CFO Bookshelf

Greg Graves is the former CEO of the employee-owned engineering firm, Burns & McDonnell. In this show, he talks about going 'all in' regarding ESOPs and his book Create Amazing.

Brad Chase was the marketing mastermind behind one of the most successful software launches ever - Windows 95. He replicated this success while serving at Microsoft on several other high-profile projects.Brad is the author of Strategy First: How Businesses Win Big. In this episode, we discuss the big ideas in his book including the E-Strategy and simple formula that's simple, impactful, and memorable.

Jack McCullough is the CFO of all CFOs. He's the founder and President of The CFO Leadership Council with a membership of more than 1,800 financial leaders. Jack is the author of Rock Star CFOs which lists 9 traits of a great CFO, our topic in this fascinating and insightful interview.

Everybody Ought to Be Rich by David Farber is now one of my favorite books in the business history genre. It's the story of one of the greatest number 2 men of the modern business era, John Jakob Raskob - a name that every financial leader should know about.

If I'm going to listen to a data science and analytics expert for nearly an hour, that person better speak a language that I can understand and who is relatable.That person does exist, and his name is Jon Daniels of Bamboo HR. In this episode, he talks about data lakes, data warehousing, ETL, and data governance.He also provides simple strategies to go from no intelligence to business and artificial intelligence.

While this is CFO Bookshelf where we generally interview book authors, there's no way I want to read a book on ERP planning and implementations.I believe this is a better topic addresses through doing and listening to the sage advice of others. One such person is Ed Kless who is an expert in software implementations. He's also the co-host of my favorite podcast, The Soul of Enterprise. You can also hear him several times a week hosting the Sage Thought Leader Podcast.In this show, we'll hear Ed talk about what happens before, during, and after ERP implementations.

As a financial leader, I enjoy any conversation with a CEO, especially one that's co-founded a business generating more than $100 million annually.Jeff Morrill is the co-founder with his brother of Planet Subaru based in Boston. His new book is Profit Wise, and we hit on many of the big ideas in that insightul read.

Some of my favorite words in the CFO lexicon are momentum, acceleration, velocity, drive, and even thrust.Coincidentally, Mike Berland is the author of Maximum Momentum - How to Get It, How to Keep It. And it's those very words we focused on during our conversation.Mike is the founder of Decode_M, a research and analytics firm that decodes data into momentum for clients.In this episode, we talked about how businesses gain momentum, and how it can jumpstart our strategic initiatives.

If you liked The Big Short by Michael Lewis where we learn about the financial meltdown of 2007-08, then you will probably like the stories behind the financial revolution that took place during the 10 years that followed. | Daniel Simon has weaved more than 150 interviews with technologists that he calls misfits  | or financial hackers - the men and women who shaped Fintech after the global financial crisis.Daniel's book is entitled The Money Hackers. He writes about the personal stories behind electronic payments, debit cards, peer-to-peer lending cryptocurrencies, blockchain, and much more. 

The legendary CEO, Hunter Harrison, was making an impact with his tools and philosophies while turning around Canadian National Railway. But he still needed help with a serious problem. The organization's culture was still a problem.Judy Johnson was part of the consulting team who helped with CN's cultural turnaround. She and her co-authors of SwitchPoints talked about their journey and the tools and frameworks they applied during that project.SwitchPoints is by far the best book I've ever read on reviving the culture in any organization. The tools described in the book are practical and impactful.In this interview, Judy will talk about DCOM, the ABC framework on behaviors and consequences, 15 percenters, and much more.