CFO Bookshelf Blog

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? I can, and his name is Hunter Harrison. He’s the subject of the book, Railroader: The Unfiltered Genius and Controversy of Four-Time CEO Hunter Harrison.

I owe a debt of gratitude to long-time pricing expert, author, speaker, and podcast host, Ron Baker. On the Soul of Enterprise podcast, Ron and his co-host Ed Kless mentioned Matthew Stewart and his book, The Management Myth. I immediately listened to it and then read it (and a few more times since). I require every consultant I coach and mentor to read it.

Lora Cecere needs no introduction in the supply chain world. That’s especially true when she has 320,000 followers on LinkedIn, and that list continues to grow. Lora is the founder of the research and analysis firm, Supply Chain Insights which publishes the annual Supply Chains to Admire annual report. We talk about Lora’s supply chain insights, and her book, Supply Chain Metrics That Matter.

There are only four books on performance measurement that I recommend to peers. My favorite is Transforming Performance Measurement by Dean Spitzer. Dean started his performance measurement journey while doing research at IBM. Like many innovators, he first found out what didn’t work. Ultimately, he discovered the four performance measurement success factors.

Steve Cakebread has taken three companies public as a CFO which include Salesforce, Pandora, and the current company he serves, Yext. Steve’s new book (2020) is The IPO Playbook, and you don’t need to be a public company CEO, CFO, or board member to enjoy it. By the way, I don’t think this is Steve’s last book.

If you are going to talk taxes with a CPA, make sure that person is business-centric, quotable, and easy to understand. And that person is Jeff Shore, a partner at BRS CPAs based in Springfield, Missouri. We discussed PPP, the new administration, tax credits, expense classification, capital gains, and basic tax planning and management throughout the year.

I’m a long-time reader of the blogs at Interworks.com. One of those writers is Dan Murray, their Director of Strategic Innovation. I was fortunate to meet Dan at a Quantrix conference. During this conversation we talk data extraction, ETL strategies, data infrastructure, and Tableau.