CFO Bookshelf

Of the many books that leadership authors have written about how to lead others and one's self, Mark believes Eric Alexander's book may be the first to pair stewardship and leadership together. His new book is entitled Stewardship Leadership for Stinkin' Accountants: Serving as the CFO. Eric was a longtime CFO for Happy State Bank, and after his tenure, he veered into packaging the many concepts he learned into workshops, coaching, and mentoring those in financial leadership positions and bey...

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 undergo a revival period, as the Audible version was released this month. In...

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 process of conceptualizing and creating annual reports. Robert i...

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. David also recommends that we read more fiction and novels, sharing ...

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 favorite line is, "If you grow people, the people grow the business. That’s it. ...

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 Partnership for Talent, she has written a simple and pragmatic gu...