The SEC, ESG, and going public—here’s what mattered to CFOs this week

Here’s what happened this week:

Jill Klindt, CFO, SVP, and treasurer at Workiva Inc., has worked at the software-as-a-service company since its inception in 2008. Klindt began as the controller, served in several leadership positions, and was appointed CFO in February. “We started out as just a [U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission] reporting company,” Klindt says. The platform evolved into powering both financial and non-financial data reporting for companies. Klindt is at the helm of finance in an era of digitization focused on growth and environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG). Workiva announced the addition of an ESG solution on its platform. Klindt will also represent the company in a global ESG collaboration. “We are the first SaaS company to join the United Nations’ Global Compact CFO Taskforce,” she told me. 

Nobody can see the future—but CFOs have to try. Kip Krumwiede, Ph.D., the director of research at the Institute of Management Accountants, shed some light on the topic of financial forecasting. Krumwiede is the lead author of the report, Overcoming FP&A’s Biggest Challenge: Predicting the Future. IMA compared the results of best-, middle-, and worst-performing companies in financial planning and analysis (FP&A) practices and ultimate financial outcomes, he said. Respondents at best-performing companies that rated their overall FP&A higher over the past five years garnered 21% average revenue growth, the report found. IMA also provided several recommendations to improve forecasting the future. 

Acorns, a savings and investing app, announced on Wednesday that Twitter exec Rich Sullivan is the company’s new CFO. Sullivan takes on the role of finance chief, leading the company towards a public listing on Nasdaq expected this fall. I spoke with him on his first day at the job. “I’ve had the fortune in my career to work with some pretty big consumer-focused brands across several industries and business models that I think set me up well for Acorns,” Sullivan said. “Rich brings 20 years of public market experience to help fuel the company’s growth,” Acorns CEO Noah Kerner told me. Kerner also shared why Acorns is going public via a SPAC.  

Robert J. Jackson, Jr., the Pierrepont Family Professor of Law at New York University, and a former SEC commissioner offered some predictions during Coins2Day’s CFO Collaborative series, in partnership with Workday, on Wednesday. “You should expect in the next six months out of the SEC, I think, a proposal to require disclosure related to climate impacts,” Professor Jackson said. “But I think the climate disclosure rule is likely to come before Christmas.” A human capital rule also is likely to come before the end of 2021, “requiring some disclosure about workforce pay and labor-related issues,” he said. Accounting changes are likely on the horizon, and CFOs need to be prepared, he said. Jackson also hinted at what actions SEC Chair Gary Gensler will take. 

Thanks for reading! See you on Monday.

Sheryl Estrada
[email protected]

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Big deal

S&P Global Market Intelligence's Q2 2021 M&A and Equity Offerings Market Report, released on August 12, takes a look at U.S. Merger and acquisitions activity involving "blank-check companies," also known as special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs). Activity slowed from Q1, dropping 43.7% to $85.24 billion. SPAC IPOs continue to stay above levels seen before "the boom that started in 2020," the report found. However, between Q1 and Q2, the number of deals fell from 275 to 52, and the value of the U.S. Deals decreased from $91.37 billion to $11.70 billion, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Courtesy of S&P Global Market Intelligence

Going deeper

Here are a few Coins2Day reads for the weekend:

Leaderboard

Some notable moves from this past week:

David Borecky was promoted to the position of CFO at Impossible Foods, which develops plant-based substitutes for meat products. Borecky, a finance leader and interim CFO, originally joined the company as chief accounting officer and has led the accounting, tax, and financial operations of the organization for more than two years.

Sydney Carey was named CFO at Talkdesk, Inc., a software company. Carey joins Talkdesk from Sumo Logic, where she led the organization through an initial public offering. She also previously held CFO positions at Duo Security, Apttus, Zscaler, and MongoDB. Talkdesk announced it raised $230 million in recent funding, pushing valuation beyond $10 billion.

Christopher DelOrefice was named EVP and CFO at BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company), a global medical technology company, effective Sept. 6, 2021. DelOrefice succeeds Christopher Reidy, who will retire. DelOrefice is currently vice president of investor relations at Johnson & Johnson, where he was previously CFO of both the consumer and medical devices segments for North America.

Sharon McCollam was named president and CFO at Albertsons Companies, effective Sept. 7, 2021. McCollam succeeds Bob Dimond, who is retiring and will remain as an advisor through February 2022. McCollam retired from Best Buy in 2016 where she served as EVP, chief administrative and chief financial officer. Prior to Best Buy, McCollam held several leadership positions at Williams-Sonoma.

Jeneen Minter was named CFO at GoFundMe, a global fundraising platform. Most recently, Minter was chief financial and analytics officer at Material Bank. Prior to that, she was the head of finance for sustainable shoe retailer Allbirds, and CFO at REVOLVE Clothing. 

Overheard

"How many times are you with a bunch of investors and somebody asks you about this, and you rattle off all the things you do? And they say, 'Well, we didn't know you did that.' This gives you a chance to objectify that discussion."

—Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan on one of the reasons why it's necessary to work towards a standardized set of stakeholder ESG metrics, as told to Coins2Day.