Episodit
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Former Univar CFO and veteran of the chemical industry, Carl Lukach, discusses CFO strategy and financial leadership best practices. Carl emphasizes the importance of a “playbook to win”—a structured approach to strategy inspired by Roger Martin's Playing to Win. He also covers the CFO’s role in competitive strategy, highlights the importance of building a high-performance team, and advocates for collaboration and breaking down silos within finance functions. Carl is currently an advisory director at CVC Capital Partners, a senior advisor at TorQuest Partners, and a board member at Xypex Chemical Corporation. He was formerly CFO of Univar solutions and a 30-year veteran of Dupont in various finance and commercial leadership roles. In 2019 he was FEI Chicago’s public company CFO of the year.
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Brian Tomlinson of EY argues that sustainability is a long-run driver of shareholder value. Brian and our host, Greg Milano, explore how boards and managements can measure, reward, and communicate their sustainable business practices. While noting that contemporary ESG metrics can pose certain challenges, the discussion underscores the growing importance of these financial disclosures in attracting committed long-term shareholders. Brian also covers global ESG reporting developments, including the EU’s Green Deal and strict regulatory standards—and contrasts this unified approach with the U.S.’s fragmented regulatory landscape. Brian is Managing Director of ESG at EY and was formerly Director of Research for Chief Executive for Corporate Purpose’s CEO Investor Forum.
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Ken Fisher, CFO of Champion X, discusses his extensive career in finance and leadership roles across industries, including his time at Noble Energy, Shell, and GE. Ken shares lessons on strategy development, execution, and working capital management that are vital for new and aspiring CFOs. His insights highlight the value of diverse experiences, such as handling growth and restructuring in various sectors like industrials and energy. He emphasizes the importance of focusing on both the income statement and balance sheet to improve cash flow and business efficiency. The episode also touches on Ken's experiences in M&A, investor relations, and the challenges facing a public company CFO.
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Professor Shiva Rajgopal addresses common shortcomings in financial reporting frameworks, highlighting a lack of transparency on key metrics, costs, and disclosures, which can frustrate investors. Rajgopal suggests companies should take their reporting a step further and improve how they communicate their value drivers, competitive advantages, and segment performance to attract sophisticated, long-term shareholders. He also calls for reforms by regulatory bodies and greater accountability from boards and management to yield better insights into how companies leverage tangible and intangible assets to create value. Shiva is Professor of Accounting and Auditing at Columbia Business School and is an expert in financial reporting, executive compensation and corporate culture. His research is frequently cited in many publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Fortune, Forbes, Financial Times, Business Week, and the Economist.
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Michael Levin, experienced investor, consultant, and creator of The Activist Investor website and newsletter, explains how activists determine targets, honing in on governance issues, capital allocation, and executive compensation. Michael also covers how activists advance their agenda to unlock more value.
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Fortuna’s Greg Milano talks capital and resource allocation best practices and highlights pitfalls, such as overinvesting in underperforming businesses and relying on misleading metrics. An objective, value-oriented approach is an underappreciated source of competitive advantage for corporate teams—and a proven driver of sustained returns for shareholders.
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Bennett Stewart, the “father of EVA” was co-founder of Stern Stewart and a leader in the shareholder value movement. He explains how EVA revolutionized performance measurement corporate governance and empowered better value management. He discusses the measure’s application in major companies like Coca-Cola and General Motors and how it helped them drive a focus on true value creation.
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Donald Chew, author and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, discusses the life and legacy of the late Professor Michael Jensen, a pioneering figure in financial economics. We explore Jensen's work on agency costs, corporate governance, and executive compensation, as well as his later focus on corporate culture. The conversation highlights Jensen's profound impact on how US corporations and capitalism create value today.
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Steve O’Byrne is among the most knowledgeable experts on executive pay practices, hands down. He shares his insights on the evolution of performance measurement and executive pay, from the fixed profit-sharing models of the 1920s to today’s market-based compensation packages. We explore the use of option grants, EVA, private-equity models, and even Steve’s most recent innovation, Employee Value Added. Steve is president of Shareholder Value Advisors with over 30 years’ consulting experience in compensation, performance measurement, and valuation.
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Our discussion with Dr. Anastassia Lauterbach explores the transformative power of AI, discussing its potential across industries, the impact of the European AI Act on innovation, and its implications for corporate executives and boards. She said, “Around 2012-2013, digital assets made up about 12-14% of the valuation of large businesses. After COVID, that number jumped to 90%... What does it mean for the competitiveness of your company?” For those interested in creating more value at their companies, Dr. Lauterbach is someone to listen to.
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Value management means applying objective valuation principles to strategy, resource allocation, and performance measurement processes to deliver sustained returns for shareholders and other stakeholders. In this episode, Fortuna Advisors' CEO Greg Milano discusses the very innovative approach Fortuna Advisors takes to value-based management, focusing on the key tenets of creating an “ownership culture” within companies.
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Dr. Mark Frigo, professor and founding director of the Center for Strategy Execution and Valuation at DePaul University, discusses the importance of long-term value creation and the application of strategic life-cycle analysis, which characterizes businesses into one of four categories: high innovation, competitive fade, mature and failing. He highlights his collaboration with CFOs and executive teams to integrate strategy with performance measures, ensuring sustainable value creation. Dr. Frigo also covers brand valuation, the challenges of aligning finance and marketing, and the need for strategic leadership at the CFO level.
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Kimberly Casiano, board member of Ford Motor Company, Mutual of America Financial Group, and the Federal Home Loan Bank of Atlanta, shares her story, from her early life in the South Bronx to becoming the first Latina on a top-five Fortune 100 board. Kimberly emphasizes the value of continuous learning, the power of honesty, the importance of nurturing genuine relationships, and the distinction between resume virtues and eulogy virtues.
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Ramesh Karnani explains the importance of approaching strategy from a shareholder value perspective and considers some of the problems that can result when strategy is not supported by insightful financial analysis. He also explains how return on investment derives from a combination of industry economics and competitive position. Ramesh’s insights draw from his decades of experience helping build the strategy consulting firm Marakon, as the leader of a strategic finance group in Credit Suisse’s investment banking unit, and as a Managing Director and Partner at the Boston Consulting Group. -
World-renowned Professor Anup Srivastava discusses the challenges of valuing, investing in, and developing intangible assets in today's corporate world. From the valuation of tech giants like Google and Facebook to the critical need for updated accounting frameworks, Professor Srivastava explains how “soft assets” like knowledge, algorithms, technology, and brand equity influence strategy, drive financial performance, and require rethinking traditional corporate governance practices.
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Fortuna Advisors CEO Greg Milano discusses flaws in corporate incentive plans that encourage bad behaviors, from financial manipulation to more subtle agency costs that impact companies’ long-term performance. As the late Michael Jensen said, “It's not how much you pay that matters. It's how you pay." The conversation hones in on the use of Relative Total Shareholder Return (TSR), a measure whose volatility leads to poor linkage to actual performance and undermines executives’ confidence in their long-term incentive plans (LTIPs). Want more insights from Executive Rewards experts at WorldatWork’s Total Rewards conferences? Purchase the Total Rewards’24 On-Demand Highlights package available through Sept 30, 2024 here, or lock-in your savings today and register to join WorldatWork in Orlando for Total Rewards ’25!
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Sean Pelkey, CFO of CSX Corporation, discusses the railroad company’s stunning transformation in the face of stark headwinds and a devastating loss of business as the coal industry collapsed in the early 2010s. Starting in 2017, CSX effectively tripled its share price over five years. Now, the company is shifting from efficiency to a profitable growth mindset. In Q1 2024, their share price hit an all-time high, reflecting this strategy's early success. Behind this cultural shift towards growth was a renewed focus on differentiated service offerings and a shared goal of value creation. Sean and Greg’s discussion highlights leading through change, balancing competing metrics, and strategic capital allocation, while showcasing how determined leadership can thrive, even in tough circumstances.
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Jeff Greene explains why capital allocation is so important, what companies typically do wrong, and his view on the main tenets of good capital allocation. As Jeff says, “Clearly, allocating capital is one of the CEO’s and CFO's most important jobs,” and, “Very few companies do all aspects of capital allocation well.” Jeff joined Fortuna in 2020, after 26 years as a partner in the Strategy & Transactions practice at EY (Ernst & Young), and he also spent eight years at investment bank Houlihan Lokey.
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Steve Chopp, currently CFO and EVP of Strategy for Lief Labs, describes his experiences implementing value-based management at smaller private companies. These companies tend to be less complex and the implementation process can be easier and faster, but it is still change management so there needs to be communication, training, etc., to help people see what is changing, how it affects them, and what they need to do differently. And since smaller companies tend to have tighter budgets for such things, they need to be resourceful, using, for example, train-the-trainer approaches.
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Ryan Barker explains how critical brand love is in driving total shareholder return. He is the CEO and founder of BERA Brand Management and has been revolutionizing the measurement of true brand differentiation using predictive AI technology. He talks about the shortcomings of media mix models, the use of brand metrics as an executive KPI, and the ways in which companies can improve how they manage by using brand love to develop plans, allocate resources, and drive more short- and long-term profitable growth. Our host, Greg Milano, also describes Fortuna Advisors' research showing how BERA brand metrics relate well to valuation multiples.
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