We have read many stories about the magical growth of Starbucks. However, did you know that one of its first presidents had a background in furniture sales and did not hold a college degree?

Our guest is the author of It's Not About the Coffee, and Howard Behar saw store units grow from a small handful to more than 15,000 during his two stints as one of its presidents.

In this conversation, we'll learn why Mark's favorite line is, "If you grow people, the people grow the business. That’s it. That’s the number-one priority." Howard discusses the Monday night meetings, dealing with crises, and why he had to stop wearing his feelings on his sleeve.

As my consulting practice started taking off about twenty years ago, I started reading everything I could by Fred Nickols, who blogged regularly for the software vendor, SmartDraw.

Fred's articles were short, to the point, and always included a simple visual framework that was easy to comprehend. I ultimately read every post on that blog.

Fred is a long-time consultant who calls himself a solutions engineer. In this conversation, we talk about his favorite frameworks and the origins of those mental models.

We live in a small business world where the Chief Fractional Officer is becoming indispensable.

Before even considering hiring the Fractional Sales Manager, the Fractional Marketing Officer, or even the Fractional CFO, I'd start one hundred percent of the time with the Fractional Chief People Officer.

Susannah Robinson has worked in big-company HR for more than twenty years. Now, as the head of a fractional people agency called Partnership for Talent, she has written a simple and pragmatic guide on organizational design for small businesses. In this conversation, we discuss her new book, Beyond the Boxes and Lines.

I'm betting that over half the CFO Bookshelf listenership participate in an NCAA tournament basketball pool at the office. Accordingly, I thought I'd share a story from a basketball legend I don't think I've ever heard retold from a leadership expert during a speaking event.

I end this special episode on my three favorite basketball movies. What are yours?

Before I start reading a book on Warren Buffett, and there are many, I want to know if this book has been written before—the ones where the narratives essentially state the same thing about Buffett's investing style.

In the case of Brett Gardner's new book on Buffett, he checks all the boxes of a fascinating investment book. It's informative, inspiring, and even entertaining. More importantly, the book Buffett's Early Investments is not a rehash of Buffett material you've read before.

Instead, Brett takes us on a journey involving several of Buffett's early stock acquisitions, how they shaped and molded his later investment style, and how these deals inspired the Berkshire Hathaway business model as we know it today.

When I first experienced the Cynefin Framework in an HBR article many years ago, I never tried to adapt it to my work until I interviewed Bryce Hoffman, author of American Icon and Red Teaming, a few years ago.

While Bryce made the Cynefin Framework seem more understandable and accessible, Kevin Eikenberry has gone further to show leaders how to act when surrounded by varying problems they are trying to navigate with this sensemaking framework.

Kevin has written nearly 20 books, and his newest title is Flexible Leadership which includes a better approach to holistic thinking, the Cynefin Framework and the use of flexors.

CFO Bookshelf had never heard of Ivar Kreuger until the former Managing Director of CFO.com suggested we discuss the book, The Match King.

Andy Burt joins Mark Gandy to explain why Ivar Kreuger is a financial mastermind worthy of studying and what led to his downfall.

At one time, Kreuger was worth billions in today's dollars, but his empire, built on a house of debt, could not withstand the Great Depression or a subsequent audit when he tried to raise cash by liquidating a key asset.

A story made for Hollywood reveals what drove Kreuger and why U.S. securities laws were created after his downfall.

I recently came across a book that's been out for over 10 years by an exceptional and tenacious researcher and an engaging writer, Lodewijk Petram. His book, The World's First Stock Exchange, might be the first to explore how early investors first bought and traded shares of the VOC of this next stock exchange.

The founding of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in 1602 marked the beginning of Amsterdam’s rise from a modest market town to a global financial powerhouse. The Company’s introduction of easily transferable shares quickly led to active trading, with investors exchanging them within days. Before long, the public was engaging in complex financial maneuvers—ranging from forwards and futures to options and bear raids. By 1680, the Amsterdam market had developed techniques as advanced as those used in modern finance, topics we explore in this conversation with Lodewijk.