Today's Management Pulse
Founder risk drives steep valuation discounts in owner‑led services firms
Dr. Dave Heath explains that founder‑dependency in owner‑led services firms mirrors the manager‑risk LPs assess in private‑equity funds. Buyers, banks and investors price this key‑person risk with 30‑50% valuation discounts or higher loan spreads. The risk stems from undefined decision authority, undocumented founder judgment, and missing exception handling.
What Sets Successful Recruitment Firms Apart?
Recruitment firms that prioritize trust, technology, talent development, and solid business foundations outperform competitors. Transparent communication builds client and candidate confidence, while data‑driven tools streamline hiring without compromising quality. Investing in continuous recruiter training and regular tech‑stack audits ensures teams stay skilled and efficient. A clear legal structure and robust financial controls further reinforce credibility and resilience.
Match Your Finance Function to Company Size for Efficiency
There are 4 stages of a finance and accounting function. Most companies are running the wrong one for the size they're at right now. On May 8th at 1 PM ET, I'm going live with Ramp during their Small Business Week...
Long Lake Capital to Acquire Amex GBT for $6.3 B, Boosting AI‑Driven Travel Services
Long Lake Capital announced a definitive agreement to buy American Express Global Business Travel for $6.3 billion, creating a privately held AI‑enhanced travel platform. The deal, slated to close in the second half of 2026, brings together Long Lake’s applied‑AI engine...
Energi.AI Acquires CEMAsys to Boost Data‑Driven Sustainability Consulting
Energi.AI announced the acquisition of Norway‑based sustainability advisory CEMAsys, a move that will expand its AI platform, quadruple its customer base and add advisory expertise. The deal signals a shift toward automated, decision‑grade climate data in the consulting market.
Lattice to Acquire AMI for $1.65 B, Boosting AI‑Driven Operations Platform
Lattice Semiconductor signed a definitive agreement to buy platform‑firm AMI for $1.65 billion, split between $1 billion in cash and $650 million in stock. The deal is expected to be immediately accretive to gross margin, free cash flow and non‑GAAP EPS, and to...
Signature Staging Rolls Out Concierge Home‑Staging Service for Luxury Market
Signature Staging, founded by architect Melina Bernecker and engineer Drew Ward, announced a new concierge‑style service that manages every aspect of staging luxury properties in Southern California. The model promises to eliminate client friction by handling logistics, renovations, moves and emergencies under...
ServiceNow's AI Blitz: Acquires Moveworks, Veza and Armis to Supercharge HR Automation
ServiceNow announced the rapid acquisition of AI startups Moveworks, Veza and Armis, targeting tighter workflow automation for its HR Service Delivery suite. The moves come as the $94 billion‑valued firm battles a 38% year‑to‑date stock decline and seeks fresh growth beyond...
Twilio CEO Unveils $5B-to-$10B Turnaround Focused on DevOps and Reliability
Twilio chief executive Khozema Shipchandler announced a sweeping turnaround that narrows the company’s focus to nine strategic bets, aims to double revenue from $5 billion to $10 billion, and prioritizes platform reliability and DevOps efficiency. The plan tackles the stalled integration of...
Trex Names Zachary C. Lauer COO, Sets $493K Salary and 60% Bonus Target
Trex Company announced the promotion of Zachary C. Lauer to chief operating officer, pairing the role with a $493,000 base salary, a cash incentive equal to 60% of salary and a long‑term equity target of 135% of salary. The move...
Finn Partners’ Steven L. De Luca Named to Marquis Who’s Who for Marketing Leadership
Steven L. De Luca, senior partner of business development and marketing at Finn Partners, has been selected for inclusion in Marquis Who’s Who. The honor highlights a career that delivered a 40% revenue lift at American Express’s DEPARTURES unit, tripled...
Cognizant Lands ServiceNow AI Platform Deal with JG Summit to Streamline IT Across Conglomerate
Cognizant has been chosen by JG Summit Holdings to implement ServiceNow's AI Platform and provide managed services, creating a unified IT service management framework for the conglomerate's diverse businesses. The engagement targets standardized processes, AI‑ready automation and cost‑predictable support, underscoring...
Cerberus Names Rahul Sangwan Head of India, Boosting Credit Push
Cerberus Capital Management announced that longtime credit veteran Rahul Sangwan will become Head of India, overseeing a platform that has deployed billions in credit across the subcontinent. The move signals the firm’s intent to deepen its alternative‑capital footprint in a...
ZDNET Flags AI Agent Sprawl, Calls for Agent Management Platforms as New HR‑Tech
ZDNET’s latest analysis warns that the global AI agent population, now at 28.6 million, could exceed 2.2 billion by 2030, creating a governance nightmare for enterprises. The outlet urges firms to treat agent management platforms as a core HR‑technology, likening them to...
Pinterest Posts 18% Q1 Revenue Rise as Ad Spend Rebounds
Pinterest announced first‑quarter revenue of $1.01 billion, up 18% year‑over‑year, as advertising spend surged and monthly active users hit a record 631 million. The growth was powered by AI‑enhanced ad products and a $2 billion share‑repurchase program, even as the company posted a...
From Waste to Workflow: How Restaurants Are Turning Food Waste Into a Business Advantage
Restaurants are reclassifying food waste from a cost center to a profit lever as margins tighten. In the United States, the sector discards roughly 11.4 million tons of food each year—an estimated $25 billion in value—yet studies show a dollar invested in...
Building Blackstone, Backing Costco, with Tony James
In this episode, David Haber interviews Tony James, a veteran of DLJ and Blackstone, about the evolution of modern private markets and the principles behind building enduring firms. James recounts how DLJ grew from a tiny boutique to a top‑five...
The “Mirror Test” Every Leader Needs Before Adopting AI
In this episode, host David Rice and AI‑strategy expert Victoria Pelletier discuss why leaders must first "hold up a mirror" to understand the actual task‑level work happening in their organizations before launching AI initiatives. They explain a bottom‑up approach that...
Tomas Vondra: How Are Committers Selected?
PostgreSQL’s committer selection is an informal, annual process that has shifted from a small core‑team committee to the broader group of roughly 30 existing committers. Candidates are evaluated on years of substantial code contributions, maintenance responsibilities, and community mentorship, with...
How to Use HubSpot Marketing Hub for Print-on-Demand in 2026
HubSpot Marketing Hub lets print‑on‑demand (POD) sellers unify Shopify or WooCommerce stores with print providers such as Printful, automating cart recovery, reorder nudges and AI‑generated messages. The guide walks users through a free CRM setup, connecting the store and print...
5 Ways High-Performing Teams Stay Calm when Everything’s on Fire
When markets swing and workloads explode, most teams double down on meetings, longer hours, and frantic updates, mistaking activity for control. High‑performing teams break this cycle by embedding repeatable habits that cut through chaos. The first habit is establishing a...
Great Managers Mentor, Not Just Boss
Many managers act like "bosses" instead of "mentors." The reality is, all the best managers are actually mentors.
AI-Ready CMO Live with Ammann Badlani
In a recent AI‑Ready CMO interview, Ammann Badlani argues that the agency model is morphing from a creative‑service shop into a software‑grade orchestration platform. He stresses that merely adopting AI tools is no longer a differentiator; the real moat lies...
Meet the… Operations Manager
Chris Chapman, operations manager at data‑analytics startup Humans Not Robots, spends each day juggling strategic talks with the CEO and CTO, mid‑morning product problem‑solving with developers, and afternoon syncs with project managers on R&D and client work. The role hinges...
Why ‘Firefighting’ Is a Bad Strategy for Facilities Management
Facilities managers often describe their daily grind as "firefighting"—reacting to leaks, outages, and equipment failures instead of preventing them. Experts argue that a weak preventive‑maintenance program fuels this cycle, leading to higher repair costs and unplanned downtime. Centralizing asset data,...
You Don’t Have a Quality Policy Until You Live It
Many organizations treat quality policies as paperwork, but they rarely translate into daily behavior. The article highlights how audits focus on document compliance, creating a false sense of security, while real quality depends on leadership modeling, employee empowerment, and clear,...
The Most Expensive Person on Your Unit Is the One You Just Eliminated
Hospitals are replacing dedicated charge nurses with "working" charge nurses to trim the roughly $110,000 annual salary per unit, presenting a tidy line‑item saving to finance teams. The move, however, triggers higher turnover, longer lengths of stay, more readmissions, lower...
Your ITSM Operating Model Is Blocking AI Adoption
The article contends that traditional, reactive IT service management (ITSM) models consume 35‑45% of engineering bandwidth, leaving virtually no capacity for AI initiatives. Adding headcount merely absorbs the same workload, so AI pilots stall despite approved budgets and vendor contracts....
Built Environment Competency Guidance Nears Publication
Guidance titled "Managing Competence in the Built Environment" is nearing publication, translating the Industry Competence Committee’s 15 competence principles into practical steps for the sector. Developed by the Industry Task and Finish Group, which includes over 40 professional bodies and...
Prioritize What Matters, Not More Work
The difference between feeling overwhelmed… and feeling in control? It’s not working harder. It’s knowing what actually matters. Most people don’t struggle with time. They struggle with prioritisation. Because when everything feels important, nothing truly is. Master this one skill, and your days start to feel...
Phased Asia‑Pacific Rollout Ensures Smooth, Productive Launch
Tennant's rollout strategy began in Asia-Pacific, a less complex phase than US or European operations. This phased approach ensured a smoother implementation, aiming for an uneventful go-live that drives productivity improvements over time. #RolloutStrategy #BusinessTech https://t.co/jVI8ZHD8c3
Why Change Fails: The Hidden Games Your Organisation Is Playing
Organisational change programs continue to flop, with Kearney reporting an 83% failure rate and Deloitte finding only 27% of firms feel they manage change well. The article argues that most initiatives focus on surface‑level content while ignoring the hidden "games"—the...
Building Maven Clinic when No One Believed with CEO Kate Ryder
In this episode of Lifers, CEO Kate Ryder discusses the evolution of Maven Clinic, the first unicorn in women's health, focusing on the challenges of scaling from $200M to $500M in revenue and aligning every part of the business. She...
Systems Thinking: Key to Scaling Complex Businesses
The Systems Thinking Approach emphasizes understanding the interconnections within a company, which is essential for scaling successfully in today's complex business environment. https://t.co/2ZkdIswD1j
Concierge Firm Co-Founded by Queen’s Nephew Went on ‘Ill-Timed’ Hiring Spree Before Iran War
Quintessentially, the luxury concierge firm co‑founded by Queen Camilla’s nephew Ben Elliot, expanded its Middle East and Asia workforce from 22 to 84 employees during the year to 30 April 2025, just months before the US‑Israel‑Iran conflict prompted wealthy clients to flee the...
How Cadillac Fairview Drives Shopping Centre Productivity
Cadillac Fairview drives high shopping‑centre productivity through a deliberate operating model that leverages location, tenant curation, and continual reinvestment. With 14 Canadian malls, 38% of the population lives within a 20‑minute drive, creating a built‑in traffic engine. The firm continuously reshapes...
Estée Lauder Expands Global Job Cuts, Restructuring Plan
Estée Lauder has expanded its restructuring plan, targeting 9,000‑10,000 job cuts—about 17.5% of its 57,000‑strong workforce—to generate roughly $1.2 billion in annual savings. The cuts focus on department‑store roles as the company pivots to digital channels like Ulta, Sephora, Amazon and...
I Built a Startup and Failed—AI Might Have Changed That
The author reflects on a 2012 medical‑device startup that failed because administrative overload eclipsed core product work. He argues that starting a social enterprise today with AI agents could have automated grant writing, reporting, and coordination, turning a one‑person effort...
AI Didn’t Reduce the Work, It Forced Us to Redesign It
An e‑commerce firm added an AI agent to its customer‑experience workflow expecting to cut workload. Ticket volume fell roughly 50% and response times improved, but the work did not disappear—it shifted toward system design, escalation handling, and managing uncertainty. The...
78% of North American Fleet Leaders Prioritize Cost Cuts, Element Report Finds
Element Fleet Management's 2026 Market Pulse Report reveals that 78% of fleet and mobility executives across the United States, Canada and Mexico are putting cost reduction at the top of their agenda. The shift reflects mounting economic pressure and a...
2025 Truck Registrations Slip 16% as Fleets Turn to Mixed Powertrains
Class 8 tractor registrations dropped 16% in 2025, and registrations across diesel, natural‑gas, hydrogen and electric drivetrains all fell. Fleet managers responded by diversifying powertrains, mixing diesel, CNG, battery‑electric and emerging technologies to hedge against a freight recession, fuel price...
Google Cloud and Accenture Deploy AI Lead‑Enrichment Engine Cutting Processing Time by 90%
Google Cloud, together with Accenture, has built an agentic AI lead‑enrichment engine that turns weeks‑long batch processing into a matter of hours. The system validates, enriches and routes 25,000 inbound records in real time, promising up to an 80% reduction...
SAP to Acquire Prior Labs, Investing Over €1 Billion to Build Europe’s Largest Frontier AI Lab
SAP announced a definitive agreement to purchase Prior Labs, the pioneer of tabular foundation models, and pledged over €1 billion (≈$1.08 billion) in four years to scale the unit into Europe’s largest frontier AI lab. The deal, pending regulatory clearance, positions SAP...
Opal Unveils Gem AI Copilot to Slash Marketers’ ‘Alignment Tax’
Opal introduced Gem, an AI‑powered copilot on April 14, to align campaign data with brand strategy and eliminate the so‑called “alignment tax.” The tool promises to cut hundreds of millions of dollars in wasted time and accelerate ROI measurement for...
MIT Sloan Defines Three Leader Archetypes to Boost Digital Innovation
MIT Sloan’s Center for Information Systems Research released a briefing that identifies three distinct leader roles—initiative, shared resource, and portfolio—to accelerate digital innovation. The model promises to curb waste and lift bottom‑line impact by coordinating cross‑functional teams and disciplined resource...
60% of U.S. Workers Say Their Boss Is Toxic, New Harris Poll Shows
A Harris Poll survey of 1,334 employed U.S. adults reveals that 60% currently have a toxic boss, while 70% have faced one at some point. The study links toxic leadership to heightened stress, financial loss and a surge in job...
Guangxi Steel Plant Cuts Coal Use by 60,000 Tonnes Using AI Model
Guangxi Iron & Steel, a Liuzhou Steel Group subsidiary, has fully embedded the Xuantie AI model across its blast‑furnace complex, delivering an 8.5% rise in production efficiency, saving roughly 60,000 tonnes of standard coal and cutting 262,000 tonnes of CO₂...
Amazon Deploys Claude Code and OpenAI Codex to Entire Workforce
Amazon announced that Anthropic's Claude Code and OpenAI's Codex will be accessible to all corporate employees, with Claude Code live immediately and Codex slated for May 12. The rollout, managed through AWS Bedrock, ends a period of internal friction over...
Meta Misses Earnings, Slows $135B Capex, Triggers Margin‑Pressure Concerns
Meta reported an earnings miss and announced a slowdown in its $135 B AI capital‑expenditure program, alongside 8,000 layoffs. The miss adds pressure on margins and fuels uncertainty for the broader Magnificent Seven rally that has lifted the S&P 500 13%...
Elevate Appoints Wade Clark as Chief Growth Officer to Drive Organic Expansion
Elevate, the operator‑led accounting and advisory platform, announced Wade Clark as its new Chief Growth Officer. Clark will lead a unified, data‑driven organic growth function that complements Elevate’s active M&A strategy, drawing on more than three decades of experience scaling...
Hercules Capital Promotes CFO to President, Names New CFO in Growth Push
Hercules Capital, the leading specialty finance firm, promoted longtime CFO Seth Meyer to President and appointed former Revelation Partners partner Andrew Olson as its new CFO effective May 18, 2026. The moves are designed to accelerate platform scaling and deepen...