ESG, pay transparency, and everything else CFOs were talking about this week

Here’s what happened this week:

“It’s actually one of my favorite things about my job—to get out of the mundane accounting and finance side of things and actually work with people,” Danielle Murcray, CFO at AttackIQ, said. “I personally love it.” At the Silicon Valley cybersecurity firm startup, Murcray wears different hats—like spearheading HR and field operations. And that suits her just fine, she said. Joining the company in October 2019, Murcray was in her CFO role only a few months before onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. “I probably ran about 30 different scenario planning models in the first four-to-five months of [the pandemic],” she said. But the company emerged from 2020 continuing its growth. AttackIQ recently announced a $44 million in a Series C funding round.  

At Scoular, a private, employee-owned company with $6 billion in revenue, workers’ opinions matter when it comes to sustainability investment, Andrew Kenny, SVP and CFO, said. Scoular is in an intermediary position in the supply chain, including buying, selling, storing, and processing grain and ingredients, and also managing transportation. “We can play a key role in that supply chain by connecting all the way from the producer or farmer to what the demand is on the consumer side,” Kenny said. In June, the company appointed its first director of sustainability. “We’re working to integrate sustainability in everything we do, even the evaluation of capital investments,” he said. And when it comes to capital investments, Scoular answers to its employees who are the shareholders through its profit-sharing program. 

The theme of Fortune Connect’s virtual summit on Tuesday was radical collaboration. This can include sharing best practices in environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG), especially since ESG reporting is challenging. “People may actually be surprised to hear that between two of the top vendors of ESG data, there’s only 32% of correlation of their ESG scoring,” Michaela Edwards, partner at Capricorn Investment Group, said. But, “we can’t just make it into a check the box exercise,” Edwards said. Collaboration may require “coming at it from a place of solving things, versus a place of competition and contention,” which exists in the business world, Carrie Freeman, co-CEO at SecondMuse, said. But what if gaps exist among different industries when trying to collaborate and build relationships around ESG? Edwards and Freeman shared their thoughts.

Your people think they aren’t being paid enough. And PayScale’s CEO Scott Torrey told me that’s a big problem during the ongoing war for talent. “What our data showed was such a high percentage of people, even if they are paid above market, believe that they’re not,” Torrey said about the company’s new report. “And so, if you’re not counterbalancing that narrative, [employees] are looking for those that they believe will pay them more. This issue about retention is becoming a super significant one.” PayScale’s Fair Pay Impact Report found 57% of employees surveyed —who are actually paid at market value—believe they are paid below market value. And 42% of employees who are paid above market value, said they are paid below market. Ineffective pay communication and transparency impacts retention, Torrey says. He explained how companies can empower their employees when it comes to pay transparency.

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See you on Monday.

Sheryl Estrada
sheryl.estrada@fortune.com

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Fortune’s CFO Collaborative in partnership with Workday, “The Promise and Pressure of ESG Measures,” takes place on Wednesday, August 11. The event, created just for CFOs, will feature Brian T. Moynihan, chairman and CEO, Bank of America; Claus Aagaard, CFO, Mars Inc.; Ann Dennison, CFO, Nasdaq; Giulia Siccardo, associate partner, McKinsey & Company; and Emma Stewart, sustainability officer, Netflix. CFOs can join their peers in learning more about embracing ESG while attracting new investors and cutting borrowing costs and operating expenses. CFOs can apply here. For more information, email CFOCollaborative@Fortune.com.

Big deal

As companies prepare return-to-work policies, a report released on July 21 by Mercer and AECOM found employees continue to want flexibility as a key benefit. Shifting Values, asked 218 employees across 25 industries what they're looking for post pandemic. If the option of workplace flexibility was off the table, more than half of respondents said they'd consider leaving their jobs. Also, flexibility is very important to Millennials (62%) and Gen X (60%) respondents surveyed, as compared to other generations.

Going deeper

Here are a few Fortune reads for the weekend:

Unilever is adding a new ingredient to its ice cream (and other products, too): inflation by Sophie Mellor

Amid Bitcoin’s crash, all of Tesla’s gains have vanished by Shawn Tully 

The lumber bubble finally pops—erasing all of its 2021 gains by Lance Lambert

Dogecoin Axe body spray is real—and the Internet is exploding by Chris Morris

Leaderboard

Some notable moves from this past week:

Kathryn Mikells was named SVP and CFO at Exxon Mobil Corporation, effective Aug. 9. Andrew Swiger, current SVP, announced his intention to retire, effective Sept. 1. Mikells joins ExxonMobil from Diageo plc, where she was CFO. She was also previously CFO at Xerox, ADT, Nalcon, and United Airlines. During her time at United Airlines, Mikells was also VP of investor relations and treasurer.

Mark Bendza was named EVP and CFO at Telos Corporation, a provider of cyber, cloud, and enterprise security solutions, effective July 19. Bendza previously served as VP in charge of investor relations at Honeywell International Inc. He has over 20 years of experience with global companies. Bendza succeeds Michele Nakazawa, who is retiring but will stay on with the company as an advisor during the transition process.

Carl Giesler Jr. was named EVP and CFO of Southwestern Energy Company, a natural gas producer, effective July 19. He succeeds interim CFO Michael Hancock, who will continue with the company as VP of finance and treasurer. Giesler most recently served as president and CEO of SandRidge Energy.

Kevin Manion was named CFO at NewAge, Inc., a direct-to-consumer organic and healthy products company. Before joining NewAge, Manion was the CFO at Calavo Growers, a fresh food company. He was previously CFO for Nestle USA’s pet food, ice cream and water businesses, and CFO and general counsel at Bolthouse Farms.

Overheard

“The industry as a whole must really be alert to the dangers of people using Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies to process fraudulent payments.”

—Anne Boden, CEO of Starling, a British fintech startup, on being cautious with crypto but also noted there is a future for digital currencies, as reported by CNBC.