If you’re a CFO or seasoned finance professional, you may already have the right tools to start and run your own company. Now at the center of most business activities within an organization, today’s CFOs are well-equipped to see where there are business gaps and problems that need solving.

The broad operational and strategic experience of modern CFOs gives them a head start, according to Amy Spurling, founder and CEO of Compt, an employee perk stipend software platform for HR and a former long-time CFO herself. “I really do believe that most operational CFOs—as long as you’ve got an idea that you believe in—are sitting in a phenomenal position to start a business,” Spurling said. “So the question is, what do you need to put in place to actually go and start it? And that’s really just a matter of taking the leap.”

Today’s CFOs are much more engaged in aspects of a business that they may not have had direct exposure to in the past, from communications, to managing IT and HR, to business development—experience that can help when founding a business, Richard Deosingh, district president at accounting and finance staffing firm Robert Half, told CFO Brew. “They’re able to see the entire picture,” Deosingh said of CFOs. “Having that entire picture perspective—not just part of the jigsaw puzzle, but all of the pieces in the jigsaw puzzle, will certainly make them…more versed in solving the growing pains of a business today.”

Spurling also faced a common problem for CFOs: She couldn’t find products that allowed her to manage increasingly complicated employee compensation and perks. “I saw [the problem] and was very frustrated that the tool didn’t exist. I talked to lots of other CFOs, complained about it frequently, and was like, why isn’t somebody building this?” she said. Continue reading here.—DA

The dollar truly is almighty right now.

It reached a two-decade high on the US Dollar Index this week. The greenback is seeing a boost thanks to Federal Reserve interest rate hikes, and global investors and companies turning to the safety of dollar reserves in the face of uncertainty.

And the dollar’s strength is creating both economic winners and losers.

Here’s a quick look at who the strong dollar is helping, and who it’s hurting.

• Helping: Importers buying foreign goods with dollars are getting a great deal for their money right now, helping some companies blunt the impact of inflation.
• Hurting: On the other side of that coin, exporters producing goods in USD are eating their hats as American-made goods get more expensive abroad, limiting international sales.
• Helping: American tourists: A dollar this strong buys a lot more of a good time than it used to outside the US.
• Hurting: The bottom line for companies with significant international sales. Some companies are expecting significant revenue and profit dents from a strong dollar over the next few quarters.
• Helping: American consumers, hit hard by inflation, have more purchasing power as a dollar stretches a little further.
• Hurting: People in emerging markets trying to buy food and fuel, or pay debt. The strong dollar, combined with pressures from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, is increasing the price of staples the world over, threatening a global economic crisis.—DA

The Securities and Exchange Commission has announced charges against 16 Wall Street firms after finding that employees conducted business on their personal devices, in violation of federal securities laws. The companies have agreed to pay fines totaling more than $1.1 billion.

At issue are what the agency says are “pervasive off-channel communications,” with employees using messaging apps to conduct business between January 2018 and September 2021. The actions led to “widespread and longstanding failures by the firms and their employees to maintain and preserve electronic communications.”

The affected companies included “15 broker-dealers and one affiliated investment adviser,” according to the SEC. Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, and Barclays Capital are among the firms that have agreed to pay penalties of $125 million each.

“Finance, ultimately, depends on trust. By failing to honor their recordkeeping and books-and-records obligations, the market participants we have charged today have failed to maintain that trust,” SEC Chair Gary Gensler said in a statement. “Since the 1930s, such recordkeeping has been vital to preserve market integrity. As technology changes, it’s even more important that registrants appropriately conduct their communications about business matters within only official channels, and they must maintain and preserve those communications.”

Along with the monetary penalties, the firms were ordered to “cease and desist from future violations,” and agreed to conduct reviews of their policies and procedures around electronic record-keeping retention.—KL