Good morning. Charlie Scharf took over a tough job when he agreed to be CEO of scandal-ridden Wells Fargo. The company had “made a bunch of mistakes,” he says. And the penalty for those mistakes was a raft of regulatory restrictions that will hobble the bank for years to come. Scharf added his own to that […]
Good morning. Some interesting new research out from IBM today shows how much the C-Suite has changed in the last decade. Some 3,000 global CEOs were asked to say who in the C-Suite would play the most crucial role for the organization in the next two to three years. The top answer—after Chief Operating Officer (57%) […]
Good morning. Fortune’s World’s Most Admired Companies list is out this morning, and the top three on the leader board won’t surprise you: Apple (14th year in a row at #1), Amazon and Microsoft. Some of the others in the top 50 are less expected. You can find the full list here. But here’s a […]
Good morning. About 100 CEOs participated in the Fortune CEO Initiative’s virtual meeting yesterday, focusing on priorities for business collaboration with government in the year ahead. Most of the discussion was off the record. But the session began with a few on the record briefings on key topics. Some excerpts: On fighting the coronavirus: “Right now, for […]
Good morning. What does business want from the new U.S. administration? We asked that question in our latest CEO survey, done in collaboration with Deloitte. We allowed each CEO to choose their top three issues (which is why the percentages below don’t add up to 100%.) Their responses: Restoring trust in government: 59% COVID relief and […]
Good morning. BlackRock CEO Larry Fink yesterday challenged companies to disclose plans for how they will achieve “net zero” global emissions by 2050—meaning they emit no more carbon dioxide than they remove from the environment. Fink’s letter is a clear indication of the rapidly changing business attitude toward combatting climate change. But how many companies […]
Good morning. In a lengthy phone interview with Fortune’s Vivienne Walt last week, the world’s richest man (sorry, JB) gushed over the new American president. “I’m super fired up that the new administration is focused on climate,” he said. Musk fan boys can tell you that his political views have long leaned to the right, on […]
Good morning. If you want to pick one statistic that indicates how much business has changed in the last half century, I’d choose this one: intangible assets as a percentage of total assets. It shows the rise of things like patents, software, data, brand, and the decline of hard assets like land, buildings, equipment, inventory. […]
Good morning. It’s Friday, so some feedback. Former IRS Commissioner Charles Rossotti weighed in after my Wednesday post suggesting President Biden’s spending plans will have to be financed by debt or new taxes. There’s another way, he says—collecting taxes already owed: “Our plan gets at the heart of the tax gap—upper income people who don’t pay what […]
Good morning. David Meyer here in Berlin, filling in for Alan. I’m a South-African-British dual citizen living in Germany. So, while I’ve been saddened by the rancor that’s infected American politics over recent years, and while I naturally have personal opinions on the issues that divide the country, I’m not an American voter, and my […]