EditorialsBy Matt Bud, Chairman, The FENG

As financial officers, our natural instinct is to provide full and complete disclosure. It is all part and parcel of our basic honesty. When I was in the Advertising business, now so many years ago, I was often in a situation where I had to inform my boss about something important. He was a brilliant guy, but he honestly had a very limited attention span. My task was to ensure he knew enough that I met my responsibilities, but not tell him SO much that his attention trailed off. If you consider that most of our “meetings” took place between phone calls that he “had to take,” or on the way to the elevator, you can appreciate the complexity and [ Read more… ]

I have often joked that I am known for “in the box thinking.” Thinking outside of the box, whatever that means, isn’t easy. As financial folks we just aren’t built that way. Still, being boring and unimaginative doesn’t have to become a way of life. And, although this may sound counterintuitive, it is possible to develop a methodical method of “thinking outside of the box.” (Have you ever thought about who owns the box, or why THEY aren’t happy with the box? No, this never seems to come up.) The truth is that every member of The FENG is well educated. And, we got that way by “learning how to learn.” That is what a formal education is actually all [ Read more… ]