Tyson Foods has appointed John R. Tyson to be its new CFO, and yes, he’s part of the famed chicken company’s family. Tyson, 32, is the great-grandson of the founder of Tyson Foods, and as one might expect, corporate governance experts expressed concerns about potential conflicts of interest when the news was announced. The Wall Street Journal cited one analyst, who pointed to the new CFO’s age and “minimal financial experience” as concerning.

But Amanda “Jo” Erven, a CPA and author of Becoming the Everyday Ethicist, told CFO Brew that it’s worth considering the appointment from another angle: corporate family succession planning.

“I think that we do need to start embracing the younger generation sooner because of succession planning,” Erven said. “Companies are getting into issues because they haven’t thought enough about this.” 

She added that some companies have had the same CEOs and CFOs for 20 to 30 years while neglecting to prepare the next generation of leadership. “I honestly see that as an ethical problem. They’re not letting go soon enough in order to educate, train, and we’re lacking that knowledge, and I think that’s kind of a sad state of things, honestly.”

The new CFO holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Harvard and an MBA from Stanford, and, according to a release from the company, “held various roles in investment banking, private equity, and venture capital, including at J.P. Morgan.” He succeeds Stewart Glendinning, who has served as CFO since 2017, and who will move into the role of group president of the company’s prepared-foods division.

John R. Tyson’s LinkedIn page and his profile on the Tyson website don’t list a CPA license among his credentials.

But Erven counters that the lack of an accounting background shouldn’t necessarily disqualify someone from the CFO job, saying that “knowing the business” well is as important as being able to crunch the numbers. Continue reading here.—KL

As the country moves full steam ahead toward the November midterm elections, some investors are looking closely at corporate voting policies.

Trillium Asset Management surveyed public companies’ policies on paid time off to vote and found that the majority of companies were only offering time off that aligned with state compliance.

And, it wasn’t just a philanthropic mission. “As we see now, the public wants the company to take a stance on every single issue that’s coming out,” Hyewon Han, shareholder advocacy associate at Trillium Investment Management, told CFO Brew. Companies that put a little bit of extra effort into giving people time to voice their own opinions in the voting booth may be able to avoid spending time and resources on taking political stances.

Trillium has been successful in pushing corporations in its portfolio to rethink how they handle voting-day policies; in the past two years, the investor has gotten Bank of America, Apple, and PNC Bank to adopt new PTO-to-vote policies or strengthen their current policies, Han told CFO Brew.

The investors stand in good company with the public, where 88% of Americans report supporting companies offering employees PTO to vote on Election Day, according to the report.

And many ESG investors and anti-ESG investors have at least this one area in common: agreeing that businesses should focus on empowering employees or citizens instead of worrying about an official company position on given issues.

Could companies save money if they gave employees time to vote instead of funding political campaigns? Keep reading here.—KT

Today's top CFO reads:

Stat: $1,499. That’s the price of the new Meta Quest Pro VR headset Meta unveiled this week, as it charges ahead into the metaverse, where avatars will soon have legs. (The Verge)

Quote: “In short, the worst is yet to come, and for many people, 2023 will feel like a recession.”—a new report from the International Ray of Sunshine Monetary Fund, which is predicting a worldwide recession. (The New York Times)

Read: A look at GloriFi, meant to be the first “anti-woke” bank, which has had some setbacks, including its plans to “make a credit card out of the same material used for shell casings.” (The Wall Street Journal)

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