Friday, May 08, 2009

Interviewing Doug Rushkoff: The New CFO

Same Old, Same Old

One would think that the key to being a superb Financial Director (CFO for you Americans) is limited to deep knowledge of accounting, regulations, and cash flow if your reading were restricted to CFO Magazine or Finance Director,

Titles of lead articles, for example, include Insovencies are Not Our Fault, Accountancy Qualifications among FTSE-100 FDs, Since Sarbox, Non-audit Fees Dove from 51% to 21%.

You get the picture

And Now for Something Completely Different

Douglas Rushkoff, author of numerous books on business trends, argues that instead, competitive advantage depends on a new focus. I interviewed Doug to see how the role of the CFO can improve the economy from the inside out.

For those of you who don't have the time to watch Doug's talk from Ofcom, I'll go over some territory for the sake of context.

Doug believes that the underlying fault in business on all levels is that “cash fuels the economy.” He says, “This is actually a backwards notion that was invented during the renaissance to promote central banking over decentralized value creation.”

“Your fiduciary responsibility,” Doug adds, “are to your employees and to your customers. This is your community -- and you can adopt a sustainable growth model for and with them rather than a speculative growth model."

Doug's conclusion: "Once you've done this, you are really in a position to take advantage of the collapse of the top-down funding models all around you.”

More on what Doug means by this in the next post.

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