Mark Gandy

We live in a business era where the fractional chief executive officer is becoming indispensable. Before considering hiring a fractional CMO or CFO, I’d always start with a Fractional Chief People Officer, such as Susannah Robinson. She has worked in big-company HR for more than twenty years and has written a simple and pragmatic guide on organizational design for small businesses. In this conversation, we discuss her new book, Beyond the Boxes and Lines.

When I read a book on Buffett, and there are many, I want to know if this book has been written before—the ones where the narratives state the same thing about Buffett’s investing style. In the case of Brett Gardner’s new book on Buffett, he checks all the boxes of a fascinating investment book. It’s informative, inspiring, and even entertaining. More importantly, the book Buffett’s Early Investments is not a rehash of Buffett material you’ve read before.

When I encountered the Cynefin Framework in an HBR article years ago, I did not adapt it to my work until I interviewed Bryce Hoffman, author of American Icon and Red Teaming. Bryce made the Cynefin Framework understandable and accessible. However, Kevin Eikenberry has gone a step further, showing leaders how to act when surrounded by varying problems they are trying to navigate with this sensemaking framework. He outlines these ideas in his newest book, Flexible Leadership.

One historian calls Ivar Kreuger The Match King. He was a financial genius and master of deception who built a global empire on innovation, speculation, and fraud. In the 1920s, he was one of the world’s most powerful financiers—until his empire collapsed in scandal. His story is a cautionary tale for business professionals, highlighting the dangers of unchecked ambition, financial engineering, and the illusion of stability. Understanding Kreuger’s rise and fall offers valuable ethics, risk, and leadership lessons.

I recently came across a book that’s been out for over 10 years by an exceptional and tenacious researcher and an engaging writer, Lodewijk Petram. His book, The World’s First Stock Exchange, might be the first to explore how early investors bought and traded shares of the Dutch East India Company (VOC). In this conversation with the author, we learn that complex trading techniques did not start in the modern era–far from it.

When I think of the CFO’s role, a few questions emerge: What will we invest in and reinvest in? How will we finance those investments? What about risk management? And what is the role of corporate governance in these activities? Not only does Don Chew answer those questions in his new book, The Making of Modern Corporate Finance, but he also avoids complex formulas, which keeps this book from being too obtuse and abstract.