Mind the Money

"The essence of a successful business is really quite simple. It is your ability to offer a product or service that people will pay for at a price sufficiently above your costs, ideally three or four or five times your cost, thereby giving you a profit that enables you to buy and to offer more products and services."

Brian Tracy, personal and business success author


The old adage among prosecutors and investigators is: “follow the money”. By doing so, financial improprieties are inevitably discovered and many a corporate chief has fallen from grace.

There is no justifiable excuse for financial mis-deeds today, especially with the generous compensation packages abounding in most companies. Corporate treasurers, accountants and chief financial officers are under enormous scrutiny and pressure to demonstrate they have prudently managed the finances. Otherwise they face the wrath of the market, and more significantly, the risk of civil and criminal prosecution.

Your job as a corporate leader is to make sure that the money is handled prudently. You must put in place the people, frameworks and checkpoints for a credible system of financial accountability. A socially responsible company manages its finances prudently. A CEO should never be able to hide behind—as one leader claimed—a financial system that was so complex he did not quite understand it.

The company’s balance sheet is not the sole province of the CEO, but it should be one of her main concerns. Increasing profit and shareholder value should not be subordinate to prudent financial management.

(c) 2008 Adonis E. Hoffman