logo
After A Flush Year for CFO Pay, What's Next?

After A Flush Year for CFO Pay, What's Next?

Bloomberg20-07-2025
Welcome to CFO Briefing, a newsletter devoted to corporate finance and what leaders need to know. This week, I take a closer look at what's driving CFO pay for 2026 and chat to the finance chief of Norwegian energy giant Equinor.
But first, here's some other news that caught my eye:
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

The Supply Chain Reboot Starts With Women-Owned Businesses
The Supply Chain Reboot Starts With Women-Owned Businesses

Forbes

timean hour ago

  • Forbes

The Supply Chain Reboot Starts With Women-Owned Businesses

The future of supply chain leadership is already at the table, powered by women. Tariffs are just the latest disruption exposing a hard truth: our global supply chain systems are outdated. Designed for cost efficiency in a different era, they're now vulnerable to challenges and feeling the strain. From labor shortages and workforce shakeups to geopolitical tensions, economic swings, material scarcity, and mounting trade regulations, the pressure is on. This moment, this pressure point, is an opportunity. Not just to fix it, but to rethink and reimagine the supply chain. To build something better, stronger, and smarter, and ready to adapt to whatever 2025 and beyond throws our way. And that starts by unlocking the leadership we've long undervalued. Less than 1% of global corporate supply chain spend goes to women-owned businesses. That's not just a statistic; it's a missed opportunity. Because the very skills modern supply chains demand, such as strategic foresight, adaptability, and collaboration, are exactly what women-owned businesses deliver. These aren't 'soft skills.' They are essential for navigating complexity, building resilience, and driving long-term growth. For decades, the 'just-in-time' model prioritized speed and efficiency over flexibility and sustainability. But today's world demands something different. Executives are juggling a long list of priorities: cost, resilience, traceability, sustainability, and stakeholder expectations. And the pressure is only growing. Women think a few steps ahead, and then activate. That's what the future of supply chain leadership requires. Women-owned businesses are: We're not just facing another economic disruption. We're facing a strategic reset. Tariffs may be the spark, but the system needs more than a patch, it needs a reboot. This is the moment to reimagine the future of global operations. If we want more resilient, responsive, and sustainable supply chains, we need the best talent at the table. That means tapping into the full potential of women in business, leaders who think long-term and lead with impact. The case for change is clear. The opportunity is now. Let's stop managing crises. Let's start building smarter. Powered by women. For everyone. #PowerofthePack #WomenInSupplyChain #BusinessOfInnovation #StrategicResilience

Building teams that scale: The trust-adaptability connection
Building teams that scale: The trust-adaptability connection

Fast Company

timean hour ago

  • Fast Company

Building teams that scale: The trust-adaptability connection

Early in my leadership journey, I learned a pivotal lesson the hard way. I'd been brought in to help a company scale when we were hit with a sudden market pivot, and a core revenue driver evaporated almost overnight. In that moment, our ability to realign the business wasn't about having a perfect strategy. It came down to something far more fundamental: whether our leadership team trusted each other enough to have candid conversations, admit mistakes, and move decisively together. That experience crystallized a fundamental truth for me. Adaptability is impossible without trust, because trust gives a team permission to move forward in the face of uncertainty. It allows for proactive flexibility—the ability to assess information quickly, make decisions with imperfect data, and course-correct in real time, all while staying anchored to the company's long-term mission. And without that psychological safety, you get reactive chaos. THE A.T.A. FRAMEWORK: AN OPERATING SYSTEM FOR SCALE To consistently build the kind of trust that enables adaptability, I've learned leaders can't leave it to chance. It requires installing a dedicated operating system for the team: a system of three interconnected pillars I call the A.T.A. Framework. And if one pillar is weak, the whole structure degrades. Alignment (The North Star): This is the shared understanding of what the organization is trying to achieve. It gives the team a 'shared North Star,' an essential guide that clarifies what everyone is solving for so individual efforts become additive, not contradictory. Trust (The Engine): This, to me, is the foundational element that allows for productive friction. At the executive level, where every decision has real financial and organizational consequences, pressure to appear certain can lead to guarded conversations. Trust is what counteracts this, empowering people to challenge ideas, debate outcomes, and surface problems early without fear of repercussion. Without it, alignment simply degrades into compliance, not true ownership. Adaptability (The Steering): This is the team's operational capacity to shift tactics while preserving alignment to the mission, because it allows them to course-correct with both speed and discernment. Together, these pillars form a powerful system on paper. But a framework is useless if it can't survive the realities of hypergrowth, as the very process of scaling is designed to tear this system apart. WHY SCALING IS A NATURAL ENEMY OF TRUST As a company grows, it naturally creates layers, distance, and inevitable gaps in communication. This is when foundational trust begins to erode, especially when people feel disconnected from decisions or believe agendas are hidden. To counteract this decay, leaders must over-communicate context, not just decisions. I personally host monthly town halls where I walk through not just what we're doing, but why, including where I see risks. That transparency allows trust to scale with the business and sets the stage for the practical application of the framework. To translate these principles into a living part of the culture, I rely on three consistently effective mechanisms designed to make transparency the default: Weekly 'Warts And Worries' Forums: We hold these to normalize transparency because when leaders are openly vulnerable, it gives everyone else permission to do the same. Blameless After-Action Reviews: The focus here is on systemic learning, not individual blame, which is vital for accelerating collective improvement. Structured Debate Sessions: These are designed to build the team's muscle for navigating uncertainty and providing a controlled setting for hard, ambiguous issues. I saw the power of this approach firsthand while leading my team at FinQuery through a significant product expansion. The initiative created real tension across our product, sales, and customer success teams. But instead of forcing alignment, I paused to facilitate a series of uncomfortable, yet honest, discussions around assumptions and risks. By creating that space for trust and adaptability, we accelerated our roadmap by nine months and increased customer expansion revenue by 30%. THE LEADING INDICATORS OF A RESILIENT TEAM And while a dramatic turnaround like that is a powerful proof point, leaders can't afford to wait for lagging indicators to gauge their team's health. So, I've learned to watch for the subtle leading signals that show up in the daily rhythm of the business. Here's what I track now: Pace Of Decision-Making: A slowdown is often the first sign that trust is fraying and people are avoiding difficult conversations. Quality Of Escalations: It's not just volume, but what's being surfaced. Too many escalations can signal a lack of peer trust, while too few may mean people fear speaking up. Leadership Stability: High senior-level churn is an unmistakable red light for breakdowns in executive trust. Speed Of Course-Correction: A team that trusts itself admits and learns from mistakes quickly, rather than letting them fester. Tracking these signals provides a real-time dashboard of your team's health and allows you to make adjustments before cracks become fractures. TO SCALE FASTER, YOU MUST FIRST BUILD THE FOUNDATION Ultimately, this all points to the most counterintuitive lesson I've learned about leading through hypergrowth: the temptation is always to sprint nonstop, but enduring speed only comes from slowing down first. You have to pause to build the norms that allow a team to thrive under pressure—a discipline that's more essential than ever as distributed work strains informal trust-building. In my experience, you don't win by simply moving faster; you win by being structurally ready for the journey. And investing the time upfront to build the operating system of alignment, trust, and adaptability is the fundamental design choice a leader can make to ensure growth is not just rapid, but also sustainable and durable.

Former Diageo CFO Mahlan returns in interim role
Former Diageo CFO Mahlan returns in interim role

Yahoo

time2 hours ago

  • Yahoo

Former Diageo CFO Mahlan returns in interim role

Ex-Diageo CFO Deirdre Mahlan is to return to the position on an interim basis next month. The Casamigos Tequila owner today (30 July) named Mahlan interim CFO from 18 August. Mahlan, who spent five years as Diageo's CFO in the 2010s, is taking on the role in the wake of Nik Jhangiani becoming the group's interim CEO earlier this month. Jhangiani is at the helm after former Diageo chief executive Debra Crew left the business 'by mutual agreement' two weeks ago. 'Deirdre brings extensive spirits and functional expertise to the interim chief financial officer role, complemented with deep knowledge of Diageo and its operations,' Jhangiani said in a statement. Mahlan was Diageo's CFO from 2010 to 2015. She spent 27 years working at the Guinness brewer. Her most recent executive role was at US wine group The Duckhorn Portfolio. She was named the Decoy owner's interim president and CEO in 2023 before being hired on a permanent basis eight months later. In October last year, The Duckhorn Portfolio was sold to US private-equity firm Butterfly Equity, who named ex-Constellation Brands executive Robert Hanson its new asset's CEO in January. Crew was appointed Diageo chief executive in June 2023, moving up from the position of COO. In November that year, Diageo issued a profit warning amid pressure on its business in Latin America. In the 12 months to the end of June, Diageo saw its net sales fall 1.4% and dip 0.6% organically. Reported operating profit grew 8.2%, although the problems in Latin America meant organic operating profit declined. In February, Diageo, in a move similar to other major distillers, pulled its medium-term guidance, citing 'macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty'. The change came alongside a set of half-year numbers that included a 0.6% decrease in net sales, although they inched up 1% organically. Operating profit declined, however. May saw the Johnnie Walker maker announce it was looking to save around $500m in costs over the next three years as part of efforts to become more 'agile' and 'resilient'. Diageo said the move would help the company invest in 'future growth' and improve its 'operating leverage'. Jhangiani, who joined the company from Coca-Cola Europacific Partners in September, said at the time the group could make 'substantial changes' to its product portfolio in the form of asset disposals. During Crew's tenure, Diageo has offloaded assets including rum brands Cacique and Pampero and Safari liqueur. The group has also sold assets in Africa, although last October it reportedly called off the sale of its Pimm's gin-based liqueur after failing to secure an agreement with potential buyers. The business said the cuts were part of a broader initiative – dubbed 'Accelerate' – that will see 'a shift in how we do business', including developing a 'more agile global operating model'. Diageo is due to report its next set of annual financial results on 5 August. "Former Diageo CFO Mahlan returns in interim role" was originally created and published by Just Drinks, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store