and led to this conversation about data extraction, ETL strategies, data infrastructure, and BI tools such as Tableau.

I recently heard an S&OP podcaster ask if S&OP is dead, and so I wanted to ask one of the pioneers in this planning space if S&OP was still revelvant.Our guest is Bob Stahl, an S&OP pioneer, speaker, writer, and consultant. You'll enjoy his first answer to my question.

I first learned about Doug Hall's insights on marketing and innovation when I read Jump Start Your Business Brain. His newest book is Driving Eureka. Doug is a pioneer in the field of innovation engineering and the founder of Eureka Ranch. He's our guest on this week's edition of CFO Bookshelf.