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.
ORIX to Sell ORIX Bank to Daiwa Next Bank for $2.5 B
ORIX Corporation announced the sale of its wholly‑owned subsidiary ORIX Bank to Daiwa Next Bank for ¥370 billion (about $2.5 billion). The deal, slated for completion by October 2026, will generate ¥124.2 billion in pre‑tax income and ¥318.4 billion in extraordinary gains for ORIX, while expanding Daiwa’s footprint in digital lending.
Piano Software Elevates COO Nick Worth to CEO, Aiming to Accelerate AI‑Driven Growth
Piano Software announced that COO Nick Worth will become chief executive officer, ending a months‑long interim stint. The move follows Worth's turnaround of the business to positive EBITDA and a strategic partnership with Stripe, positioning the firm for deeper AI‑driven...
(Comic) The Estimate Game
The comic "The estimate game" spotlights a familiar software‑development dilemma: engineers who deliver the shortest project estimates are often the ones who miss deadlines, so teams default to slower, more reliable estimators. The illustration captures a conversation where a manager...
Disney's AI Adoption Dashboard Shows 4,800 Employees Burning 16.4 B Tokens in Nine Days
Disney’s internal AI Adoption Dashboard captured 4,800 product and tech employees generating 3.1 B Claude tokens and 13.3 B Cursor tokens over a nine‑day span, translating to an estimated $185,000 and $627,000 in usage costs. The data, revealed by Business Insider, offers...
Microsoft, OpenAI Revise Deal, Opening Door for Anthropic and Google Cloud Access
Microsoft and OpenAI announced an amended partnership that ends exclusive Azure revenue sharing and lets OpenAI deliver its services on any cloud platform. The change paves the way for collaborations with rivals such as Anthropic and Google, forcing CFOs to...
CEOs Flag Flexibility and Resilience as Top Priorities Amid War, AI and Supply Shocks
At the Converge Live summit in Singapore, CNBC interviewed more than 30 chief executives who said flexibility and resilience have eclipsed long‑term planning as the chief leadership imperatives. The CEOs cited ongoing geopolitical conflict, accelerating AI adoption and soaring supply‑chain...
Stellantis CEO Antonio Filosa Shifts Investment to Jeep, Ram, Peugeot and Fiat
Stellantis CEO Antonio Filosa told investors the automaker will concentrate funding on four core marques—Jeep and Ram in North America, Peugeot and Fiat in Europe—while the remaining ten brands become regional players. Backed by top shareholder Exor, the plan follows...
Deutsche Börse Confirms 2026 Guidance as Q1 Profit Rises 11% to €585 M
Deutsche Börse Group kept its 2026 guidance unchanged after posting a first‑quarter net profit of €585 million, an 11% rise from the prior year. The results, driven by higher EBITDA and solid earnings per share, signal confidence in the firm’s core...
Vast Coworking Group Rolls Out Intelligent Assistant Franchise for Virtual Receptionists
Vast Coworking Group announced the launch of Intelligent Assistant®, a stand‑alone franchise that provides hyper‑local virtual receptionist and admin support. The new brand leverages more than 30 years of Intelligent Office experience and serves over 150,000 calls per month, offering...
AI Visual Tools Let Anyone Build Charts and Decks in Minutes
A wave of AI-driven visual tools—including Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini, Canva Magic Studio, FigJam AI and Venngage—now lets users generate charts, infographics and slide decks from raw data or text prompts in minutes. The technology promises to cut design time...
MEE6 Founders Keep Discord Moderation Platform Fully Founder‑owned and Profitable
MEE6’s co‑founders Brendan Rius and Anis Belkacem say the Discord moderation platform is entirely founder‑owned and generates profit without any outside capital. The profile underscores a high‑growth SaaS model that has avoided the typical venture‑backed path.
GitHub Copilot Shifts to Usage‑Based Billing Model
GitHub said its Copilot AI‑assisted coding service will transition from a flat‑rate subscription to a usage‑based billing structure. The change aims to align costs with actual AI code generation consumption and could reshape pricing expectations for SaaS developer tools.
CFTC Deploys AI to Streamline Crypto Registrations and Boost Market Surveillance
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced a rollout of artificial‑intelligence systems to automate crypto registration reviews and enhance trade surveillance. Chairman Mike Selig says the tools will help the agency maintain oversight despite a workforce reduction of more than one‑fifth.
No CEO at GH: Ops, Tech, Product Share Leadership
People who are sharing their take about reliability at GH: - The COO (owning operations) - The CTO (engineering) - The CPO (product) They are all peers to one another, and a subset of GH staff reports to them. You know who we don't hear...
The Timesheet Is Killing Your Firm
The post argues that the engineering and architecture industry’s reliance on timesheets and utilization rates has become a management liability. By treating billable hours as the sole performance metric, firms sacrifice training, technology adoption, and innovation. Salaried professionals often log...
AI Adoption Is a Challenge. Here’s a Solution.
Leaders are confronting a widening gap between AI investment and employee use, with 31% of U.S. knowledge workers and 41% of Gen Z actively resisting corporate generative‑AI initiatives. Research shows the resistance stems from unmet psychological needs—competence, autonomy, and relatedness—rather than...
Build and Organize an Effective Machine Learning Team
Businesses across sectors are racing to embed machine learning for innovation, efficiency, and competitive advantage. Companies can structure ML groups as centralized, decentralized or hybrid units, often operating in agile "AI pods" that blend data scientists, engineers, and project managers....
Asana Vs. Monday: I Built Projects and Picked a Side in 2026
A hands‑on comparison of Asana and Monday.com evaluated task management, analytics, integrations, user experience, automation, and pricing. Asana proved superior for granular controls, extensive integrations, and structured multi‑project workflows, while Monday excelled in visual customization, richer dashboard widgets, and a...
$188K in Delivery Fees Forced This Restaurant Owner to Ditch DoorDash and Uber Eats: ‘That’s Losses on Us’
Omaha restaurateur Javier Trujillo disclosed that his five eateries paid roughly $188,000 in delivery‑app commissions last year, prompting him to abandon DoorDash, Uber Eats and similar platforms. He said the fees eroded profit margins and even caused losses when drivers...
Humanizing the Ultimate Balancing Act
The article argues that aligning radiology, IT, finance, and operations in healthcare requires treating stakeholders as humans, not adversaries. It highlights that each function has non‑negotiable priorities—quality and safety for radiology, security for IT, margin for finance, and throughput for...
Merge CRO and UX: Optimize Post‑Conversion Experience
CRO wants to know whether users converted. UX wants to know whether it was easy. These get treated as separate questions requiring separate teams and separate presentations to management. But they're two lenses on the same problem, and keeping them...
Barry Diller Just Put Neil Vogel in Charge of His Media Empire. Here's Vogel's Strategy for Running People Inc.
Barry Diller renamed his IAC holding company People Inc. and installed Neil Vogel as chief executive of the entire media portfolio. Vogel, who previously relied on Google for about 70% of traffic, has seen that share fall to roughly 25%...
Maximize AI Impact by Fixing Bottlenecks, Not Uptime
Eli Goldratt's book, The Goal, was famous for its (then unpopular argument) that keeping every machine running 24 hours a day, the metric most plant managers cared about, was actively making factories worse. I suspect we're seeing the same fallacy...
Clear Roles Beat Seniority; Restructure, Don’t Mature
Stop calling it 'legal ops maturity.' You don't mature out of a misaligned operating model. You restructure out of it. A junior team with clear roles will outperform a senior team without them. Every time.
Practical Advice and Effective Tips: Streamlining Valuation Workflows for UK Accountants
UK accountants are transitioning from pure compliance to strategic advisory, making valuations a core service. Valutico’s platform streamlines data intake, offers benchmarking against 54,000 peers and 1.2 million transactions, and embeds qualitative risk analysis. Users report 50‑70% faster preparation and 96%...
What a Garage Cleanout Can Teach You About Operational Excellence: Spring Cleaning Your Operations
Operational inefficiencies pile up like garage clutter, slowing teams and inflating costs. The piece recommends a disciplined three‑step clean‑out: begin with a full process audit, then sort each activity into keep, fix, or toss, and finally reorganize with updated SOPs...
OpenAI Redefines Microsoft Deal, Opens Access to All Cloud Providers
OpenAI said on April 27 it will let any cloud platform sell its products, ending its long‑standing exclusivity with Microsoft. The move follows massive compute commitments and new multi‑cloud deals with Amazon and Google, reshaping governance of the AI giant’s infrastructure...
Fast Company Warns AI‑driven ‘Perfect Storm’ Threatens Legacy Consulting Firms
Fast Company’s latest analysis warns that a convergence of generative AI, rising interest rates and tighter client budgets is creating a “perfect storm” for traditional consulting powerhouses. The piece cites an 11% workforce reduction at McKinsey and salary freezes across...
Bila Solar Achieves ISO Certification at Indianapolis Panel Factory
Bila Solar, an Indianapolis‑based solar panel assembler, has secured ISO 9001:2015 certification for its quality management system. The company completed a two‑stage audit by American Certification Group, demonstrating documented procedures, internal audits, and effective day‑to‑day controls. Executives highlighted the accelerated timeline...
Atlassian Elevates CPO to Chief People and AI Enablement Officer, Expands Team to 3,500
Atlassian announced that chief people officer Avani Solanki Prabhakar will also serve as chief people and AI enablement officer, overseeing a newly expanded 3,500‑person workforce that blends HR and engineering. The move follows a 1,600‑employee reduction and signals a strategic...
DXC Unveils OASIS Platform to Automate AI‑Driven Managed Services for Enterprises
DXC Technology announced the launch of DXC OASIS, an intelligent orchestration platform that blends human expertise with agentic AI to deliver real‑time, predictive managed services across complex enterprise IT estates. The platform aims to replace reactive support models with a...
New Era Caps Appoints Lorenz Gan as COO in Sweeping Leadership Overhaul
New Era Cap announced a senior‑leadership reshuffle that installs Lorenz Gan as chief operating officer and Bruce Popko as president. The moves follow the integration of ’47 Brand and come as the company reports $2 billion in annual revenue, while three...
Vendoroo Integrates AI Front‑Desk and Maintenance Tools Into Rent Manager Platform
Vendoroo announced its entry into the Rent Manager Integrations Program, making its AI‑powered front‑desk and maintenance platform available to Rent Manager’s hotel and property‑management customers. The integration promises to slash manual maintenance coordination by as much as 95%, giving hotel...
Domino's Q1 2026 Revenue Rises 3.5% as Same‑Store Sales Edge Higher
Domino's Pizza posted a 3.5% revenue increase to $38.5 million and a 9.6% jump in income from operations for Q1 2026, while same‑store sales grew 0.9% in the U.S. and fell 0.4% internationally. The company added 180 net stores worldwide and approved...
Bank Millennium Posts $72 M Q1 Profit, Beats Forecast as Polish Banking Gains Momentum
Bank Millennium announced a first‑quarter profit of PLN 301 million ($72 million), up from PLN 179 million a year earlier, while revenue slipped 0.7% to PLN 1.595 billion. The earnings beat lifts sentiment toward Poland’s banking sector and puts pressure on peers to deliver similar growth.
ExxonMobil Taps Advisers to Sell Hong Kong Fuel‑station Network for up to $600 Million
ExxonMobil hired financial advisers to market its Hong Kong Esso‑branded fuel‑station network, a portfolio of about 41 sites that could fetch $500‑$600 million. The sale comes as the oil major braces for a first‑quarter earnings dip and re‑examines its downstream footprint...
SpaceX Eyes $60 Billion Purchase of AI Coding Startup Cursor
SpaceX has signed a deal that gives it the option to buy AI‑coding platform Cursor for $60 billion later this year, or to pay $10 billion for a collaborative partnership if the acquisition does not close. The terms, reported by multiple outlets,...
How to Build a Data-Driven Culture in Your Organization
Building a data‑driven culture requires more than technology—it demands a top‑down commitment, clear metrics, and seamless access to information. Leaders must model data‑informed decisions, while teams develop relevant KPIs that translate raw numbers into actionable insight. Embedding analysts across departments...
How Do You Keep Fatherhood Facilitators Engaged?
Recent Social Impact Staff Retention data shows 71% of nonprofit workers are actively looking for a new job within a year, while 74% stay because they feel a strong connection to their mission. High turnover is especially damaging for fatherhood...
Helping Engineers Thrive From First Spark to Fielded Capability
Integer Technologies has been named one of Engineering.com’s Top Workplaces for Engineers 2026. The company’s “cradle‑to‑grave” model gives engineers ownership of projects from early‑stage discovery through fielded capabilities for the U.S. Navy. Close collaborations with universities such as LSU, USC,...
Barry Diller’s IAC to Change Name to ‘People Incorporated,’ Plans to Lay Off 77 Staffers in Consolidation of Corporate Functions
Barry Diller’s IAC announced it will rename itself People Incorporated by its Q2 earnings in August, reflecting a strategic focus on its People publishing portfolio and its growing stake in MGM Resorts. The rebrand follows a consolidation plan that will...
Never Let Tenants Bypass Your Team
Cardinal rule of property management: Never allow tenants to go around your team to get a different answer from you. - Undermines your team’s credibility w tenants - Demoralizes them - Guarantees you get a lot more, similar calls going forward (If you...
Scale by Simplifying, Not Complicating, to Hit $2B
Most companies can reach $500M through hustle and heroics. Getting to $2B is different. After meeting with leaders from the U.S., Europe, and Japan at a global consumer company, one lesson stood out: scale only works when doing more becomes...
Why Your Team Won’t Speak Up (And How to Fix It)
In a Harvard Business Review IdeaCast, Charles Duhigg explains why employees stay silent and offers a research‑backed playbook for leaders to unlock candor. He stresses that merely stating a desire for openness isn’t enough; organizations must reward honest input and...
Bridge News Owner’s Past Missteps Threaten Media Legacy
Bridge News is owned by Five Hour Energy founder Manoj Bhargava whose disastrous management of Sports Illustrated put the future of the venerable publication at risk a couple years ago. Interestingly, Bhargava has given millions to GOP-aligned groups/causes. https://t.co/na3l9HTmDP
Company Bets on Paper over AI for Profits
Corporate bellwether JC Dithers & Co. bravely refuses to invest further in A.I., believing paper-based processes and full time employees will deliver fuller profit margins than digital automation... https://t.co/NdP2BXLFhE
United Airlines’ Chief Customer Officer on Scaling CX Through Operations
United Airlines’ Chief Customer Officer, Jeff Smisek, outlined a new operating model that embeds customer‑experience (CX) metrics directly into flight‑deck and ground‑operations decision‑making. The airline is rolling out real‑time sentiment dashboards, predictive staffing tools and a unified CX scorecard tied...
Vision Alignment Crucial Before SAP/Oracle ERP Deployment
Deploying SAP or Oracle isn't enough. Clearly articulate the project's vision to avoid ERP implementation failure. Ensure executive team alignment and vision before you begin. #ERP #ProjectManagement https://t.co/VCOUxeJmS5
Overseas Hires Work Harder, Cost 70% Less
95% of my hiring is overseas. From executives to management to front line. They work harder, complain less and cost 70% less than hiring in America. If you are an entrepreneur and you aren't doing this I feel sorry for you. https://t.co/unrQYUcqfe
Cash Flow Must Cover Wage, Debt, and ROI
The three objectives you need to achieve from the cash flow of a #smallbiz: 1. Take home a wage 2. Service debt 3. Receive an adequate ROI. If you can’t achieve all three, yet proceed with a deal, you’re just...