CFO Bookshelf

Are we to celebrate startups that fail or fail fast? What if you are the founder of one of those startups? How do you deal with that failure?

Mark Jacobsen attacks that topic head-on in his book, Eating Glass, an honest manuscript about his inner journey through failure and renewal.

One of my favorite parts of The Education of a Value Investor is when Guy Spier talks about his lunch with Warren Buffett.  Similar to the Buffett lunch, what if I could have a virtual dinner with this incredible and deep-thinking business author and money manager?

The end result was a satisfying conversation rich with investing, business, and economic insights.

In the world of value investing, Guy Spier never needs an introduction. I believe his book, The Education of a Value Investor is one of the Top 5 investing books ever written in the past 25 years. While we hit many high points in Guy's book, we do a lightning round of topics where Guy over-delivers with mindful and thorough responses.

Steve Wexler is one of my favorite teachers in the data visualization space because he's easy to understand and doesn't speak over our heads.

He's the co-author of The Big Book of Dashboards, and his newest book is The Big Picture.

Our topics include preattentive attributes, the love affair with stoplight colors, dead-end dashboards, and important tips when building visualizations.

I've met and talked to many CFOs around the country. We're rational, analytical, and can be direct at times.

Some of us these CFOs are rare in that they have great people skills. But I'm not sure that's the case for the majority of financial leaders.

Gilbert Eijkelenboom is the author of People Skills for Analytical Thinkers, our guest on this week's episode where we talk about the tools of gaining better communication skills.

I was captivated by the website 2x3y.com months before the creative genius of that site released his book, Scale at Speed.

The author is Felix Velarde, and his growth accelerator canvas is elegant, pragmatic, and impactful. If you like the writing of Verne Harnish, then you'll enjoy what Felix has to say about scaling at a rapid pace.

CFO Bookshelf welcomed back CFO Dive's, Jane Thier to talk about the biggest headlines in 2021.

We also talked about the stories we'll be reading about in the second half. Jane also told us the three CFOs she'd like to interview and the one company she's keeping an eye on.

Guest host Shaefer Schuetz interviews Mark Gandy about the 60 books he's read or listened to during the first half of 2021.

Mark shares his favorite five books and provides another half dozen or so books as honorable mentions.

From serving a term as a Missouri Senator to serving a year in prison, Mr. Smith Goes to Prison was one of my favorite books in 2015.

After watching College Behind Bars on Netflix this winter, I wanted to get Jeff Smith's input on how to reduce recidivism within the prison system. We also talked about the comparisons of an IVY League MBA with the entrepreneurial activities behind prison walls.

Before taking the position as the IRS Commissioner, a reporter asked Charles Rossotti, "Were you ever in the military, and if you were, did you volunteer for a suicide mission?"

Before running the IRS from 1997 to 2002, Rossotti was the co-founder, former chairman, and CEO of American Management Systems, Inc.

In this episode, we look at what Charles did to help turn around that beleaguered agency.