Diversity hiring gains speed in accounting: AICPA
Dive Brief:
- U.S. employers have expanded the diversity of new staff in accounting and finance, with the portion of Black or African American, Asian or Pacific Islander, and Hispanic or Latino hired at organizations rising to 34.8% in 2020 from 30.1% in 2018, according to the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants (AICPA).
- Diversity in hiring in 2020 increased to a record level in AICPA research dating to 1971, the association said in a report on an annual survey.
- Efforts to promote diversity “are critical because we believe a workplace that is reflective and inclusive of the global communities it serves is greatly positioned to innovatively solve the complex issues facing clients and the evolving public interest,” according to Jan Taylor, a senior director and academic in residence at AICPA.
Insight:
Both industry associations and federal regulators are encouraging companies to make workforce diversity one of their top priorities.
The Business Roundtable, made up of large U.S. companies with 20 million employees and more than $9 trillion in total annual revenue, has committed to increasing diversity and providing metrics on the demographics of corporate boards, senior executives, workforces and suppliers.
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler has called workforce a critical asset of growing interest to investors and has asked agency staff to recommend disclosure mandates on specifics such as employee diversity, compensation and turnover.
Read the original article from CFO DIve
The Challenges Of Filling CIO Roles
Labor shortages are plaguing just about every industry and role, but the problem is nearing crisis level for finding qualified tech workers. According to the Wall Street Journal, demand for skillsets encompassing technology, digital transformation, data, engineering and information security grew by 83% from 2020 to 2021.
Those shortages are brewing at the highest reaches of the information-technology job ladder to the role of the Chief Information Officer. When a CIO departs, a replacement may not be immediately forthcoming. Experts say that hires that used to take just a couple months now can take up to six months, and sometimes longer. Not having someone at the helm for that long can have a significant negative impact on the enterprise. But because of the urgency, investment dollars, breadth of technology-related initiatives and exposure to the board, it is essential to have someone in the seat to ensure accountability and progress. Interim CIOs are being utilized to maintain continuity with oversight of transformational objectives to include security, stakeholder management and data transformation.
The best-case scenario is for CIOs to abide by succession plans, grooming successors and advising them for years to come. But given the exhaustive efforts CIOs have had to endure since the start of the pandemic, many are simply leaving with little advance notice.
Read the original article from ChiefExecutive.net
Can Home Be Your HQ?
David Roberson spent a month running RoseRyan from Hawaii last year, and now the CEO is overseeing the entire accounting and financial services firm from a guesthouse in the backyard of his home in Silicon Valley. The website still cites an address on Bascom Avenue in nearby Campbell, California, but nobody works there anymore, and Roberson toils permanently amid redwoods, olive trees, roses and diffused sunlight a few yards from his patio.
“Historically, as CEO you had to be where the business was,” says Roberson, who was CEO of Hitachi Data Systems before joining RoseRyan as a vice president in 2018 and becoming chief a year later. “But these days, I don’t think anyone cares where you live, to some degree. I just hired a chief of staff, and she’s in Dallas, and she only asked: ‘What hours do you want me to work?’ I said, ‘Same as mine, and we’ll be just fine.’”
Is Roberson right?
Read the original article from ChiefExecutive.net
NFTs And The Great Diving Board
VSA Partners recently announced a collaboration with Rare Air Media to help launch an intimate collection of Michael Jordan NFTs. VSA Partners is a premier creator partner for crypto solutions company Ripple’s $250 Million USD Creator Fund, established to help creators, agencies, and the marketplace explore and create premium NFTs and other tokenization projects on the XRP Ledger. In the following piece, CMO Sarah Lent, shares why—and how—brands can take advantage of this rapidly emerging and expanding medium to forge new connections with their customers.
With each industrial revolution, the cycle of change and disruption gets a little faster, a little more condensed.
We’ve all heard the anecdotes about companies that leapt into new seas of opportunity such as Apple and Netflix, and their unfortunate counterparts who waited just a little too long and lost a little too much—think BlackBerry and Blockbuster.
But what is that magic moment of decision-making?
How does a brand decide when it’s time to jump in? And where to even start?
This question feels particularly pressing in our current environment, as the emergence of Web 3.0 and the Metaverse signal a major shift in how brands and consumers will interact. Although the landscape is still developing, the major plot points are this:
Read the original article from ChiefExecutive.net
IRS 'outgunned' by non-compliant businesses, Rettig says
Dive Brief:
- IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig told a House panel Thursday that the agency lacks the funding and resources necessary for auditing a large number of big companies that file questionable tax returns.
- “Our ability to enforce the tax laws against non-compliant taxpayers with complex returns continues to be hampered by a lack of resources,” Rettig said in testimony to a subcommittee under the House Oversight and Reform Committee. “We can no longer audit a respectable percentage of large corporations, and we are often limited in the issues reviewed among those we do audit.”
- “These corporations can afford to spend large amounts on legal counsel, drag out proceedings and bury the government in paper,” Rettig said in written testimony to the subcommittee on government operations. “We are, quite simply, outgunned in our efforts to assure a high degree of compliance for these taxpayers.”
Read the original article from CFO DIve
Asset-backed securitizations drop on widening spreads
When World Omni Financial earlier this month launched a $926.5 million securitization backed by a pool of car leases, it included a cushion for investors against risk. The cushion was new; the securitization was originally scheduled for launch the previous month but because of a sharp rise in Treasury yields, the company pulled back so it could restructure the terms.
“The sharp rise in benchmark rates made the securitization structure inefficient,” Eric Gebhard, a vice president of finance and treasurer at JM Family Enterprises, World Omni’s parent company, told The Wall Street Journal.
Although the company moved forward with its debt issuance a few weeks later, many companies are staying out of the market.
Data compiled by the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association shows a 45% drop in asset-backed securitization in the first quarter of this year compared to the same period last year, to $79.4 billion, the Journal reported.
Although there are a number of reasons for the drop, including consumers seeking fewer loans as confidence declines, the main reason appears to be on the investor side. Concerned about the war in Ukraine, rising interest rates and other troubling trends, investors want higher returns than companies can comfortably afford.
“Winds are changing,” Adam August, a vice president at investment firm TCW Group Inc., told the Journal, which reported on the drop in securitizations this week.
Read the original article from CFO DIve
Four Digital Marketing Lead Gen Tactics Not to Give Up On
If your company is like ours, you've probably had your share of annual marketing planning meetings. You know what you need to do, but the how isn't always clear—or it's continually changing.
Our team at UpCity surveyed 600 respondents from small businesses across the United States and Canada to gather more insight on where they stand with their marketing strategies and how they feel about current digital marketing trends.
Two-thirds of businesses surveyed said they believe that their current digital marketing strategies are effective in achieving their 2022 goals. Which raises the question: Why is the remaining one-third lacking confidence in their digital marketing?
Well, the answer isn't exactly black and white; it's a combination of several reasons. As a marketer yourself, you might relate to the pains of constantly changing algorithms, the need for a bigger budget to keep up with ever-increasing digital demands, and of course the numerous challenges brought on by the pandemic.
It's worth noting that defining marketing success can be subjective. Success can vary considerably from business to business, depending on its overarching goals. So, although our respondents may have improved their brand, achieved higher SEO rankings, or received more engagement on social media, for our survey we defined marketing success as directly related to market expansion.
What's Hindering Businesses' Faith in Their Marketing Strategies?
Most survey respondents reported that they believe their current marketing strategies work, so overall confidence is high. And though the remaining one-third may be only somewhat confident in their marketing approaches, the doubt comes from not hitting all of their goals.
Fully 59% of marketers said they feel they do not have the data they need to feel confident about which marketing campaigns are working, research published by the American Marketing Association has found. What's more, 37% said one of their top issues is lead generation.
Increased sales may be a goal of marketing, but the marketing and sales departments aren't always aligned, so it can be tough to measure success in dollars.
Six Ways Marketers Can Achieve Sustainability Instead of Just Talking About It
As Earth Day creeps up on us, marketing teams will deploy sustainability campaigns, journalists will scorn the greenwashers, and events small and large will take place around the world.
Earth Day is a time to come together to drive change for the sake of protecting our planet. Fittingly, this year's theme has been deemed "invest in our planet," a call to all sectors of society—businesses, governments, and citizens—to come together and take action.
For marketing teams, the holiday usually centers on highlighting a sustainability initiative their brand has undertaken or communicating a related milestone with their audience. Yet, the simple act of marketing (even digital) can have a significant environmental impact.
Assume your team sent 1 million emails over the last 12 months.* The CO2 emissions could range upward of 215kgs, which is equivalent to charging your phone 26,230 times—or, if you charge once a day, 72 years of charging!
Marketing teams themselves can enact a variety of operational changes to make a positive environmental difference. For primarily digital businesses, creating sustainability initiatives won't be as obvious as it might be for experiential and in-person marketing agencies. That's where creativity, collaboration, and a whole lot of research come into play!
Understandably, setting out on your journey to be more sustainable can be overwhelming.
Most companies unable to gauge whether suppliers meet ESG goals: survey
Dive Brief:
- Most CFOs and other top executives (65%) said they are unable to accurately assess whether their suppliers meet environmental, social and governance (ESG) standards even as they face growing pressure from regulators to disclose sustainability measurements such as carbon emissions, according to a Sapio Research survey.
- While most (95%) companies agreed that in order to accurately gauge ESG performance they need to obtain data from their suppliers, 53% of respondents said the information is not readily available, according to a survey of 800 CFOs and other business leaders in six countries sponsored by Coupa Software, which focuses on spending management.
- Companies that collect data about their suppliers and use the information when making purchasing decisions can influence suppliers’ behavior on environmental and other issues, according to Donna Wilczek, senior vice president for product strategy and innovation at Coupa. “The outcomes are data visibility, compliance and control.”
Dive Insight:
Many companies — especially those in consumer-facing sectors — emit less greenhouse gasses than the combined total among businesses in their supply chains, according to Boston Consulting Group. By encouraging their suppliers to commit to net-zero emissions, the companies can spur emissions reductions in “hard-to-abate” sectors.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) last month released a proposal that companies follow detailed rules for reporting on climate risk, asserting that businesses and investors will benefit from clear, uniform disclosures on the costs from global warming.
Investors with $130 trillion in assets under management have asked companies to disclose their climate risks, according to SEC Chair Gary Gensler.
Under the proposal, the SEC would require some companies to report on so-called Scope 3 emissions by their suppliers, vendors and other third parties across their supply chains. The reports would be phased in, subject to safe harbor protections and not required of smaller companies.
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Tech skills compete with finance savvy in what leadership wants in CFOs
A new breed of CFO is needed as organizations prioritize technology skills along with financial experience, research from advisory services and technology companies shows.
“It’s becoming evident that CFOs with non-traditional skills or responsibilities are needed to shape a successful future,” says a report from Sage, a technology company that polled 1,900 finance leaders across industries and countries. “The CFO has become a hub of business information, diversifying their expertise, recruiting the right talent and ensuring they implement emerging technologies and purpose-driven programs to remove friction and deliver insights.”
The redefinition of CFO duties means U.S. finance leaders are including in their top priorities the upgrading of technology solutions to drive digitalization, integrating emerging technologies into their company and developing products and services.
The view of CFOs as financial purists has given way to the need to be well versed in other skills, including HR, operations and sales and marketing, the report says.
For tech-savvy CFOs, the future is full of opportunities, not roadblocks. Almost 60% say they feel embedded into nearly every aspect of business operations and almost two in five expect AI and machine learning to have a major impact on their organization’s ability to create or maintain a competitive advantage.
Source: https://www.cfodive.com/news/tech-skills-compete-finance-savvy-leadership-wants-cfos/622377/