| A chat with Moonsun Park of Sharp Electronics USA. |
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Hi there. The PCAOB is currently developing a proposal related to auditors’ ability to provide “negative assurance,” which is accounting-speak for “we found no evidence that something isn’t kosher in these financial statements.” We’d like to submit our own negative assurance: We found nothing to dispute the assertion that CFO Brew readers are the most well-informed among their finance-leader peers. 😉 In this issue: #️⃣ Staying (at) Sharp 👟 Just restructure it 💊 Betting the pharma —Courtney Vien, Demi Lawrence, Maia Anderson |
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CFOVILLE “We have to be good listeners”  Illustration: Morning Brew Inc., Photos: Moonsun Park, Adobe Stock | Sharp Electronics Corporation USA CFO and SVP of Finance Moonsun Park has been with the electronics company for almost 29 years, starting as an accounting manager and moving through roles such as director of FP&A and controller before becoming CFO in 2018. In case you need a refresher, Sharp Electronics’ parent company, founded in Japan in 1912, was at the forefront of the electronics revolution, developing, among other products, the world’s first electronic calculator. The US subsidiary’s diverse portfolio now includes office equipment, home appliances, LCD components, and IT services. Park spoke with CFO Brew about her career experience—moving from controller to CFO, having an influential mentor, and starting a women’s group at Sharp, a project she finds “invigorating.” This interview has been edited for length and clarity. How has the finance function changed over the time that you’ve been with Sharp? When I joined, we were implementing SAP. We were using a homegrown greenscreen system, and at the time, I’m not even sure if Excel was around. It may have been Lotus 123. The main functions were reconciliations and audits and closing the books. It took us probably 17 days to close, and that was the norm. We had green sheets that were printed, as opposed to saving everything online. Now I would say finance is very much a partner, and we’re part of strategy conversations, and we’re part of technology implementation. “I feel like there’s almost no limit to what [a CFO] can get involved in,” Park says.—CV |
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Sponsored By Lineos from insightsoftware Mind the (insights) gap  | The Lineos 2026 State of AI in Finance report recently dropped and revealed a stark insight gap in corporate finance. Just take a look at some of the numbers: - 86% of finance professionals reported hitting a barrier turning data into actionable insight.
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- Only 36% say they fully trust AI-generated financial results, even as adoption grows.
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STRATEGY Nike restructuring, round 2  Ozgurdonmaz/Getty Images | Nike, the global leader in the sportswear market, has seen better days. On its Q1 2027 earnings call on October 1, it revealed another restructuring plan. (The last one was announced in 2023.) This plan should result in about $2.5 billion in savings, the majority in fiscal years ’29 and ’30. Meanwhile, the S&P 100 dropped Nike last month, and the company’s Q1 2027 revenues fell 4%. Not necessarily an easy first earnings call for Nike’s relatively new CFO, David Denton. The former Pfizer CFO joined in August. On the Q1 call, Denton said one of his main focuses is bringing sustainable growth to Nike’s performance business, which houses running, football/soccer, training, basketball, tennis, and golf. But “from a financial standpoint, the quarter continues to be defined by two different realities,” he said. “Our Nike performance portfolio delivered strong growth while Nike sportswear, the Jordan Brand, and Greater China remain significant headwinds to our consolidated results.” “Overall,” Denton said, Q1 earnings were “largely in line with our expectations for the quarter but clearly below the company’s long-term potential.” For fiscal 2027, Nike expects “revenues to decline in the high single-digit range,” he said. As has been widely reported, Nike has been “oversupplying…iconic retro product” like Air Jordans, “asking [those brands] to do too much,” Nike CEO and President Elliott Hill said on the earnings call. “With Jordan Brand footwear, we’re going to get back to leading the scarcity model that we created.” An industry analyst is hearing good things from retailers about Nike’s spring and fall product lines.—DL |
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HEALTH BENEFITS A shot at controlling drug spending  | The amount of money the US spends on pharmaceuticals is growing rapidly. Between 2023 and 2024, total pharmaceutical expenditures increased by 10.2% to $805.9 billion, largely driven by demand for GLP-1s, according to a 2025 study. Higher drug spend contributes to growth in overall US healthcare spending, which often raises insurance premium costs. Value-based payment models have become increasingly popular tools to control healthcare spending. Such payment models tie insurance reimbursements to quality metrics, such as improving patient health outcomes, rather than basing reimbursement solely on the quantity of services provided. The theory is that doing so both increases the quality of patient care and lowers overall costs, according to Mark Ey, SVP and COO of the National Community Pharmacists Association, a trade group. In 2025, more than half of primary care physicians received reimbursements from a value-based payment model, according to the Commonwealth Fund. Just 5% of employers and 26% of health plans had value-based pharmacy contracts as of 2023, Healthcare Brew reports.—MA |
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market forces .jpg) Francis Scialabba | Today’s top finance reads. Stat: 34%. That’s how much more expensive gasoline is than a year ago. Finance chiefs who worry about gassing up their commercial fleets probably know that better than anyone. (the New York Times) Quote: “What used to happen is you’d start off with a $10 green bowl, and then you go down the line, add all of these different things, and before you know it, you have a $22 salad and you’re pissed, right?”—Sweetgreen CFO Jamie McConnell, on the company’s push to shred (see what we did there?) its image as an expensive salad stop (Wall Street Journal) Read: Remote work has stabilized at around four times the rate seen before the pandemic. Its implications are far ranging; they include more opportunities for disabled people, (some) people having more babies, and greater use of AI. (Business Insider) *A message from our sponsor. |
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Jobs  | Skip the noise and cut to the jobs that matter. CollabWORK curates openings from top employers and shares them directly in trusted spaces like CFO Brew—click here to see the full list for readers like you. |
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