Shareholder Value is Bankrupt: What Will Replace It?

Earlier this year, Jack Welch made the statement to the Financial Times that “shareholder value is the dumbest idea in the world…your main constituencies are your employees, your customers and your products.” This is part of a FT series on the Future of Capitalism.

A couple weeks ago, the Aspen Institute released a paper signed by a group of 28 executives that included Warren Buffet (CEO, Berkshire Hathaway), Lou Gerstner Retired CEO, IBM) and John Bogle (Founder, The Vanguard Group). The paper entitled, Overcoming Short-termism, opens by saying: Read more

Mary Adams to Speak on Link Between Intangibles and Financial Performance

In August I will swap roles from moderator to speaker for the Intangible Asset Finance Society’s monthly Conversation on Intangibles. The call is at noon EDT on Friday, August 7th. Nir Kossovsky will act as moderator.

I will be talking about the link between intangible assets/intellectual capital and the financial performance of an organization. This is, I believe, a neglected topic that needs more attention. It is also one of the major themes of the book that I am co-writing with Michael Oleksak.

Hope you can join us. The call is free but you must register at IAFS to get the call-in info. If you cannot make it at that time, a recording will be available. In September, I’ll be back in the moderator seat. We expect an interesting series of conversations with other intangibles experts this fall.

Call on Intangible Asset Risk and Reputation Metrics

Intangible Asset Finance Society Monthly Call: The President of Intellectual Capital Advisors, Mary Adams, will be hosting Nir Kossovsky on the IAFS monthly call this Friday, July 10th at noon EDT.

Nir is the Chief Executive & Director of Steel City Re, a firm focused on innovating new ways of managing intangible risk. He is also an entertaining speaker and will surely keep Mary on her toes! The call is free but you must register to get the conference information. Hope you can join us!

IAFS Call on IP Metrics, Innovation Strategy and Metrics

On Friday (6/5/09) at noon EDT, I’ll be hosting the June call for the Intangible Asset Finance Society. This month, Andy Gibbs, former CEO of Patent Café and now CEO of Andy Gibbs IP CXO, will talk about IP metrics, innovation strategy, and value: you can manage what you can’t measure. The call is free. Recording is available for a small fee. Sign up at IAFS Events.

I’m looking forward to this conversation as Andy takes a very aggressive stance on IP. He feels the intellectual property will become “the core product” in the future. I’m an advocate for the power of seeing IP in the context of an organization’s full intellectual capital. But we share a passion for helping companies understand the power of the intangible. Hope you can join us!

Strengthening Relationship Capital by Automating the Supply Chain

Our monthly call for the Intangible Asset Finance Society last Friday was great. Bob Rittereiser shared with us his view of the need for greater automation and control of global supply chains.

It’s no news that companies have done an increasing amount of outsourcing in recent years. That trend and the increased visibility of everything that companies do means that errors or inappropriate operations by a supplier (think lead paint and child labor) often come back to bite the corporations selling the goods. This is why relationship capital (one of the three core components of intellectual capital) needs to get careful attention in today’s corporation. Read more

Program on Relationship Capital Risks this Friday

Mary Adams hosts the monthly call of the Intangible Asset Finance Society on the first Friday of every month. This month’s call on Friday, April 3rd at 12 noon EDT is entitled: IMPOSING PERFORMANCE (BEHAVIOR) REQUIREMENTS ON A COMMERCIAL PARTNER:

Cadbury Schweppes, Kellogg, Mattel – all iconic firms whose products, cash flows, and reputations have been sullied by their business partners through ethical breaches including melamine in milk, salmonella in peanut butter, and lead paint. Read more

Finessing Brand Finance

David Ruder, a fellow member of the Intangible Asset Finance Society (IAFS),  gave us a great overview of the brand finance market on our monthly call. David is with RPX and has a lot of experience in the intangible asset finance markets.

Here are some highlights on brands:

• US licensee revenues are $75 billion per year.
• Licensor revenenues are $5.8 billion
• He told the story of Mossimo, a troubled company that sold an exclusive license to their brand to Target. It has become a $1 billion brand.
• Licensing streams can be very steady–which makes them good for financing

His slides are here but I highly recommend the recording of the teleconference because he talked for an additional half hour after finishing with the slides.

Teleconference on Friday: Finessing Finance with Brand Assets

Mary Adams hosts the monthly Intangible Asset Finance Society (IAFS) Committee Spotlight on the first Friday of every month. This month, David Ruder of RPX Corporation will be talking about “Finessing finance with brand assets”

The call is on Friday, March 6, 2009 at 3:30 PM EST. It is open to the public but you must register in advance. More information and registration is here.

Coming Soon: More Legal Attention to Intangible Value

On Friday, I hosted the monthly conference series for the Intangible Asset Finance Society (IAFS). The speaker was Cathy Reese who heads the Corporate and Chancery Litigation practice at Fish & Richardson. She made a compelling argument that IP will be the next focus for shareholder suits. She warned that companies need to protect themselves by creating clear processes for reviewing Read more

Don’t Miss Program on Intangible Asset Governance

I am hosting a conference call for the Intangible Asset Finance Society this Friday at 3:30 PM EST. The guest speaker is Cathy Reese, head of corporate litigation for the international patent law firm, Fish & Richardson. Here’s the description of the call:

In light of recent developments in business law, corporate directors and officers are more likely now than ever before in history to be held personally liable for losses suffered by the corporation related to mismanagement of its intangible assets. Read more

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