Gen Z is Wearing ‘Pajamas’ to Work and No One Cares
We here at Going Concern have always worked remotely, cranking out our hard-hitting investigative journalism from the nearest coffee shop or cat hair-covered couch in our nicest T-shirts since 2009. When the pandemic hit in early 2020, Bramwell and I applied our expertise (for once) and wrote a remote work guide for those of you […]
Now That The Cloud Is Mainstream, Where Do Hipster Accountants Go From Here?
Five years ago, hipster accountants were all over the cloud. We were working on clients’ books from coffee shops and Xero was this sketchy startup from New Zealand that no one had heard of. There were meetups and secret forums filled with the cloud elitists and, almost everyone in the scene had beards (except me, […]
Crowe Horwath Two Steps Closer to Pure Anarchy
Not be outdone by their crosstown1 rivals, Crowe Horwath announced earlier this week that not only can their employees wear whatever they want, they can work wherever they want, too (subject to approval of course):
Here Are the Things the Accounting Profession Will Continue to Give Lip Service to in 2015
The accounting profession's "thought leaders" love to pay lip service to buzzwords and concepts that the rest of the world knew about before it was cool. While a new year is upon us, this tradition will continue on much like an incurable STD. In the interest of helping you know what you should tune out […]
Disturbing Trend: Chief Risk Officers Blowing Past CFOs On the Way to Meeting with the Boss
Time was, a CFO functioned as the main consiliere to the CEO. Finance issues? The CFO is on it. Accounting irregularities? Done. Taking the flak from analysts on the earnings calls? It’s not all glitz and glam, now is it? Nowadays, after some not so solid decisions were made in the recent past, another member of the C-suite has successfully curried favor with the boss. Someone who would ordinarily be fetching the CFO’s 3 pm pick-me-up. That is, the Chief Risk Officer:
Citigroup Inc. (C), American International Group Inc. (AIG) and UBS AG (UBSN) are among other companies raising the profile of risk executives. The derivatives meltdown that sparked the 2008 Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. collapse and an 18-month recession catapulted the role from obscurity to contention for future chief executive officers. “The person sitting in the risk chair now is reporting to the CEO so the caliber has to be higher,” said Neil Hindle, who runs the CRO search practice at Egon Zehnder International in New York. “There has been a real increase in power over the last two years.” That’s evident in the compensation, which can reach $10 million at large financial institutions now, compared with $500,000 as recently as 2001, Hindle said. Five years ago, a CRO typically reported no higher than the CFO, he said.
Granted, if you’re someone like Dave Viniar, you’ve got very little to worry about since you’re irreplaceable. But if you’re slightly lower on the intellectual scale, you best watch for that CRO buzzing right by you on the meeting that you weren’t invited to. Next thing you know, CFOs will be picking up their shirts and dry cleaning.
Chief Risk Officer Rises to $10 Million Job [Bloomberg]
Chinese Company CFO Resignation Du Jour: Qiao Xing Universal Resources Inc.
When is this officially a pattern? Or is it simply a trend? Qiao Xing CFO Jiang Aijun resigned today but have no fear investors! – the company has appointed a financial controller and is on the hunt for a new CFO.
Plus they’re planning to file their fiscal 2010 results a month ahead of schedule. The company’s stock was down 12% for the week prior to today’s announcement and unfortunately, all this fresh news doesn’t seem to have calmed anyone down. [Dow Jones, Earlier, Earlier]