FEI Weekly

August 13, 2019

How Lyft's CFO communicates their strategy, and why one CEO refuses to look at resumes.

In Effort to Revamp, UPS Picks Outsider for CFO Role

Bloomberg

United Parcel Service Inc. named a longtime PepsiCo Inc. veteran as CFO. The appointment deepens CEO David Abney’s break from tradition at a company known for developing top leaders internally. Since 2017, the CEO has added three executives from other companies to UPS’s management committee while also implementing a three-year, $20 billion investment plan to boost capacity and increase efficiency.

New Payment Technologies Mean New Fraud Risks

Digital Transactions

With additional merchants accepting digital payments, acquirers and banks will face new fraud threats. According to a new study, 61% of North American merchants, bankers, and fintech providers said that new payment technology make them more susceptible to fraud. One way to contend with fraud associated digital payments is to use a combination of tools and strategies, including artificial intelligence and machine learning to analyze payment data and fraud.

The CFO-CEO Combination That Works Best for M&A

Harvard Business Review

HBR say that, in the presence of pessimistic CFOs, optimistic CEOs not only undertake fewer acquisitions, they are also less likely to undertake dud acquisitions. This points to an optimal pairing of an optimistic CEO who has a large risk appetite for M&As, and a pessimistic CFO who is sufficiently conservative and prudent to alert him or her to potential pitfalls.

How Lyft's CFO Communicates Their Strategy

WSJ - Paywall

Lyft CFO Brian Roberts regularly holds CFO chats (free-form, large-group conversations open to anyone and everyone in the ride-sharing company) to facilitate communication and give employees greater clarity on company strategy. "It helps people around strategic questions like why are we doing this initiative? Or why did we stop doing this?" he says. "I realized if we have internal employees who are living, breathing Lyft 24 hours a day, seven days a week and the strategy is not clear to them, it means it’s not clear probably to the external world as well."

Do Resumes Even Matter?

Inc.

"Just being focused on somebody's resume is not enough. At a startup, it really comes down to the heart and soul of the person...that is something that doesn't come across in a resume, says Birdies founder Bianca Gates. As Birdies continues to grow and more roles need to be filled, Gates refuses to look at resumes. Instead, she wants to see how passionate potential hires are about learning and building something from scratch.