Good morning,
It’s Friday already?
On Fridays we’ll be sharing highlights from the week in corporate finance. Here’s what went on this week:
Square CFO Amrita Ahuja shared with me her perspective on cryptocurrencies. “There’s absolutely a case for every balance sheet to have Bitcoin on it,” she said. Square invested $50 million in Bitcoin in October 2020, followed by a $170 million investment in February. “Last year, we had 3 million customers buying and selling Bitcoin on our platform; and in January, we had 1 million new customers to Bitcoin, alone,” Ajuha said. “The investment that we made on our balance sheet for Bitcoin represents about 5% of our cash; we intend to hold for the long term here.”
U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, the first woman to serve as governor of Rhode Island, told me that companies should invest in women. “No company today can afford to not have women in their boardroom or in their leadership ranks because they’ll be missing out on too much talent,” said Raimondo, who had a career in venture capital, founding her own firm. The Secretary also discussed the disproportionate effects on women in the workplace amid the coronavirus pandemic. Raimondo pointed to the American Rescue Plan Act’s “historic childcare tax credit” as one of the many measures she thinks will help.
Robinhood has filed paperwork with the SEC for an IPO, according to reports. The brokerage app’s CFO Jason Warnick spent nearly 20 years at Amazon. When Warnick joined Robinhood in 2018, he said he was looking “forward to advancing our mission to democratize America’s financial system.” But the IPO process is well known for benefitting Wall Street insiders. How will that help the “little guy?” My colleague Shawn Tully gives us some insight in his new article. Robinhood is likely to choose an “affinity program” as part of its IPO, Shawn writes.
“It’s not a natural act to lock arms with competitors in my field,” Ali Dibadj, CFO and head of strategy at AllianceBernstein, told me. But there’s one area where investment management and strategy leaders are collaborating—diversity and inclusion initiatives. In February, Dibadj was appointed CFO of AllianceBernstein, where he was previously the head of finance & strategy. Dibadj says he works with an industry group of financial peers on developing best practices in diversity and inclusion. “What’s been interesting to me in this journey is that the link between financial and business health is crystal clear through D&I,” Dibadj said.
Thanks for joining me during my first week. Have a good weekend and see you back here Monday.
Sheryl Estrada
sheryl.estrada@fortune.com
Big deal
Can Biden legally cancel massive levels of student loan debt? While the president explores it, my colleague Lance Lambert charted the aggressive rise in student loan debt over the past two decades.
Going deeper
Here are a few good weekend reads:
Here’s how Deutsche Bank managed to survive unscathed from the Archegos block trade meltdown by Steven Arons, Eric Schatzker, and Donal Griffin
What Coursera’s post-pandemic future looks like by Lucinda Shen
How Martha Stewart became America's first self-made billionaire by Emma Hinchliffe
Leaderboard
Here are the notable moves from this past week:
Tara Comonte, president and CFO at Shake Shack, is stepping down to become a CEO at TMRW Life Sciences. Comonte, who joined Shake Shack in 2017, will remain in her role through May 7.
Michèle Huiban was named CFO of Travelzoo, a global Internet company. Huiban is a global executive with experience in the media, entertainment, and fashion industries.
Alex Ioffe was named the CFO of Galaxy Digital Holdings Ltd., the company announced in its fourth quarter 2020 financial results. Galaxy Digital is “actively preparing for a U.S. listing in the second half of 2021,” Founder and CEO Michael Novogratz said in the announcement.
Andrew E. Page was named executive vice president and CFO at Foot Locker, effective April 12. Page will succeed Lauren B. Peters who is retiring.
Armin Zerza was appointed CFO at Activision Blizzard. Zerza currently serves as chief commercial officer of Activision Blizzard and chief operating officer of Blizzard Entertainment. He will assume his new role in the company’s second fiscal quarter following the retirement of current CFO Dennis Durkin.
Overheard
"Innovators love ideas, and chief financial officers love metrics. But if you try to shrink-wrap your most promising ideas in a nice, tight layer of metrics too early, you’ll suffocate them."
— Scott Kirsner, editor of Innovation Leader on keeping financial metrics from stifling innovation.
