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The announced transition from Tim Cook to John Ternas was rightly hailed as a model of orderly succession. But it should also be recognized as the result of years of behind-the-scenes organizational work. This trend is a lagging indicator. Results are determined the previous year. This distinction is important because most boards approach succession reactively, addressing issues only as they arise. Apple's transition was not founded in April of this year. The foundations have been laid over many years. Disney, Starbucks, and General Electric didn't fail at the announcement stage. In fact, they failed in the previous years. By the…

The company our father built was on the verge of bankruptcy. In 2011, one of us was rushed to the hospital emergency room convinced we were having a heart attack. It turned out to be a panic attack that occurs when a father thinks he has lost what he dedicated his life to. JC Tropicals, the Miami-based tropical produce sales company that our father, Jorge, founded in 1965 after coming to the United States as an exile from Cuba with almost nothing, was six months away from closing. We overextended the company we inherited, farming in Florida and Costa Rica,…

Cybersecurity is clearly a company-wide concern, but few areas are more critical and vulnerable to attack than finance. Michael Annessa, CFO of GuidePoint Security in Reston, Virginia, addresses that concern for both his organization and his clients. He spoke to CFO Leadership about how the scope and landscape of cybersecurity is becoming more complex, especially for small and medium-sized businesses, why finance executives should pay particular attention to this issue, and how to prepare the workforce for today's challenges. How has the demand for cybersecurity consulting changed across the midmarket and small business segments? Mid-market companies are seeing the steepest…

I've seen leadership changes strengthen an organization's identity and then quietly erode it. Differences are rarely due to strategy alone. Ultimately, it comes down to whether incoming leaders understand that culture is not automatically inherited. You have to deal with it with intention. In one case I closely observed, a mid-sized healthcare services company experienced a CEO change following the departure of its founder. The founders had established a reputation for courteous patient care and therapeutic expertise. The new CEO had a solid business background and came from a larger system. The board wanted to improve profitability and efficiency. This…

I've seen leadership changes strengthen an organization's identity and then quietly erode it. Differences are rarely due to strategy alone. Ultimately, it comes down to whether incoming leaders understand that culture is not automatically inherited. You have to deal with it with intention. In one case I closely observed, a mid-sized healthcare services company experienced a CEO change following the departure of its founder. The founders had established a reputation for courteous patient care and therapeutic expertise. The new CEO had a solid business background and came from a larger system. The board wanted to improve profitability and efficiency. This…

Private credit was promised to fill the void left by banks' withdrawal from lending to small and medium-sized enterprises. Its growth has been dramatic, with the market expanding from $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion, and private credit management companies raising nearly $1.3 trillion over the past decade. In 2023 alone, these managers raised $135.7 billion. This is more than double the annual total from a decade ago. The need was real as we found that mid-sized companies with less-than-perfect financial conditions were closing their banks. Banks accounted for just 29% of corporate loans, down from 48% in 2015. For medium-sized…

If cash only appears at board meetings once a quarter, it's already too late. As the founder and CEO of Managed Services Group, a security provider specializing in regulated midmarket businesses, I've spent years building a discipline I call “Liquidity as Strategy,” leveraging not only the finance function but also compliance frameworks. Why I aim for 9-12 months of runway. I think about cash the same way I think about cybersecurity. It's insurance and leverage. Yes, there is an opportunity cost to holding more cash, but so is being forced to raise capital, reduce pricing discipline, and delay decision-making when…

For Charly Kevers, each step in his career journey has been building to his current role as CFO of Carta. After working for a number of large, public companies like Tesla, Salesforce and HP, Kevers was ready to take the reins in a leadership role. So when he was introduced to the founder of Carta almost 10 years ago—a small, privately-held software company that helps startups and investors manage company ownership, employee stock options, fundraising and equity records—he took a leap of faith. “Every stage of the company was different and the needs were different,” says Kevers. “That’s frankly what’s…

Twenty years ago this August, Jack McCullough was looking for community. Then CFO of a tech startup in Boston, McCullough wanted a place where he could bounce ideas off other finance chiefs, find solutions to problems, get inspired. Fast forward to today and he—and the entire team behind CFO Leadership Council—is about to celebrate two decades of creating just that kind of organization. Started as an almost impromptu get together of a handful of CFOs on the MIT campus, CFOLC now has 3,000-plus members across 35 chapters, hosts close to 400 events a year, has a robust email community dubbed…

Christy Tortin, CFO of Net Health, a Pittsburgh-based provider of software solutions for healthcare providers, says finance departments can no longer afford to function in isolation from the rest of the organization and focus primarily on tracking performance. Today's CFOs must be equally concerned with “shaping the future, anticipating risk, guiding decision-making, and driving strategic outcomes in line with the broader organization.” Tortin shares what it means for her and her team in medical technology, why we always need to “judge the bottom early,” and why certainty is overrated. How are you fostering stronger partnerships between your finance, clinical, and…