CFOVILLE

Brian Barnum

Brian Barnum has a track record of helping numerous companies “realize their value potential,” which usually led to exits, including sales to strategic buyers or an IPO, and then “the excitement of moving on to something new and meeting new people.”

Some of his early experiences were at post-dotcom-crash companies (including Rent.com and business‌.com), but more recently, Barnum spent nearly a decade at private equity firm Shamrock Capital, advising its portfolio companies as an operating partner and sometimes as a board member.

Now Barnum is looking to work his magic one more time at online learning platform Skillable, a Shamrock portfolio company with a virtual lab platform for employee training on products and IT. Barnum, who had served on the Skillable board, joined the company in May as its CFO. He took the Skillable post, he said, as a way to “get back to my roots.”

In the late 1990s and 2000s, you helmed several businesses, usually as CFO, that were eventually sold or went public.

I spent most of my career as an exec in growth-oriented software and technology companies. Often, I was CFO or what I used to call “CFO-plus” or “CFO with a pretty operational orientation.” Sometimes I was COO. Sometimes I had different elements of organizations reporting to me. So I got a pretty good experience in overall understanding of how technology companies grow successfully and execute successfully. Always kind of from the perspective of, “How do we create a great financial business and how do we hit metrics that make us valuable?”

As operating partner, Barnum was always moving on to a new company.—LB

      

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LABOR MARKET

Tetra Images/Getty Images

Now hiring? Just about everyone, apparently.

Two-thirds of US employers plan to increase hiring in the second half of 2026, according to a new report from talent solutions and business consulting firm Robert Half, which polled over 2,000 American hiring managers in April 2026.

The 66% of employers who plan to increase permanent hiring is a climb from the first half of the year, when 60% of employers said the same. It’s an even steeper climb from one year ago, when 57% of employers planned to do so. Outside of permanent hiring, 56% of employers said they planned to hire contract professionals.

“Organizations are increasingly moving forward with strategic initiatives, but many recognize they need specialized talent to make those plans a reality,” Dawn Fay, operational president of Robert Half, said in a statement. “We’re seeing employers invest in both permanent and contract professionals to access the expertise they need, maintain momentum, and remain competitive.”

Finding qualified talent is still a slog.—NP

      

TARIFFS

Morning Brew Inc, Photo: Adobe Stock

Uncle Sam is handing out tariff refunds—and corporate America is first in line.

As of July 31, US Customs and Border Protection had received more than 252,000 refund applications and accepted $128.7 billion worth of requests for processing. A chunk of that has gone to some of the biggest companies in the US: More than 40 S&P 500 companies have disclosed a combined $9.6 billion in tariff refunds over the past quarter, including at least $2.1 billion in cash.

Some of the biggest beneficiaries include:

• Apple—reported $2.2 billion in refunds
• Nike—recorded $986 million
• FedEx—received $800 million

Technology hardware companies have reported the most refunds of any sector, with Apple alone accounting for nearly 90% of the group’s total.

Some companies are passing along the refunds to customers, Brew Markets reports.—SY

      

Together With Paystand

You, me, and Q3. Here in Q3, we’re talking agentic AI, Stablecoin, and geopolitical risk factors to keep CFOs in the know. The leaders at Paystand, an AI-native platform for the Office of the CFO, will be helping translate three key finance trends for us. Read them here.

market forces

Francis Scialabba

Stat: Up to $105 billion. That’s how much financing Nvidia will offer for a new AI data center for OpenAI in Ohio, per a securities filing. (CNBC)

Quote: “There is no question, Brian loves a good challenge and always makes us think. Or what might be called ludically noetic.”—a Bank of America spokesperson on BofA CEO Brian Moynihan’s famously idiosyncratic vocab choices (The Wall Street Journal)

Read: Call it fate, call it karma: The CEO who fired 900 people on Zoom right before the holidays wants his job back. (CNN Business)

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Jobs

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