CFO Bookshelf

Jonathan Stark needs no introduction in the value pricing world. Many years ago, Jonathan came to the realization that hourly billing was not a workable solution for him and his software development clients. He eventually ditched the billable hour in favor of value pricing.

Flash forward to the present, and he's recorded more than 500 episodes on his podcast, Ditching Hourly, and he's impacted well into the thousands of pe...

The subtitle of Ehsan Ehsani's new book Finding Value in Numbers is The Essential Investing Toolkit to Win on Wall Street.

If I may, I'm adding my subtitle too, which is Learn a Handful of Key Financial Concepts for Your Small and Growing Enterprise. Accordingly, this book is not just for Buffett-like value investors but for CEOs, finance directors, operating managers, and board members.

In this conversation we hit on some ...

They called him 'Chainsaw Al.' In 1996, Al Dunlap took over a struggling Sunbeam and did what he did best: he cut. He let go 6,000 employees and closed 18 factories. The stock price? It nearly quadrupled in less than two years. To Wall Street, he was a superstar. But the 'turnaround' was a house of cards. 

To meet impossible targets, Dunlap used 'cookie-jar' accounting and 'channel stuffing'—b...

Kyle Hegarty is a gifted, story-centric writer, as evidenced by his first book, The Accidental Business Nomad. Kyle's newest book describes the sales recession B2B sales teams are facing and offers remedies to overcome sales ineffectiveness rooted in an outdated playbook.

The book is Sales Punks, and in this easy-to-follow narrative, Kyle explains the difference between the seller's journey and the buyer's journey and...

He helped to navigate a violent and catastrophic economic crisis in Argentina. He helped shape the playbook for a Dominican Republic bank bailout, which nearly brought the country to its knees, and he was at the helm of this international bank during the financial crisis, which made money during that time period.

Howard Green's book, Gimme A Crisis, is a roadmap for becoming a CEO, understanding the differences between liquidit...

Over the past thirty years, Kevin Boehm has opened forty restaurants, been awarded the highest honor in his profession, and served everyone from Mick Jagger to President Obama. 

Kevin's new book is a memoir entitled The Bottomless Cup. During this conversation, we hear how Kevin endured a chaotic relationship with his surrogate father and what it was like to learn of his biological father when he was a college student. Despite ...

If you like the topics of organizational performance, personal and professional excellence, and thought-provoking mental models, then Superperformance by George Pesanky is worth reading.

In this conversation, we'll learn about The Golden Hour, Root Cause Success, the Thomas-Kilman Conflict Model, the Prison of Expectations, and the Kano Model.

The Executive Wins Podcast features inspiring Executives who...

I am a customer of Bull Market Gifts, and when I spend time on their website, I'm hooked and have a difficult time leaving.

Last year, I purchased some vintage annual reports, and I bought another before I interviewed the co-founder and owner of this niche retailer.

Their product offering also includes old stock certificates and a deep assortment of New York Stock Exchange memorabilia. 

During this conversation with Mike Oaklief,...

When I began studying the root causes of business failure early in my career, I believed that faulty cognitive limitations and weaknesses were the primary drivers of poor decisions, ultimately leading to business failure. 

Taras Wayner is the producer and host of a new podcast called A Case Study in Corporate Fear, where he addresses one of the central emotions in the affective mindset: fear.

During this conversation, we learned how ...

I'm calling Ken Iverson the Alan Mulally of CEOs in the 1980s and 1990s. "Plain Talk" by Ken Iverson is one of my favorite business books, despite its lack of self-congratulation and the absence of so-called transformational management concepts.

Instead, this is a book about how people were treated, the concept of decentralization, bonus structures, and using instincts to make business decisions.

Plain Talk will also u...

Can you name a work of fiction that centered around a stock picker? Alternatively, can you provide three fictional titles related to personal finance?

If both answers are no, this episode provides a brief synopsis of four works of fiction revolving around personal finance and investing.

One of the titles is new. Three have been written in the past twenty years, and one is a classic you might want on your bookshelf (the numbers do not...

Many in the magazine industry will tell you on the mountaintops that print is not dead. Try telling that to the writers who used to produce those beautiful glossy annual reports that are now published in the form of PDF documents.

Robert Roth is making his first-ever appearance on a podcast to discuss how an annual report writer secures gigs, the time commitment required, and other fascinating insights into the behind-the-scenes pro...

Every financial executive should either have the book Valuation or have it on their physical or digital copy in their antilibrary.

CFO Bookshelf is thrilled and honored to have the lead author of all eight editions of this foundational book on valuation, which is used in many financial curricula around the nation on college campuses.

In this conversation, we hit on ROIC, growth, economic profit, long-term thinking, and the best way t...

In CFO Bookshelf's 250th episode, we feature a book that embodies the heart and soul of what this show stands for. The book is Lead by Greatness by our guest, David Lapin.

During this conversation, David addresses eight vital leadership traits, defining a spiritual fingerprint and why it matters, the reason the Siberian prisoner perished and what it means for both leaders and staff, and the reason behind burnout and fatigue.

Dav...

Why has Taylor Swift trademarked her and her cats' names? And how does she protect the approximately three hundred trademarks she owns?

As Kary Oberbrunner tells us, we're just like Taylor in that we're all IP companies. In this engaging conversation about IP, we learn about Instant IPᴵᴾ, the role blockchain plays in IP, the reason good fences make good neighbors, and why you should consider an IP holding company.

The ...

We have read many stories about the magical growth of Starbucks. However, did you know that one of its first presidents had a background in furniture sales and did not hold a college degree?

Our guest is the author of It's Not About the Coffee, and Howard Behar saw store units grow from a small handful to more than 15,000 during his two stints as one of its presidents.

In this conversation, we'll learn why Mark's favor...

As my consulting practice started taking off about twenty years ago, I started reading everything I could by Fred Nickols, who blogged regularly for the software vendor, SmartDraw.

Fred's articles were short, to the point, and always included a simple visual framework that was easy to comprehend. I ultimately read every post on that blog.

Fred is a long-time consultant who calls himself a solutions engineer. In this conversation...

We live in a small business world where the Chief Fractional Officer is becoming indispensable.

Before even considering hiring the Fractional Sales Manager, the Fractional Marketing Officer, or even the Fractional CFO, I'd start one hundred percent of the time with the Fractional Chief People Officer.

Susannah Robinson has worked in big-company HR for more than twenty years. Now, as the head of a fractional people agency called ...