Cfo Quotes

The first time I saw her, I nearly walked into a wall. Not the behavior expected from the CFO of a multibillion-dollar corporation.

The CFO asks the CEO, “What happens if we invest in developing our people and they leave us?” The CEO responds, “What happens if we don’t, and they stay?

The CIO and CFO working together in harmony is the best possible relationship that can generate utmost value for the organization.

The very best way to know what you want is to act in the role. Not just in title, but in real action. In my career, I’ve been acting VP of HR, CFO, and VP of sales. Often CEOs resist acting in functional roles, because they worry that they lack the appropriate knowledge. This worry is precisely why you should act—to get the appropriate knowledge. Indeed, acting is really the only way to get all the knowledge that you need to make the hire, because you are looking for the right executive for your company today, not a generic executive.

Worse than that, however, was the CFO, a dapper-suited, neat-haired new age carapace containing an uninhibited misogynistic bogan, whose actual words to me, in concert with my boss in the same room were: 'To be successful you have to accept that weekends are for families.

people in management positions, even very senior management positions, are often completely wrong about the fortunes of their own companies. More important, in making these misjudgments, they almost always err on the side of excessive optimism. They think their businesses are in much better shape than they actually are. Jerry’s rig utilization chart at Global Marine and our own CFO’s boasts about Joe DiMaggio only underscored this lesson for me at the time. And, three decades and over 1,400 meetings with other executives later, I can say this tendency is as pronounced as ever.

1. Project What is the project? Why is it unique? Why is the business needed? Why will customers love your product? 2. Partners Who are you? Who are the partners? What are your educational backgrounds? How much experience do you all have? How are you and your partners qualified to make the project a success? 3. Financing What is the total cost of the project? How much debt and how much equity is there? Are partners investing their own money? What is the investor’s return and reward for their risk? What are the tax consequences? Who is your CFO or accounting firm? Who is responsible for investor communications? What is the investor’s exit? 4. Management Who is running your company? What is their experience? What is their track record? Have they ever failed? How does their experience relate to your industry? Do you believe this is the strongest management team you can assemble? Can you pitch them with confidence?

Recently, as I was teaching this concept, a CFO—who deals with numbers all the time—came up to me and said, “This is fascinating! I’ve always seen trust as a nice thing to have, but I never, ever, thought of it in terms of its impact on economics and speed. Now that you’ve pointed it out, I can see it everywhere I turn. “For example, we have one supplier in whom we have complete trust. Everything happens fast with this group, and the relationship hardly costs us anything to maintain. But with another supplier, we have very little trust. It takes forever to get anything done, and it costs us a lot of time and effort to support the relationship. And that’s costing us money—too much money!” This CFO was amazed when everything suddenly fell into place in his mind. Even though he was a “numbers” guy, he had not connected the dots with regard to trust. Once he saw it, everything suddenly made sense. He could immediately see how trust was affecting everything in the organization, and how robust and powerful the idea of the relationship between trust, speed, and cost was for analyzing what was happening in his business and for taking steps to significantly increase profitable growth.

Social psychology comes into the picture here, because the answer that a truthful CFO would offer is plainly ridiculous. A CFO who informs his colleagues that “there is a good chance that the S&P returns will be between –10% and +30%” can expect to be laughed out of the room. The wide confidence interval is a confession of ignorance, which is not socially acceptable for someone who is paid to be knowledgeable in financial matters.

A company like GM is a finance-driven company who always has to live up to financial expectations. Here we look at it the other way around—the product is successful when it’s great, and the company becomes great because of that.” (This mirrored what Musk had told me earlier in the day: “The moment the person leading a company thinks numbers have value in themselves, the company’s done. The moment the CFO becomes CEO—it’s done. Game over.”) Von

The most-studied evidence, by the greatest number of economists, concerns what is called short-term dependence. This refers to the way price levels or price changes at one moment can influence those shortly afterwards-an hour, a day, or a few years, depending on what you consider "short." A "momentum" effect is at work, some economists theorize: Once a stock price starts climbing, the odds are slightly in favor of it continuing to climb for a while longer. For instance, in 1991 Campbell Harvey of Duke- he of the CFO study mentioned earlier-studied stock exchanges in sixteen of the world's largest economies. He found that if an index fell in one month, it had slightly greater odds of falling again in the next moth, or, if it had risen, greater odds of continuing to rise. Indeed, the data show, the sharper the move in the first, the more likely is is that the price trend will continue into the next month, although at a slower rate. Several other studies have found similar short-term trending in stock prices. When major news about a company hits the wires, the stock will react promptly-but it may keep on moving for the next few days as the news spreads, analysts study it, and more investors start to act upon it.

THE SIX-HOUR SEMINAR that Jack was forced to attend at the beginning of each new semester had been called Orientation until a few years ago, when the university changed the seminar’s name to Onboarding. The name change coincided with a revamp of the orientation curriculum, which had bloated into this all-day human resources horror during which members of the HR team attempted, at unmerciful length, to “socialize the mission statement’s DNA,” is how they put it. They were referring to the many-planked mission statement the university had spent two years and countless consultant dollars developing in a campus-wide effort to express everything the university did in just one sentence. This was the brainchild of the university’s new CFO, who told the faculty in all seriousness that developing a mission statement that captured everything the university did in just one sentence was akin to their “moonshot,” and he asked for their help in this endeavor “not because it is easy, but because it is hard.” Why the university needed to corral its collective intelligence and creativity and energy for the task of expressing everything it did in just one sentence was a mystery to most faculty, but this did not stop their administrator bosses from enthusiastically assigning them to “mission statement working groups” so that they could have a voice (unpaid) in developing this one magical sentence, this one statement that would distill everything everyone did into a phrase ideally small enough for letterhead.

In sum," Midlife said, giving the room his best you-the-jury baritone, "Our defense will be...?" He looked to Matt for the answer/ "Blame the other guy," Matt said. "Which other guy?" "Yes." "Huh?" "We blame whoever we can," Matt said. "The CFO, the COO, the C Choose-Your-Favorite-Two-Letter-Combination, the accounting firm, the banks, the board, the lower-level employees. We claim some of them are crooks. We claim some of them made honest mistakes that steamrolled." "Isn't that contradictory?" Midlife asked, folding his hands and lowering his eyebrows. "Claiming both malice and mistakes?" He stopped, looked up, smiled, nodded. Malice and mistakes. Midlife liked the way that sounded. "We're looking to confuse," Matt said. "You blame enough people, nothing sticks. The jury end up knowing something went wrong but you don't know where to place the blame. We throw facts and figures at them. We bring up every possible mistake, every uncrossed t and dotted i. We act like discrepancy is a huge deal, even if it's not. We are skeptical of EVERYONE.

After a series of promotions—store manager at twenty-two, regional manager at twenty-four, director at twenty-seven—I was a fast-track career man, a personage of sorts. If I worked really hard, and if everything happened exactly like it was supposed to, then I could be a vice president by thirty-two, a senior vice president by thirty-five or forty, and a C-level executive—CFO, COO, CEO—by forty-five or fifty, followed of course by the golden parachute. I’d have it made then! I’d just have to be miserable for a few more years, to drudge through the corporate politics and bureaucracy I knew so well. Just keep climbing and don't look down. Misery, of course, encourages others to pull up a chair and stay a while. And so, five years ago, I convinced my best friend Ryan to join me on the ladder, even showed him the first rung. The ascent is exhilarating to rookies. They see limitless potential and endless possibilities, allured by the promise of bigger paychecks and sophisticated titles. What’s not to like? He too climbed the ladder, maneuvering each step with lapidary precision, becoming one of the top salespeople—and later, top sales managers—in the entire company.10 And now here we are, submerged in fluorescent light, young and ostensibly successful. A few years ago, a mentor of mine, a successful businessman named Karl, said to me, “You shouldn’t ask a man who earns twenty thousand dollars a year how to make a hundred thousand.” Perhaps this apothegm holds true for discontented men and happiness, as well. All these guys I emulate—the men I most want to be like, the VPs and executives—aren’t happy. In fact, they’re miserable.  Don’t get me wrong, they aren’t bad people, but their careers have changed them, altered them physically and emotionally: they explode with anger over insignificant inconveniences; they are overweight and out of shape; they scowl with furrowed brows and complain constantly as if the world is conspiring against them, or they feign sham optimism which fools no one; they are on their second or third or fourth(!) marriages; and they almost all seem lonely. Utterly alone in a sea of yes-men and women. Don’t even get me started on their health issues.  I’m talking serious health issues: obesity, gout, cancer, heart attacks, high blood pressure, you name it. These guys are plagued with every ailment associated with stress and anxiety. Some even wear it as a morbid badge of honor, as if it’s noble or courageous or something. A coworker, a good friend of mine on a similar trajectory, recently had his first heart attack—at age thirty.  But I’m the exception, right?

Shortly before our CFO’s pep talk, another high-level executive at the bank stopped me in the hall to give me what he considered some critical advice. “A lot of smart kids like you come through the bank, and they use it for a stepping stone,” he said. “They stay for a year or two and then they leave. I think that’s a huge mistake. Look at me: I’ve been here forever and I’m happier than anyone I know. This place rewards loyalty, and I’m good at my job because I’ve got my finger right on the pulse of the company. I know everything that’s going on.” A week later, I saw two workmen hauling boxes out of his office. He was a victim of the bank’s first-ever round of layoffs. I’m not trying to put this man down for his faith in the bank or make light of his unemployment. I want to use his story to make another point about failure in business. That chat reinforced something else I was beginning to learn: people in management positions, even very senior management positions, are often completely wrong about the fortunes of their own companies. More important, in making these misjudgments, they almost always err on the side of excessive optimism. They think their businesses are in much better shape than they actually are. Jerry’s rig utilization chart at Global Marine and our own CFO’s boasts about Joe DiMaggio only underscored this lesson for me at the time. And, three decades and over 1,400 meetings with other executives later, I can say this tendency is as pronounced as ever.

The acquisition process was complicated by the fact that the negotiators for Lucasfilm weren’t very good. The chief financial officer, in particular, underestimated Steve, assuming he was just another rich kid in over his head. This CFO told me that the way to establish his authority in the room was to arrive last. His thinking, which he articulated out loud to me, was that this would establish him as the “most powerful player,” since he and only he could afford to keep everyone else waiting. All that it ended up establishing, however, was that he’d never met anyone like Steve Jobs. The morning of the big negotiating session, all of us but the CFO were on time—Steve and his attorney; me, Alvy, and our attorney; Lucasfilm’s attorneys; and an investment banker. At precisely 10 A.M., Steve looked around and, finding the CFO missing, started the meeting without him! In one swift move, Steve had not only foiled the CFO’s attempt to place himself atop the pecking order, but he had grabbed control of the meeting.

Think of the G3 as the central brain trust of a talent-first organization. (You might want to keep the general counsel or chief risk officer close on big decisions if that suits your business, but it’s the ongoing CEO-CFO-CHRO linkage that’s crucial.) Effectively deployed, the G3 is the mechanism that will create the future of your organization. It can be the multiplier of your capacity, time, and capability, as illustrated in the following example.

ran—at separate times—a boutique investment banking firm and a small mortgage company. He served as the Treasurer for the multinational vitamin manufacturer USANA Health Sciences years before becoming CFO for MonaVie. Devin squeezed in two brief stints in government, including two years working for Jake Garn on the U.S. Senate Banking Committee Staff and another year working for an independent state agency called USTAR, where he helped foster technology entrepreneurship during Governor Jon Huntsman’s administration. Devin is proud to be a Ute, having graduated from the University of Utah David Eccles School of Business, which recognized him as a Distinguished Alum in 2006. He also earned an MBA at Cornell University where he ran the student newspaper, Cornell Business.

And with a forty-five-year-old genuine grown-up and experienced entrepreneur as president and CFO, we now had access to all kinds of working-capital credit we couldn’t get before. Unlike the twenty-one-year-old CEO, Lee Walker could go to people like Frank Phillips at Texas Commerce Bank and say, “Look, Texaco, Exxon, Monsanto—all these companies, not to mention the US government—they all owe this company money. Give us a loan based on all these receivables.” And the bankers would say, “Okay, Lee, we don’t know about the kid, but we trust you.

Imagine the power to resolve dozens of issues right on the spot. If a press release needed approval, everyone (including the CFO, the VP of sales, and the software development and marketing chiefs) was there to review and resolve it in minutes. It didn’t float around in emails for days, sucking up hours of management’s time. If Sales was having a problem with the CRM system, the head of IT was there. If Development needed to hire additional programmers, the head of HR and the CFO were there to start the process and sign off on the budget.

Have your CFO give you a cash report every day, like Verne’s does. The CFO should summarize the sources and amounts of cash that came in and out of the business during the last 24 hours, along with anticipated cash flow for the coming month. It keeps cash top-of-mind and allows you to react quickly — within days vs. months — if it’s heading in the wrong direction. Observing the sources of cash flowing in and out on a daily basis also gives real insight into your business’s financial model.

The tendency to focus on the positive comes long before the customer actually makes a purchase decision. Early in the sales process, for example, when sellers are trying to get to higher levels within the account, a salesperson might say, “Mr. Customer, I would like to get a few minutes with your CFO to show him how cost-effective our products are relative to increasing productivity and maximizing the return on your investment.” Sounds like a mini elevator pitch, doesn’t it? Here’s the reverse. “Mr. Customer, would it make sense to spend a few minutes and bring your CFO up to speed, so he doesn’t have a knee-jerk reaction and torpedo the idea?” In preparation for QBS training events, I always ask for a conference call to customize the material for the intended audience. But I don’t ask for a manager’s time so I can “understand their business and deliver better training.” Although these are positive benefits, they don’t necessarily create a sense of urgency. Therefore, I am more inclined to ask a vice president of sales for time on their calendar, “so we don’t completely miss the boat at the upcoming training event.” Both of these questions refer to benefits that would come from strategizing in advance. But how you ask does make a difference.

Consider, though, how the insight sessions, industry updates, and briefings for the CEO and CFO before the analyst calls will help meet the customer's business needs and will also link to the objective of building relationships with the CEO and CFO over the next six months; likewise, the coaching sessions and prep before the board meetings will cement the partner's relationship with the CFO even further. Meeting with the CEO and CFO before analyst calls to brief them on issues that they might need to discuss will give the partner the opportunity to provide essential information when they need it the most, creating a dependency on the partner and cementing his relationship as a trusted adviser to the company's leadership team. People are often focused on trying to get their customers to like them. I always advise my clients that it is nice if your customers like you, but essential that they need you. You want to include negotiable issues that position you to create this type of dependency.

In her analysis, she learned that the CFO had answered phishing emails telling him he’d just won a $500 gift card from Costco. The man made $13 million a year before bonuses. A senior chemical engineer had accepted fifty-four invitations on social media from people she didn’t know. The head of patents had been sexting with someone he met online, clicked on what was promised to be a dick pick, and unleashed a virus. All of this had been done on company computers and the corporate server. Data breaches galore. Proprietary information insecure. Financial records out there for all the world to see.

Ernest Eguasa graduated from the University of Benin with an accounting degree before continuing his education at Lagos Business School, completing their Senior Management Program. He holds multiple financial certificates as well. Mr. Eguasa has over 12 years of experience in financial management and specializes in e-commerce and e-payments for retail and pharmaceutical companies. He is a Green Belt in Lean6Sigma and the CFO for HealthPlus Limited.

The assigned activity during lunch was a getting-to-know-you game where each person had to describe their “life’s work,” and describe it in the way they would describe it to a normal, nonacademic “regular guy on the street,” is how it was explained by the university’s CFO, a man with a degree in, seriously, just “Business,” who thought it was really important that academics step out of their ivory towers and connect with nonelite, normal, salt-of-the-earth-type folks.

have found three very simple ways to do this in my own startups: Recognize greatness. When people are recognized for their hard work, they feel truly cared for and seen. Learn who they are and who they want to become. Simply put, know something about your people beyond the skills and experience on their résumé. What are their hobbies and interests? What gets them excited? And, most importantly, what are they looking for? Where do they want to take their career, and how does the startup fit into that? Focus on their continuous development. When you know who people are and where they want to be, then you can look for ways to develop them in that direction. For example, let’s say that you hired a part-time bookkeeper, but you learn they really want to be a CFO one day. You can look for a project to delegate to them and say, “Would you be open to developing a budget for this?” In that way, you’re helping them gain the skills they’ll need as a CFO.

The desk phone trilled. The receptionist let out a loud sigh, set down her cell, and realigned her headset. “Fite Fitness, this is Carrie.” “Hi Carrie, this is Beverly Lewis, right next to you. I’m here to see Richard, the CFO.

The acquisition process was complicated by the fact that the negotiators for Lucasfilm weren’t very good. The chief financial officer, in particular, underestimated Steve, assuming he was just another rich kid in over his head. This CFO told me that the way to establish his authority in the room was to arrive last. His thinking, which he articulated out loud to me, was that this would establish him as the “most powerful player,” since he and only he could afford to keep everyone else waiting. All that it ended up establishing, however, was that he’d never met anyone like Steve Jobs. The morning of the big negotiating session, all of us but the CFO were on time—Steve and his attorney; me, Alvy, and our attorney; Lucasfilm’s attorneys; and an investment banker. At precisely 10 A.M., Steve looked around and, finding the CFO missing, started the meeting without him! In one swift move, Steve had not only foiled the CFO’s attempt to place himself atop the pecking order, but he had grabbed control of the meeting. This would be the kind of strategic, aggressive play that would define Steve’s stewardship of Pixar for years to come—once we joined forces, he became our protector, as fierce on our behalf as he was on his own. In

The path to the CEO's office should not be through the CFO's office, and it should not be through the marketing department. It needs to be through engineering and design. ~ Elon Musk

AT TRIGON I LEARNT business is all about people, so to ensure I had the first look at executive talent and could hire the best, I created my own recruitment company. I needed a temporary CFO at Emerald and was told about a recruitment consultant called Carmen Bailey. Within 10 minutes of meeting me, Carmen had asked more questions about my business and what drove and motivated me than anyone I had ever met. Carmen is a perfect example of someone who puts the client first. She is never transactional and for her it wasn’t about finding me a contractor but, rather, about wanting to form a long-term sustainable relationship with my business.

In the late 1990s, Parachute was the market leader with more than 50 per cent market share. Fresh from its success in taking market share in toothpaste away from Colgate using Pepsodent, HUL entered the coconut oil category to take on Marico. Dadiseth, the then chairman of HUL, had warned Mariwala to sell Marico to HUL or face dire consequences. Mariwala decided to take on the challenge. Even the capital markets believed that Marico stood no chance against the might of HUL which resulted in Marico’s price-to-earnings ratio dipping to as low as 7x, as against 13x during its listing in 1996. As part of its plans to take on Marico, HUL relaunched Nihar in 1998, acquired Cococare from Redcon and positioned both brands as price challengers to Parachute. In addition, HUL also increased advertising and promotion spends for its brands. In one quarter in FY2000, HUL’s advertising and promotional (A&P) spend on coconut oil alone was an amount which was almost equivalent to Marico’s full year A&P budget (around Rs 30 crore). As Milind Sarwate, former CFO of Marico, recalls, ‘Marico’s response was typically entrepreneurial and desi. We quickly realized that we have our key resource engine under threat. So, we re-prioritized and focused entirely on Parachute. We gave the project a war flavour. For example, the business conference on this issue saw Mariconians dressed as soldiers. The project was called operation Parachute ki Kasam. The leadership galvanized the whole team. It was exhilarating as the team realized the gravity of the situation and sprang into action. We were able to recover lost ground and turn the tables, so much so that eventually Marico acquired the aggressor brand, Nihar.’ Marico retaliated by relaunching Parachute: (a) with a new packaging; (b) with a new tag line highlighting its purity (Shuddhata ki Seal—or the seal of purity); (c) by widening its distribution; and (d) by launching an internal sales force initiative. Within twelve months, Parachute regained its lost share, thus limiting HUL’s growth. Despite several relaunches, Nihar failed against Parachute. Eventually, HUL dropped the brand Nihar off its power brand list before selling it off to Marico in 2006. Since then, Parachute has been the undisputed leader in the coconut oil category. This leadership has ensured that when one visits the hair oil section in a retail store, about 80 per cent of the shelves are occupied by Marico-branded hair oil.

A Chief Financial Officer running technology and cybersecurity strategy in an organization is like a bus driver flying an airplane without a flying license.

It didn’t matter that she was twenty-nine, a 4.0 graduate of the Wharton School of Business, and the youngest executive at Montgomery Industries, childish tears sprang to her eyes. She didn’t know if she was madder at her father or at her own lack of gumption. Maybe he was right. Maybe she didn’t deserve to be CFO. Maybe she wasn’t tough enough.

We blame whoever we can,” Matt said. “The CFO”—Sterman’s brother-in-law and former best friend—“the COO, the C Choose-Your-Favorite-Two-Letter Combination, the accounting firm, the banks, the board, the lower-level employees. We claim some of them are crooks. We claim some of them made honest mistakes that steamrolled.

CFO GOALS Health of company Revenue Market share Average order size Profitability Return on assets Health of Finance Order to cash cycle Accounts receivable Accurate and timely financial reporting Borrowing costs

It’s Time to Split HR 500 words HBR article by Ram Charan, July–August Many CEOs are disappointed with their HR departments. Charan proposes a radical solution: Eliminate the position of chief human resources officer and split HR into two functions: HR-A (administration), which would manage compensation and benefits and report to the CFO, and HR-LO (leadership and organization), which would focus on improving people capabilities and report to the CEO. Here’s what our readers had to say:

David Viniar, CFO of Goldman Sachs, claimed as the global financial crisis broke in August 2007 that his bank had experienced ‘25 standard deviation events’ several days in a row. But anyone with a knowledge of statistics (a group that must be presumed to include Viniar) knows that the occurrence of several ‘25 standard-deviation events’ within a short time is impossible. What he meant to say was that the company’s risk models failed to describe what had happened. Extreme observations are generally the product of ‘off-model’ events. If you toss a coin a hundred times and all the tosses are heads, you may have encountered a once in a lifetime statistical freak; but look first for a simpler explanation. For all their superficial sophistication, the masters of the universe had no real understanding of what was going on before them.

Capture, Filter, & Organize (CFO).   These three pieces work seamlessly together to create an effective workflow, but each piece is still valuable in itself. We’ll break each part down and the associated goals it covers, and you can pick and choose the parts you like depending on what you’re looking for.   Capture

The reason they didn’t discuss expenses is almost certainly because their bosses didn’t, either. Jobs held that authority himself and monitored it solely through his CFO.

Stephanie Lopes is a seasoned professional currently serving as a partner and CFO at an esteemed accounting firm. With a Bachelor's Degree in Business Management, Stephanie has cultivated a strong foundation in financial management and strategic planning.

Financial management takes on a new meaning when you enter a partnership with a private equity group. There are software systems marketed to investment firms to consolidate their financials among the companies they own. For them, it has many benefits. It simplifies financial reporting and management of their investments. For the operating companies, it may provide huge value if their current reporting systems are inadequate. However, if your company has a well-implemented modern system, this can be a burden. Imagine having someone come in and require that you abandon your cuttingedge integrated system and, instead, put your reports in their format. I have a friend who was a CFO with a modern ERP system who was required to integrate their company’s reporting with an antiquated Excel-based report generator because their new equity partners required their charts to look a certain way. It cost them time and money that could have been applied to building their company’s value elsewhere.

Jonathan Kohanof, a maestro in finance, envisions a future beyond the boardroom. As CFO, his knack for strategy is unparalleled, and his aspirations stretch beyond corporate horizons.

Dr. Anosh Ahmed, previously COO/CFO at The Loretto Hospital in Chicago, stands as a visionary for healthcare equity. With a background in entrepreneurship and philanthropy, he leads The Anosh Inc Foundation, catalyzing meaningful global initiatives.

Hire software, not humans. People are expensive. Software is not, usually because a lot of it is VC-subsidized in the name of growth. Take advantage of this by using Pilot or Bench instead of hiring an accountant or a CFO. Use Gusto to run payroll and benefits in five minutes. Because you are putting off hiring, you will also save money on all of the people-managing roles in your company, like an HR person and an office manager (see below). You may be surprised how far you can get with cheap software tools. For example, you can hire a human being to follow up with new customers every time someone signs up for your service or you can use automation tools like Zapier to send a follow-up email and to add those new customers to a queue to call later.

Those who want to blame all of Enron's woes on the greedy former CFO claim that Enron was a good business brought down by Andy Fastow. But that was never true. Ultimately, Enron was a bad business that was, for a time, propped up by Andy Fastow.

Simple organisational mechanisms, such as the creation of a sub committee of the EXCO body, under the authorisation of the CEO and chaired by the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) or the Chief Operating Officer (COO) — i.e., those who have the necessary organisational authority to resolve issues — should be established. Reporting into this group should be weekly and any variance to plan should be identified for resolution. There may be other organisational solutions but as a minimum, project reporting should be frequent and escalation for issue resolution should be integral to the process.

The following ad is also a Director of IT position dressed up as a CIO.  The position reports to the CFO creating a natural conflict between the requirements of the role to be strategic but being overruled all the time by the tactical view of the CFO. The CIO salary will also be depressed due to the lower rank and the person will not have proper access to the Provost and other VP level people who will be the CIO’s primary clients. Chances are very high the focus will be on the network infrastructure and maintenance – note the highlighting of the wired and wireless networks.

To understand Brahma, understand the structure with the easy (though not apt) example of an org chart that depicts a company or an educational institute that is managed by a board of C-Suite executives. - The universe is managed with invisible powers (in Sanatan Dharma) further by Goddess Laxmi as CFO, Ganesha as Product Owner, Goddess Saraswati as CIO, Narad Muni as HR, Goddess Parvati as Chief Compliance Officer, and many more (for better illustration purposes only).