Good morning! This is Sheryl Estrada, author of CEO Daily's sister publication CFO Daily. Like Alan's newsletter, it's a daily briefing on the biggest stories shaping the C-suite—but with a special focus on finance. If you haven't yet subscribed to CFO Daily, you can do so here.
One of the questions I get asked most often by readers is: Do CFOs make good CEOs? It's a tricky one to answer. There are plenty of examples of executives who have nailed the transition. Indra Nooyi, for instance, served as the highly-respected chairman and CEO of PepsiCo from 2006 to 2019 after working as the company’s president and CFO. Then there are those who’ve had a tougher time. Shou Zi Chew, CEO of TikTok and former CFO of the app’s parent ByteDance, might land in the latter category at the moment after his grilling on Capitol Hill yesterday.
“We would characterize today's testimony by TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew in the Beltway as a ‘disaster’ moment that will likely catalyze more calls by lawmakers and the White House to look to ban TikTok within the U.S. if ByteDance does not look to sell,” Dan Ives, a tech analyst at Wedbush Securities tweeted on Thursday
