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The Morning Ledger: Grant Thornton Lays Off 300 U.S. Employees as Consulting Demand Falls |
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| | | Grant Thornton is the latest professional-services firm to lay off U.S. consulting employees.
PATRICK BOLGER/BLOOMBERG NEWS |
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| Good morning. Grant Thornton is laying off about 300 U.S. employees, or roughly 3% of its workforce in the country, people familiar with the matter said, as the professional-services firm navigates declining demand for its advisory and tax services. The Chicago-based firm’s cuts, coming mostly in the advisory and tax divisions, were to have been completed by the end of Thursday, the people said. Grant Thornton employs about 9,000 people in the U.S. and more than 68,000 globally. The move follows a series of cuts by large professional-services firms in recent months, particularly in their consulting arms, CFO Journal’s Mark Maurer writes. The consulting industry surged during the Covid-19 pandemic as companies sought outside help to strengthen and adjust their businesses. Many of those companies have since pulled back on consulting services amid recession fears. The global consulting market is forecast to grow by 6% to 10% this year, down from 10.7% in 2022, according to Source Global Research. |
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| Q: | How has a slowing economy affected your company’s use of consulting services? Drop us a note by writing to CFO Journal reporter Mark Maurer at mark.maurer@wsj.com. Thanks! |
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| Note to readers: The Morning Ledger won't be published Monday in observance of Memorial Day in the U.S. We will be back on Tuesday. |
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| Content from our Sponsor: DELOITTE | | | | Incoming CFOs: Make Your Talent Framework a Priority | | New CFOs can consider an extended set of pillars on employee engagement, diversity, and the nature of work as part of a strong and effective talent framework, in the second of a two-part article series. Keep Reading › |
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| The Commerce Department reports personal income and expenditures for April. Economists forecast both income and spending increases of 0.4%, month over month. This compares with a gain of 0.3% and a flat reading, respectively, in March. The core personal-consumption expenditures price index is seen rising 4.6% year over year, the same as March’s reading. The Commerce Department releases the durable-goods report for April. New orders for durable manufactured goods are expected to be down 0.8% from March. |
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| Airbnb CFO Dave Stephenson, for instance, says this about Dr. Vivek Murthy’s “Together”: “Dr. Murthy issued a report on the loneliness epidemic together with a framework for how to take action here in the U.S. At Airbnb, we are focused on creating connection and belonging in our community for hosts and guests, as well as for our employees. I’m looking forward to learning more from Dr. Murthy.” –Anna Mutoh |
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| | What Else Matters to CFOs Today |
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| | | Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen recently warned the government could default on its bills as soon as the start of June. NATHAN HOWARD/BLOOMBERG NEWS |
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| Microsoft President Brad Smith backed calls for the U.S. government to create a new agency to license major artificial-intelligence systems, amid growing support for regulation of an industry that is moving aggressively to commercialize powerful new tools such as ChatGPT. Germany slipped into recession during the first three months of the year, as households cut spending in response to sharply higher prices for energy and food. Nvidia shares closed at a record high Thursday as the chip-maker added nearly a third of its market value, which closed shy of the $1 trillion mark. The record $279 million whistleblower award issued by the Securities and Exchange Commission earlier this month stemmed from a bribery case against telecommunications company Ericsson. |
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| Workday, a Pleasanton, Calif.-based developer of enterprise cloud applications for finance and human resources, named Zane Rowe as chief financial officer, effective June 12. Rowe serves as CFO at VMware, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based enterprise software company. Workday's current CFO, Barbara Larson, will be stepping back to spend more time with her family after a transition period. |
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| VMware appointed board member Karen Dykstra as chief financial officer and executive vice president, effective June 9. Dykstra, who has been a director at VMware since 2016, has been CFO at AOL, Plainfield Direct and Automatic Data Processing. London Stock Exchange Group, a London-based stock-exchange and financial-information company, said Chief Financial Officer Anna Manz is stepping down to move on to another CFO role outside the financial-services industry, effective May 2024. A search is under way for a successor.
Fox Factory Holding, a Duluth, Ga.-based maker of parts for bicycles and a variety of performance vehicles, named Dennis Schemm as CFO, effective June 12. Schemm will succeed Interim CFO, Maggie Torres, who will retire upon his arrival. Schemm served as senior vice president and CFO at Trex for the past three years. BigCommerce Holdings, an Austin, Texas-based developer of software-as-a-service technology, named Daniel Lentz as its chief financial officer, effective July 1. Lentz, who is currently senior vice president of finance and investor relations, will succeed Robert Alvarez, who is retiring. –Denny Jacob, Elena Vardon, Sabela Ojea
contributed to today's Ledger. |
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| Editor’s Note: Each week, we will share selections from WSJ Pro that provide insight and analysis we hope is useful to you. The stories are unlocked for The Wall Street Journal’s subscribers. |
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| Every weekend we select a handful of articles we think are worth a bit of your time, either because they peel back the layers on a compelling business story or somehow make us look at business in a different light. Adidas's partnership with Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, was the stuff of sneakerhead legend, Bloomberg BusinessWeek reports—and its demise has the shoe company scrambling to replace nearly half of its profits. For years, Vice had been widely regarded as the future of media. After a series of disappointing results, years of chaotic management, risky endeavors and a liquidity crisis, Vice has filed for bankruptcy, the Financial Times writes. Workers in nursing, fast food and airlines say their jobs are only worsening as they continue to struggle with low pay, burnout and staffing issues three years into the pandemic, according to the Washington Post. |
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