CHAPTER 3

Financials and Trust

Thursday, October 29, 1:48 p.m. . . .

Sitting at his desk, Barton studied the SMA financial briefing book, preparing for a meeting with Clarke Gardner, the company’s chief financial officer. The book had been waiting on Barton’s desk when he’d arrived Monday morning, as he’d requested in advance. Tours and getting-acquainted sessions kept him from cracking the book open until today. But now he’d been able to spend more than forty-five minutes with it. He’d insisted on setting aside time for this in week one, both studying of the financials and the meeting with the CFO, for two reasons.

The first reason was practical: he needed to be sure he had a good handle on the company’s situation. Barton’s financial background ...

Get Harder Than I Thought now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.