The New CFO Financial Leadership Manual

Book Description

Filled with pragmatic insights, proactive strategies, and best practices, The New CFO Financial Leadership Manual, Second Edition is destined to become your essential desktop companion. This thorough guidebook is essential reading for the CFO requiring an overview of strategies, measurement and control systems, financial analysis tools, funding sources, and management improvement tips.

Customer Reviews:

Caveat emptor.......2007-03-09

I browsed the book and found the table of contents to contain many interesting topics. With the "surprise me!" function, I happened upon the Sale and Leaseback discussion, a topic with which I am familiar professionally.

In my view, the author completely failed to grasp sale-leaseback decision analysis. Leasing is another form of debt financing (with some nuances), which can be very expensive and administrative. Rating agencies and competent creditors will simply capitalize your lease payments (at the cost of debt) and treat it as debt. It actually reduces your debt capacity, not increase it as the author suggests (in his excess cash example). Also, having idle excess cash to borrow against is expensive as the cost of debt exceeds the returns you can use on cash. And buying shares (i.e. returning capital) to "prop up" the share price is an irresponsible, simplistic and inaccurate view.

The treatment of the topic surprised me. God help the company with a CFO that would think as the author does.

Everything you need to know in finance - superb!.......2004-07-14

I found this book very complete and comprehensive as a reference source. It covers the strategic and operational perspectives of the finance function. This is one of the best "CFO" books, together with "CFO Architect" and "CFO Handbook". A little bit overpriced - I would have put it in the US$60 range. Reading this book is like taking an advanced course in preparing yourself for the CFO career. It is very didactic and straightforward. A recommendation for the author: in a future edition, you might consider expanding on the topics of international finance, value based management and corporate restructurings.

Average customer rating:

Wonderful Book

The CFO Handbook
Mark Haskins , and Benjamin Makela
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Corporate Finance | Finance | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Management | Management & Leadership | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Look Inside Business Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Business & Investing | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Professional | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

ASIN: 1556238517

Book Description

Obtain valuable guidance from today's financial leaders. First published to universal acclaim over ten years ago, The CFO Handbook has been updated and revised by editors Marke E. Haskins and Benjamin R. Makela to reflect changes in the profession during the tumult of the 80s and 90s. Among the many topics covered are: determining financial policies, budgeting, defining goals and rewarding performance; creating and implementing mission, values and strategy; assessing international risk and controlling global operations. The CFO Handbook is written for, and by, financial leaders! Just look at a few of the esteemed CFOs and/or financial professionals who have contributed chapters to this landmark volume: Robert M. Agate, Colgate Palmolive; Caroline Dorsa, Merck & Co.; Michael Grobstein, Ernst & Young International; Thomas G. Manoff, Saturn Corp.; Robert J. Chrenc, AC Nielsen; A. Nicholas Filippello, Monsato Company; George B. James, Levi Strauss & Co. . .and many more!

Customer Reviews:

Wonderful Book.......2000-06-14

Excellent book for anyone starting a business moving on to the next level. Gives a vbery intensive view of the position of the CFO and their responsibilities. Brought out many of the details of the position often overlooked. Kudos to the authors.

Average customer rating:

Great quick-reference guide for all business people

The Vest Pocket CFO
Jae K. Shim , and Joel G. Siegel
Manufacturer: Wiley
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Corporate Finance | Finance | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Look Inside Business Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books

All Amazon Upgrade | Amazon Upgrade | Stores | Books

Business & Investing | Amazon Upgrade | Stores | Books

Professional & Technical | Amazon Upgrade | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

ASIN: 0471715719

Book Description

The perfect speedy reference for today's overburdened financial managers

The Vest Pocket CFO, Second Edition offers vital support for CFOs and financial executives who need to simplify their day-to-day workloads. Written in any easy Q & A format and packed with checklists, samples, and worked-out solutions to a wide variety of finance and accounting problems, it speeds readers through such complex tasks as Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, internal control and financial reporting, financial statement analysis, and much more. This small but powerful resource helps busy financial managers:
* Solve business problems with instant access to key techniques, tips, and strategies
* Analyze, evaluate, and solve financial issues in a hurry with handy ratios, procedures, and rules of thumb
* Use sample reports and guidelines to help complete complex tasks in a jiffy

Customer Reviews:

Great quick-reference guide for all business people.......2000-03-29

I found this guide to be a great resource for a variety of business needs. The cover of the book refers to it as a great reference for the CFO and the like. I want to expand that to say it is a great quick-reference book for all business people. Whether you're in entry-level sales, middle management, or executive level, you need to understand the financial basis for each decision. This book allows even a financial novice to quickly get enough information to intelligently approach financial issues.

Average customer rating:

CFO Handbook, The
Mark (editor); Makela, Benjamin R. (editor) Haskins
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill Trade
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000KYH28Y

The Complete CFO Handbook: From Accounting to Accountability

Average customer rating:

The Complete CFO Handbook: From Accounting to Accountability
Frank J. Fabozzi , Pamela Peterson Drake , and Ralph S. Polimeni
Manufacturer: Wiley
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Corporate Finance | Finance | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Reinventing the CFO: How Financial Managers Can Transform Their Roles and Add Greater Value

ASIN: 0470099267

Book Description

Cost Accounting: Concepts and Applications for Managerial Decision Making provides comprehensive coverage of cost accounting, from product costing to capital budgeting.

Average customer rating:

The Vest Pocket CFO
Jae K. Shim , and Joel G. Siegel
Manufacturer: Wiley
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Popular Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Corporate Finance | Finance | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Book Description

The thorough reference that goes wherever you go

The Vest Pocket CFO is the perfect up-to-date reference tool for today's busy CFO, controller, treasurer, and other finance professionals. Written in an easy Q&A format and packed with checklists, samples, and worked-out solutions for a wide variety of accounting and finance problems, readers can take this handy reference wherever they go-on a business trip, visiting a client, conducting a conference call, or attending a meeting.

Book Description

The world's financial markets experienced a strong globalization trend in the twentieth century. With the removal of barriers to cross-border flow of capital, financial markets have become truly global during the last two decades of the century. The research papers included in this book study a number of important current issues in the world's financial markets. The recent emerging markets crisis, which started in Southeast Asia and affected all the world's developed and emerging financial markets, is studied in detail. Another important issue, which receives considerable coverage in the book, is the European financial integration. The financial markets in the United States, Europe, Asia, and Latin America are studied extensively and the linkages between them are analyzed. The objective of the book is to provide the reader with a comprehensive and balanced overview of the world's financial markets at the end of the twentieth century.

Global Financial Markets at the Turn of the Century

Average customer rating:

Global Financial Markets at the Turn of the Century
Ilhan Meric
Manufacturer: Elsevier Limited
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OGN9NA

Book Description

A provocative examination of the most recent shift in court opinion that, in effect, works to expedite the administration of death sentences.

Book Description

This monograph in the Inverse and Ill-Posed Problems Series deals with linear integral Volterra equations of the first kind with variable upper and lower limits of integration. Volterra operators of this type are the basic operators for integral models of dynamic systems. The corresponding conventionally well-posed problems were subject of systematic study: existence and uniqueness theorems were proved, estimates of the inverse operator norms for suitable pairs of functional spaces were obtained, etc. Consideration was also given to quadrature methods for the numerical solution of such equations with emphasis on their specific features, as opposed to classical algorithms. Results of computations for the modelled examples are presented. This book is intended for specialists in computer mathematics, inverse and ill-posed problems, and mathematical modelling.

Book Description

Myth fans get a double dose of action in Ace's fifth spectacular 2-in-1 Myth edition.

Love and war go hand in hand when Skeeve "the Great" asks two bumbling bodyguards to join the army of Possiltum-and then finds himself overrun by nubile suitors.

Customer Reviews:

One of the best stories in the series!.......2006-06-17

If you have not read earlier volumes in the MYTH series, this book of two volumes will not be as appealing to you. If you are familiar with the series, then read on!

This book continues the pattern started in the last book of having two volumes in one book that covers two different stories. The first one "M.Y.T.H. inc. In Action" takes the viewpoint of Guido as the story teller. This book is by far the funniest one in this series! The hilarious mis-adventures of Guido and Nunzio, coupled with the complete inanity of the situations that they find themselves in are absolutely top notch!

This story takes place during the time that Skeeve was on Perv trying to find Aahz. The team decides to take care of the Queen Hemlock situation on Klah by themselves! One thing leads to another and the team decides to split up. Guido and Nunzio join the Posilltum army while Tananda, Chumley, Gleep, and Massha get involved in other things. Since this book is told from Guido's point of view, it is not surprising that we do not see much of the other guys. This is a change from the previous M.Y.T.H. Inc. book in which each character essentially told a short story.

Anyway, Guido and Nunzio get involved in a group of recruits who happen to have insect names. They meet Bee, Hyram Flie, Shubert Flie, Spyder, etc. A good example of the kind of humor that is all over these books is that Hyram prefers to be called Hy, while his brother Shubert prefers to be called Shu. So, we have Hy Flie and Shu Flie!!! (groan)

Guido and Nunzio quickly ascertain that they have to make sure the recruits pass through basic training so they can get going with their mission. To do so, they take over the leadership of the group and as a result, get promoted. Since Guido puts on this fake Italo-Gangster type of talk, we aretreated to lots of "situationals" in which their mob past is helpful. Guido actually manages to get promoted at least three times before he quits in disgust!

The descriptions of how this group of misfits tries to screw up the army - which is already screwed up - and how they manage to instead make things altogether better caused immense laughing bouts with this veteran!

All's well that end well and the story has Skeeve, Aahz, and Pookie converge on Queen Hemlock just as the rest of the crew does. And that transitions us to the next book.

The second book "Sweet Myth-tery of Life" is told from Skeeve's viewpoint. He comes back with Aahz and Pookie to Klah and finds his group but also finds himself in trouble. You see, Queen Hemlock has decided that either Skeeve marries her and becomes her consort and produces heirs, or she will abdicate and make him the King. Since he has already had bad experiences in being the King, he rejects that proposal. But then, he has to decide if he wants to become the Queen's consort or not.

Now, Skeeve has had many life-changing experiences, but none of them have prepared him for what to do about all the nubile women throwing themselves at his feet; Queen Hemlock we already discussed, and all readers of the series know that Bunny is tremendously in love with Skeeve; Tananda comes to the realization that she looks at Skeeve more as a younger brother; but we are introduced to Cassandra who happens to be a Vampire as another potential love interest.

Skeeve is completely ignorant of what the women around him want and while he has some normal male human reactions to all these gorgeous ladies, has no idea of what to do about it. The story line continues to twist and turn and Skeeve finds himself in all kinds of trouble but eventually he manages to resolve his feelings for Luanne and gets kicked in the [...] by Hugh Badaxe and finally sorts through what he wants to do. And, finally, he manages to resolve the Queen Hemlock situation.

This happens at the final chapter of the book but then, as he happily walks arouns, the author throws us a plot twist that is so maddening and is so transparent of a hook to get us to come back for more that I practically screamed!

In other words, in addition to the humor, we now have a cliff hanger ending that makes me want to dive into my bookshelf and dig out the next volume!

Highly recommended!!!

Avoid At All Costs.......2005-11-12

By the time these books had come out, Robert Asprin had stopped making his Myth books self-contained stories. They were, instead unapologetically episodic, with long, meandering storylines in each book ending in a cliff-hanger meant to lure you into the next book. It was a cheap device used to snag the die-hard fans and new readers who might not know any better.

Its hard to think of these books as anything more than a marketting tool, since all the originality and humor present in the first few books of this series had long ago been burned away. Its like Robert Asprin is just noodling around at the keyboard, tossing off ideas to fulfill a contractual obligation. There is no joy in these books at all. At best they present over-used cliches, at worst they are tedious beyond belief.

two great myth books in one.......2003-12-20

Asprin's Myth series combines traditional fantasy with humor and satire. He gives us multiple characters that are believable and you grow to love very quickly. Many authors couldn't handle juggling this many primary characters (not to mention the whole slew of secondary characters) and this complicated of a series. It's myth-fastic.

Two epic tales - with a twist.......2003-05-14

This collection of two books by Robert Asprin were a few of my favorites. Without giving the book away, let me tell you that this book doesn't disappoint in comparisson to his earlier books. The characters still deliver the same impact they did in his past books and they keep the same personalities

The plotline twists and weaves and I love how all the books seem to follow the pattern that as soon as one problem is solved, a whole new set of problems emerge. This book promises to be a delightful sequel to the already memorable series of books.

Two Asprin Gave Me a Headache.......2003-01-31

To begin with, I really like a lot of Robert Asprin's previous works. I've just reread both the Myth and Phule series. I love the quirky characters and humor present in both. I was really looking forward to continuing my voyage into the wonderfully amusing world created by this talented author.

The first of the two stories in this double (M.Y.T.H Inc. in Action) is excellent. It is light, amusing, original, and just generally a good read. If you've enjoyed the previous books in the series, you will certainly like this one.

Unfortunately, the second story (Sweet Myth-tery of Life) is not at all up to the mark. It is heavy, not at all amusing, and all in all just not worth reading.

Customer Reviews:

You don't have to like it, but ya gotta LOVE it :).......2004-02-03

While reading the introduction to the compendium (this volume is available as a dual book format with 'Something MYTHing') I knew I was in trouble. The apologies for the long wait and the promise for the sequel were sincere and heartfelt; but the cliffhanger at the end seems to call for immediate continuation. This book, as opposed to some of the others, tends towards the advise-giving humor as opposed to the adventurous humor I have become familiar with and adore.
That being said, this book is still full of plenty of action and reaction, laughs and truisms galore, and some startling fun! Another reviewer mentioned that 'Life the Universe and Everything' should not be a viable subject for comedy... to which I reply he should read Douglas Adams (with a book by that name... also a comedy) and perhaps modify his statement.
This book was a lot of fun. Speculation as to whether Skeeve and the author are growing up simultaneously is rediculous. The book was a GREAT read... we see Skeeve 'coming of age' as a personality investigating his own shortcomings, dealing with fame (from both sides), and learning a little about women and their place in the world (or at least in his life). The ending was... abrupt... but I have faith that, as always, R. L. Asprin will come through with a wonderful tale to follow it up in the near future. If anyone has any questions about his delay in getting the sequel out, I strongly suggest reading his MYTH series publications AFTER this one (and the introductions therein) to get a short glimpse into the issues that had (past tense now) held up the process.

Sweet Mythteries.......2003-07-26

Sweet Mythteries of Life was very typical of Robert Asprin. His humorous writing is always appreciated by me. Fantasy all the way. This book showed Skeeve, the main character, growing up and his "love life", etc. Definitely interesting and worth reading, but bother to read the other "myth" books first. They are all very good. Easy read, rather humorous.

One hellava good book.......2003-05-01

I highly recomend any of Asprin's works. If you like this, try Piers Anthony on for size

I loved this book!.......2001-12-02

it's funny, it's madding but it's great. It's the first book I have read by this author and cannot wait to read his other works.

Jumping the shark.......2001-07-20

Robert Asprin had a great thing going with the Myth series -- it was funny and inspired for a long time. But, I guess all good things must come to an end.

Pretty much everything after the very good 'Little Myth Marker' has been a disappointment to me. That seems to be the point when the books became less about the story and more about the author seemingly using his characters to pontificate about the stock market, relationships, celebrity, and the meaning of friendship. I really got the feeling sometimes that he was using Skeeve and the other characters to work out his own personal issues -- the problem was that it was pretty transparent that this is what he was doing.

The earlier books were more about "adventures" -- what Skeeve, Aahz, Tanda, and company were doing. When this series started to be about "feelings," I just found it harder to keep my interest up. A comic/farcical series like this is just not the forum for rambling on about life, the universe, and everything. Also, when other characters started to serve as the narrator, it just became very annoying and silly for me. The longer the books went on, the more glaring the inconsistencies became.

My investment in the series kept me reading and will likely sustain me if Asprin ever decides to actually release the next book and resolve the cliffhanger that he so rudely left his readers with (if the guy wasn't ready to write the next book in some reasonable time period, then why the heck do the suspense ending with your audience).

This series is wonderful and entertaining -- to a point. The cautionary tale is, I suppose, that authors should not sign deals to write a big handful of other books unless they are sure they can maintain interest, focus, and quality.

Average customer rating:
Sweet Myth-Tery of Life
Robert Asprin
Manufacturer: Ace Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
ASIN: B000LRN9G4

Books:

Books Index

Books Home

Recommended Books