Chief financial officer

The chief financial officer (CFO) or chief financial and operating officer (CFOO) is a corporate officer primarily responsible for managing the financial risks of the corporation. This officer is also responsible for financial planning and record-keeping, as well as financial reporting to higher management. In some sectors the CFO is also responsible for analysis of data. The title is equivalent to finance director (FD), a common title in the United Kingdom. The CFO typically reports to the chief executive officer and to the board of directors, and may additionally sit on the board. The CFO supervises the finance unit and is the chief financial spokesperson for the organization. The CFO reports directly to the president/chief executive officer (CEO) and directly assists the chief operating officer (COO) on all strategic and tactical matters as they relate to budget management, cost–benefit analysis, forecasting needs and the securing of new funding.

Qualification

Most CFOs of large companies have finance qualifications such as a Master of Business Administration, Master of Science, or come from an accounting background such as a Certified Public Accountant. A finance department would usually contain some accountants with Certified Public Accountant, Chartered Accountant, Certified Management Accountant, Chartered Certified Accountant, or equivalent status.

Sam Roberts

Sam Roberts (born October 2, 1974) is a Canadian rock singer-songwriter, whose 2001 debut release, The Inhuman Condition, became one of the bestselling independent releases in Quebec and Canadian music history.

Life and career

Born in Westmount, to South African immigrants who had arrived in Montreal three weeks earlier, Roberts grew up on Cedar Avenue in Pointe-Claire, where his family moved to when he was five years old. Roberts is an alumnus of St. Edmund Elementary School, Beaconsfield, Loyola High School, N.D.G. and John Abbott College, Ste. Anne de Bellevue and McGill University. Roberts' first band was William in 1993, then changed to Northstar in 1996. Although prominent in the local indie rock scene, the band never got a major record contract and broke up in 1999. Roberts' bandmate George Donoso went on with The Dears, leaving Roberts to struggle for several years.

Disbanding Northstar, Roberts recorded his homemade demo, Brother Down. In 2001, Roberts recorded and independently released the EP, The Inhuman Condition. It wasn't promoted much but following a record contract with MapleMusic Recordings, Roberts' two breakthrough singles, "Brother Down" (released in mid-2002) and "Don't Walk Away Eileen" (released in late 2002) were heavily promoted in the Canadian market.

Ruth Porat

Ruth Porat (born 1957) is an American financial executive, who is the current CFO of Alphabet (of which Google is a subsidiary) as of May 2015. She was Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President of Morgan Stanley from January 2010 to May 2015.

Early life and education

Porat was born to a Jewish family in Sale, Greater Manchester England, the daughter of Dr. Dan and Frieda Porat. She moved at a young age to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where her father was a research fellow in the physics department at Harvard University. Her father later relocated the family to Palo Alto, California where he worked at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory for 26 years. Porat is a graduate of Stanford University, and holds a master of science from The London School of Economics and an MBA from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Career

Morgan Stanley

Porat started her career at Morgan Stanley in 1987 but left to follow Morgan Stanley President Robert F. Greenhill to Smith Barney in 1993 and returned to Morgan Stanley in 1996. Before becoming CFO, she served as Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, from September 2003 to December 2009 and Global Head of the Financial Institutions Group from September 2006 through December 2009. She was previously the co-head of Technology Investment Banking and worked for Morgan Stanley in London. Her financial partner during the Internet investment banking craze was Mary Meeker, who is the godmother to Porat’s three children.

This Life

This Life is a BBC television drama that was produced by World Productions and screened on BBC Two. Two series were broadcast in 1996 and 1997 and a reunion special in 2007. The series centres on the life of five twentysomething law graduates embarking upon their careers while sharing a house in south London.

It is considered to be the definitive statement on twentysomething life in mid-1990s "Cool Britannia" London and is notable for its Britpop soundtrack and pushing of sex and drugs broadcasting boundaries of the time.

Production

The series was created by, and some episodes written by, Amy Jenkins. Other writers contributed scripts, including Joe Ahearne (who also directed some episodes—the only person to do both on the series), Ian Iqbal Rashid, Amelia Bullmore and Matthew Graham. Tony Garnett was the executive producer and Jane Fallon worked as a producer on both series.

When the first series was screened it was a modest critical success, rather than being a ratings "hit". Nevertheless, the original production agreement secured a second series. In the lead-up to the broadcast of the second series, the entire first series was repeated, helping to generate a critical "buzz" around the programme, to the point that millions of viewers were waiting to discover the ultimate resolutions to the various plot-lines and generating front-page newspaper coverage.

Canadian Tire

Canadian Tire Corporation, Limited is a Canadian retail company which sells a wide range of automotive, sports and leisure, and home products. Some stores also sell food products. Retail operations include Canadian Tire, the core retail and automotive service operation, which operates a large car repair garage in each store; Canadian Tire Petroleum; men’s, women’s, and work apparel retailer Mark's; sporting goods and sportswear retail conglomerate Forzani Group Limited (see separate article stub); and PartSource, retailing auto parts and accessories. Its head office is in Toronto, Ontario. The retailer is known for its Canadian Tire money, a loyalty program first introduced in 1958, where customers are provided with coupons resembling paper money worth 0.5% of their purchase that can be used in subsequent purchases as scrip at Canadian Tire stores and gas stations.

History

On September 15, 1922, John William Billes and Alfred Jackson Billes invested their combined savings of $1,800 in The Hamilton Tire and Garage Ltd (established in 1909 as the Hamilton Garage and Rubber Company) in Toronto. Hamilton Tire & Garage was sold in 1923 and the Billes brothers moved several times before they settled their site at 639 Yonge Street.