Jack McCullough knows a guy. Or, better said: Everybody knows Jack.

As founder of the CFO Leadership Council, an international network of thousands of senior finance execs, McCullough uniquely has his finger on the pulse of CFOville. So if he thinks you need an MBA for Lunch, which is, coincidentally, the name of his latest self-published book, you listen.

The interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.

When did you first start working on—or even just thinking about—this book as a topic?

I gave a presentation to a PE firm, or more exactly, to the CFOs within their portfolio. One of the PE people made the comment [that] they probably wouldn’t hire a CPA for a CFO [role] unless they had another credential. They just valued the MBA credential more. I got my MBA when I was in my 20s. It was pretty easy to do. In my case, I took a year and a half off and did it. It’s a little harder to get an MBA when you’re already CFO. If I had gotten my MBA at 45, say, at that point I had a house, full time job, I was president of this company, [had] two kids. It would have just been really difficult to do. And yet, CFOs, a lot of them need that credential.

I got my MBA in the 1990s, and the world’s changed just a little bit, and so has the nature of the CFO role. It was all of those things coming together, and the last [reason was] there was a data point, probably five years ago now…it was the first time there were more MBAs than CPAs amongst CFOs. And that was probably unthinkable ten years before. So I said, “Hey, can I get the essence of it in something that people can read in an hour?” I’d like to think I pulled it off.

For more on Jack McCullough’s new book, click here.—NP

The tariffs levied by President Donald Trump likely won’t bring manufacturing jobs back to the US, a CNBC survey of supply chain professionals suggests. Around six in 10 (61%) respondents CNBC polled said it would be more cost-effective for them to source goods from lower-tariff countries than to onshore. More than two-thirds said it would double (18%) or more than double (47%) their current costs to move supply chains back to the US.

The survey, which was fielded from April 7–10, polled 380 supply chain professionals at companies, trade groups, and associations in the manufacturing and logistics sectors, 120 of whom responded to all the questions.

Even if manufacturing were to return to the US, survey results suggested, manufacturing jobs might not. The majority of survey respondents—81%—said they’d prioritize automation over hiring in such a scenario.

Rebuilding US supply chains would also be a slow process. Four in 10 (41%) respondents who are considering reshoring said it would take three to five years to do so, while another third (33%) said it would take more than five years.

The vast majority of respondents (89%) said they’d seen orders canceled as a result of tariffs.

Click here for more what reshoring might really look like.—CV

Instead of just saying “tariffs, amirite?” in response to every financial inconvenience like the rest of us, some businesses are taking matters into their own hands suing Trump.

A group of small businesses filed a lawsuit in the US Court of International Trade against President Donald Trump on Monday, claiming his tariffs on foreign imports violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) that he invoked in enacting the tariffs.

That act gives the president power to regulate economic transactions in the event of national emergency. Excuse the lawyer-speak for a minute: While the IEEPA doesn’t include an explicit definition of national emergency, in a markup of the law in the House, Fred Bergsten, who served at the time as assistant secretary for International Affairs at the Treasury Department, commended the requirement that a national emergency be “based on an unusual and extraordinary threat” since that formulation “emphasizes that such powers should be available only in true emergencies.”

The justification behind designating a national emergency is a key argument of the suit, which was filed by the Liberty Justice Center, a legal advocacy group representing companies harmed by the tariffs.

In claiming that trade deficits amount to an emergency, the suit argues Trump has overstepped Congress’s power.

Continue reading here.—NP

Fraud detection, risk assessment, automated trading—AI is reshaping the finance function. But are the tools you’re using actually worth the hype? Join us on April 30 for a virtual event exploring how AI is transforming financial decision-making. From data extraction to predictive modeling, we’ll dive into how finance teams can leverage AI to move with greater agility and intelligence.

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