CEO Advisory

An excerpt from the 2019 book “Sandworm,” by WIRED senior editor Andy Greenberg, reads like a whodunit of sorts, in that a crime -- the hacking of the IT infrastructure at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Seoul, South Korea -- was carried out by unknown cybercriminals. Spoiler alert: The Russians...

Recently Poland was ranked third among the best countries to invest in post-COVID ‘new normal’ reality by CEOWORLD Magazine. So a high ranking position is a good starting point to make some prognosis concerning the Polish economy. These remarks are made from the perspective of an international M&A lawyer, for...

Those of us who were not born with iPhones remember this book by Thomas Wolf, and younger folks may have seen the movie. The story is one of a fall from privilege and grace of Sherman (Tom Hanks in the movie) – a bond trader in Manhattan during the roaring...

A variety of events can change the business landscape and serve as a strategic inflection point to trigger organizational change. These factors range from changing economic conditions and business expansion or contraction to new competitive dynamics and the pursuit of innovation. At no point in recent history have more factors...

True or false: The CFO is the “numbers” leader in the C-Suite. If you said true, you are correct – but only partially. Today’s CFOs play a broader role in organizations than ever before. That’s good for them – and for the organizations they serve. In a recent global Accenture survey...

A few months ago, I asked my daughters to read a few chapters from the manuscript of my new book.  One piece of feedback I received was about a section in the Introduction, where I defined some key terms. My daughter Kristin liked that these definitions created a shared understanding...

There is an incredible amount of literature about the post-COVID workplace. Some companies have already sent their employees back to the office where allowed, and others are considering not renewing leases, instead preferring to invest the money in off sites and employee happiness. Wherever your company lies on the gamut,...

The best gift my father gave me was the secret of how to create luck. I grew up on a dairy farm and most of the time we were working without much time for “speechifying”.  So, this secret was provided mostly through example. However,  on one particular Sunday afternoon my...

Many of the recent mass protests across the country have been peaceful. But, some protests have led to significant property damage due to arson or vandalism, as well as business interruption losses for businesses forced to close (in some cases shortly after reopening as shelter-in-place orders related to the pandemic...

Several years ago, Harvard Business Review published a piece by Benham Tabrizi titled: 75% of Cross-Functional Teams Are Dysfunctional.  I can’t say my personal experience with cross-functional work teams would contribute much to challenging that point. There are a few critical reasons for this. For example, let's consider such a...