Ilya Strebulaev, a professor in the Venture Capital Initiative at Stanford Graduate School of Business, analysed data from 500 unicorns between 1997 and 2019. The dataset includes information on 1,078 founders, of whom 44% were identified as non-U.S.-born based on their places of birth.

“Nearly half of US unicorn founders were born outside the US. Immigrants are crucial for US innovation: our research revealed that 65 countries (apart from the US) have produced at least one founder of a US unicorn,” wrote Strebulaev on LinkedIn.

Indian-born founders form nearly one-fifth of all non-US-born unicorn founders, totalling 90 individuals from India. This is followed by Israel with 52 founders, Canada with 42, the UK with 31, and China with 27. In Asia, India leads the list of founders, followed by Israel, China, and Taiwan with 12 founders.

In Europe, the UK leads in the number of founders, followed by Germany with 18, France with 17, Russia with 14, Ukraine with 12, and Ireland with 10.

In Africa, South Africa has five non-US-born founders. In South and North America (excluding the US), Canada has the highest number of founders, followed by Brazil with 9 founders. In Australasia, no country reached double digits; Australia contributed eight founders, while New Zealand had six.

Countries with fewer than five unicorn founders include Switzerland (4), Japan (3), Sweden (2), Greece (2), and Turkey (2).

The study also concludes that relocating start-ups to the US significantly increases their chances of achieving unicorn status. Indian start-ups are 6.5 times more likely to reach unicorn status if they relocate from India to the US.

Whether this trend will continue is unclear. After all, immigration has been a significant debate issue in US politics for decades, and it remained a major concern in the 2024 election cycle. Presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump clashed over immigration policy and disagreed on the economic benefits of immigration. Trump won the election, pledging to deport 20 million illegal immigrants and further tighten immigration rules for legal immigrants.

Starting in February, the 32-year-old heir will work alongside LVMH’s longtime CFO, Jean-Jacques Guiony, who will also join Moët Hennessy as its new CEO. With all five of Bernard Arnault’s children having operational roles within the group, the appointment has reignited speculation over who might one day take the helm of the conglomerate.

Alexandre has held various executive positions at LVMH, including a four-year stint as CEO of German luggage maker Rimowa and as vice president of product, communications, and industrial affairs at Tiffany & Co., which LVMH bought for $15.8 billion in 2021. Under his leadership, sales increased, making the New York-based jeweler the largest contributor to the group’s growth.

“Having proven himself by helping Rimowa’s expansion, one of LVMH’s newly acquired brands, as well as by strategically repositioning Tiffany’s, the only American legacy brand owned by his family’s conglomerate, the young Arnault has now been assigned his toughest task yet,” observes Thomaï Serdari, professor of marketing at NYU’s Stern School of Business. “It seems that his challenges intensify with each appointment.”

The challenges have indeed intensified. Due largely to weak demand in China and the US, the wine and spirits division’s sales fell 8% in the first nine months of 2024, with revenue down 7%, a steep drop compared to the group’s overall 3% decline.

“As the deputy CEO, Alexandre needs to reference his own playbook of how to grow individual brands under the Moët Hennessy umbrella and generate cultural relevance around wines and spirits, a category that has a diminished appeal for GenZers,” Serdari says. “Most importantly, he is asked to dust off his corporate finance skills and help the portfolio navigate a tax regulatory landscape that is veiled in uncertainty.” If he succeeds, Serdari argues, Alexandre will be well positioned for the top job in the family business.

Hyundai’s appointment grabbed headlines as it is “the exception that proves the rule,” according to Chris Rowley, professor at the University of Oxford’s Kellogg College and at the Bayes Business School of City St George’s, University of London. 

Stark differences in national cultures can often explain a reluctance to embrace change, Rowley observes: “This can be seen across [social psychologist Geert] Hofstede’s famous 6 Dimensions Model, on a spectrum of high to low of not only Individualism-Collectivism, Masculinity-Femininity, and Power Distance, but also Uncertainty Avoidance, Long-Short term Orientation, and Indulgence-Restraint.” 

In the case of South Korea, the modest rise in female CEO representation provides further evidence, says Rowley: “Over two decades, it barely inched up, from 34% in 2000 to 37% in 2021.” Famous failures in Japan, he notes, including the former “superstar leader” Carlos Ghosn, who was partly brought down by Nissan’s corporate culture, also come to mind.

Yet, it was precisely at Nissan, where Muñoz was an executive for 15 years before joining Hyundai in 2019, that he rose through the car industry ranks, proving so adept at navigating the Japanese workplace culture that he was considered a potential CEO candidate following Ghosn’s departure. A Spanish native and a US citizen, Muñoz earned a Ph.D. in nuclear engineering from Polytechnic University of Madrid and an executive MBA from IE Business School. His appointment appears aimed at strengthening the company against geopolitical and economic uncertainties. In particular, policies proposed by US President-elect Donald Trump, such as increasing tariffs on imports and reducing subsidies for electric vehicles, could significantly impact Hyundai and Kia. Muñoz will assume his new role on January 1.

Fitch Analyst Hebbertt Soares notes that Tesla’s integrated business model, which bypasses traditional sales channels, may establish a blueprint for achieving top-tier credit ratings in a sector often limited by data and regulatory scrutiny.

It’s the first such rating for the residential solar market. According to Soares, this deal, backed by high-quality assets and Tesla’s unique direct-to-consumer approach, is unique. And it could redefine ABS financing standards in renewable energy.

The offer includes two tranches: a $255 million A-2 note with a weighted average life of 2.65 years and a $150 million A-3 class with a 6.2-year WAL. Both achieved AAA ratings, highlighting asset quality and deal structure.

Tesla’s use of a sequential payment structure prioritizes returns to senior bondholders and contrasts with the more typical “pro-rata” structures other solar ABS deals use. “Sequential structures have more solid cash flow results,” Soares said, and that was one factor that helped Fitch assign a AAA rating, as it better withstands potential losses.

Tesla’s sterling borrower pool also supports the top investment grade rating.

The average Tesla borrower’s 793 FICO score and 13% down payment reduce default risks. The high borrower credit quality and their commitment through a substantial down payment create a personal stake in the system. This is quite different from other models, where third-party partnerships are more common, and providers depend on commissioned sales staff or in-store pitches from big-box retailers.

Tesla’s borrowers’ scores stand out in a market where solar ABS deals are generally capped at AA due to limited historical data and regulatory scrutiny. Soares noted that this limitation typically arises from data scarcity and ongoing legal scrutiny over consumer disclosures.

The deal has multiple layers of credit protection designed to mitigate cash flow risks for investors. These include over-collateralization, which ensures the value of the assets exceeds loan amounts, and a yield supplement over-collateralization (YSOC) feature that adjusts cash flows by supplementing returns on lower-rate contracts. These mechanisms support a consistent return rate for investors and contribute to the high credit rating.

Tesla’s success may influence other solar companies’ financing strategies, but it has set a high bar.

A high-quality borrower pool, direct sales, and efficient cash flow structure make this deal a standout that competitors may need to emulate to attract similar investor confidence.

“When we look at the profile of Tesla and the pool, those were the primary drivers that led or that allowed us to assign triple A ratings for the senior bonds of this ABS,” Soares said.

Investor enthusiasm for solar ABS remains strong despite industry challenges, including recent setbacks such as SunPower’s bankruptcy and downgrades of solar ABS from Sunnova and Solar Mosaic. Including Tesla’s deal, total issuance in the solar ABS market this year has now surpassed $5 billion, marking a new record.

Tesla’s achievement may also impact financing approaches across the renewable energy sector. Tesla’s model could become a template for securing high ratings through streamlined operations and borrower strength.

But that may still be some time away. And Soares said, “at this stage we don’t see us lifting or removing the rating cap on the other originators until we have more visibility on the potential developments on the legal side.”

To offset financial ruin, the company is selling $15 billion of common stock and mandatory convertible bonds. The sale is part of an ongoing initiative to stabilize finances and protect Boeing’s investment-grade credit rating while minimizing shareholder dilution.

The financing structure lets the company count bonds as equity, hopefully eschewing concerns about its debt load, a critical factor in maintaining its credit rating.

David Erickson, adjunct associate professor of business at Columbia Business School, expects market analysts to closely watch Boeing’s latest move. A failure to maintain its investment-grade credit rating “could significantly impact its borrowing costs,” he says.

Boeing’s reliance on hybrid financing suggests an effort to balance raising cash with avoiding excessive dilution, according to Erickson. “Depending on how the mandatory convertible bonds are structured, credit rating agencies can treat them as equity, which helps Boeing raise substantial capital while protecting its credit rating.”

Boeing is raising cash without further overleveraging its balance sheet. The firm’s unique challenges, compounded over the last few years, from 737 MAX production delays to new regulatory hurdles. More recently, a labor strike has cost the company millions of dollars per day, straining its cash flows.

“Boeing’s operational issues are largely self-inflicted, compounded by management changes making them more severe than typical industry challenges,” Erickson says, emphasizing the financing’s urgency for the company. Boeing shareholders get some protection from immediate dilution, as the mandatory convertible bonds will convert into equity at a premium. “Although convertibles can dilute shares over time, they give Boeing the breathing room it needs to manage its financial outlook,” Erickson notes.            

Buoyed by signs of an uptick in public offerings activity, US bankers and investors who were gearing up for a blockbuster second half of the year had their hopes dashed. India, Japan, and China took the spotlight in the third quarter instead, launching some of biggest listings in years.

Hyundai Motor India, Asia’s largest IPO of 2024—and India’s biggest ever—raised $3.3 billion. It was exceeded only by warehouse operator Lineage’s $4.4 billion US debut in July.

With Hyundai’s proceeds, according to Bloomberg, Indian IPOs have raised over $12 billion so far this year, surpassing the previous two years’ totals. With more than 100 IPOs, India has tallied the highest level of public offerings in more than 20 years.

Meanwhile, in Japan, subway operator Tokyo Metro raised $2.3 billion in the country’s largest IPO since 2018. X-Ray technology company Rigaku closed an $863 million IPO. Together, the deals more than doubled the value of IPOs launched in Japan in 2024 up to then. They also reassured investors after recession fears and an unexpected rate hike shook stock markets this summer.

After years of sluggish growth and lackluster market performance, cautious optimism is taking hold in China, too. Bottled-water maker China Resources Beverage Holdings and autonomous-driving firm Horizon Robotics, which counts Alibaba and Baidu among its largest investors, debuted in Hong Kong and raised collectively more than $1.3 billion.

In a similar fashion, listing activity has seen a surge in Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea, and across most of the entire Asia-Pacific region, contributing overall—according to EY—to an 11% quarter-over-quarter rise in global IPO figures in the Q3.

Successful offerings, experts say, are likely to generate positive reinforcement and encourage more companies to go public. Then again, the experts also warn that the road ahead remains fraught with challenges, including central bank policies, geopolitical uncertainties, and upcoming elections in the US and elsewhere.

Growing numbers of experienced chief financial officers are abandoning the corporate grind to take freelance roles for multiple clients—whether in parallel or on a serial basis.

“The demand for [freelance] professional CFOs has approximately doubled” in recent years, says Eusebi Llensa, co-founder and CEO of Outvise, a Barcelona-based marketplace for high-end independent contractors.

Indie CFOs come in two flavors. Both enjoy growing popularity. And both differ from old school consultants because they become trusted members of company teams rather than serving as outside advisers.

Fractional CFOs work mostly with start-ups and growing midsize firms that need high-end financial services but cannot afford or don’t yet want a full-time employee. They work for extended periods with a portfolio of clients to provide the full gamut of CFO services, albeit on a part-time basis.

Two years ago, only about 2,000 LinkedIn accounts featured people promoting C-suite fractional services. This number currently stands at approximately 114,000, according to Sara Daw, CEO of The CFO Centre and The Liberti Group, and author of Strategy and Leadership as Service.

Interim CFOs take on short-term project-based assignments that cater to their expertise and interests; for example, an M&A specialist might sign on for a few months to oversee a transaction. When the deal is done, they move on.

People who define themselves as interim were more likely to be engaged in January (73%) than during the same month last year (67%) or two years ago (55%), according to the 2024 European Survey conducted by the International Network of Interim Manager Associations (INIMA).

Interim work is growing for all relevant functions, but C-suite and board services run ahead of the pack: They represent 55% of all gigs, said the INIMA report. Individuals skilled in “change management and process optimizations” are in high demand.

To facilitate the trend, a new global industry of independent management platforms and marketplaces is emerging to match C-suite and other high-end freelancers with potential clients. Some handle contracts, payments, back-office tasks, and other services. Top names include Outvise, Malt, True Bridge, Talmix, and Catalant. The CFO Centre, Fintalent.com and iFinance Director count among a subset that specializes in CFOs and top financial pros.

These companies report impressive rates of growth in revenue, such as: up 180% over the past two years; a threefold jump in monthly recurring revenue over the last 11 months; and an increase of 15% to 20% last year.

Chelsea Williams, founder and fractional CFO at US-based Money Management, a financial coaching company, and Core Solutions Group that works with law firms in the US, says she recently had to “Stop growing” lest things get out of hand.

The grandmother of them all, The CFO Centre, has evolved into a £60 million ($78 million) multinational organization since it was founded in 2001.

The industry has come a long way since Sara Daw co-founded that firm. Descriptive terms had yet to be coined. “Most people didn’t understand what we were talking about,” she recalls.

Despite the recent growth, the phenomenon still flies under the radar of many business screens. “I spent a lot of time having coffee with people to explain the model,” says John Frank, a fractional CFO and founder and CEO at Third Road Management, a business he has gradually grown over the past decade.

Frank echoes fellow industry leaders when he says, “The sky’s the limit” for the future of CFOs as independent contractors. As Dow travels the world, she says, “I get people asking when we are coming to their country.”

Sometimes people don’t wait. Take Rafael Estrela and his partner in São Paulo; seven years ago, they launched what has become BR Experts for the Brazilian market.

The trend is fueled by several developments including supply and demand, as well as from the evolution of the CFO profession in the corporate world.

The first has become obvious. We live in a “take this job and shove it” zeitgeist whereby many individuals embrace the lyrics of that Johnny Paycheck country song to pursue a better work-life balance, more flexibility, and new and more interesting professional challenges.

Take Phil Christmas, for example. As a British fractional CFO based in Spain, Christmas builds his portfolio of clients through platforms such as Outvise.

“I can help out with my two small kids. I can take my 6-year-old to school,” he says. “I am not fully employed as a fractional CFO, but I don’t want to be.”

But it can get complicated. For example, freelancing is often temporary. Nascent entrepreneurs take gigs to stay afloat as they bootstrap their companies.

“They need to fund their lives,” says Matthew Horrocks, head of Private Equity British Isles & North America at Malt, a platform for interims. “It allows them to spend time on what they want to do.”

That’s the sell side. On the buy side, there are two groups: SMEs and startups combine for one; then there are the corporates. For the latter, the use of freelancers is related to the evolving role of CFOs.

When SMEs and startups begin to grow, they increasingly need sophisticated financial services. But they can’t afford to hire a top-notch CFO. What is an entrepreneur to do? Hire a fractional.

For startups, the demand often emerges during early funding rounds. “When they are required to provide financials and data rooms, startups tend to hire fractional CFOs,” says Ömer F. Güven, founder and CEO of Fintalent.com, a platform for M&A and post-acquisition integration experts.

And it’s flexible. “Maybe it’s two days a week, but during the peak fundraising period, it could be 60 hours a week,” says Güven.

For small companies, whether seeking investors or not, a fractional CFO “really serves as a trusted adviser” for the entrepreneur, Frank notes. Says Christmas: “I am 62. My clients are often in their 20s. They are CEOs. They are highly intelligent, but they have no clue” about the financial side of the business world.

If smaller companies fuel the fractional world, corporates dominate the interim one. Sometimes it is something as simple as hiring a temporary replacement for a vacated slot or someone on parental leave.

But corporate leaders are also beginning to understand that they can boost productivity by hiring experts for specific tasks and projects, such as M&A, carve outs and post-acquisition integration. This is related to the growing sophistication of the CFO role, moving from computational to strategic and operational roles; thereby opening up sundry specialist tasks that might be better filled by temporary or part-time workers. Top financial people now need to be “strategic” says Llensa. “They need to ensure that there is a proper ROI.”

As individuals, fractional and interim CFOs might be one and the same, depending on the circumstances. They generally create portfolios of clients, sometimes tapping old contacts, sometimes platforms, and sometimes other networking tools.

Almost everyone agrees on one thing: To be a successful freelance CFO, one needs to be good at self-marketing. In other words, introverts need not apply.

“You have to find clients every day through marketing and networking,” says Christmas. “The type of person who is usually an accountant doesn’t have that kind of expertise.”

To make the roster of The CFO Centre, candidates must pass the barbeque test. Everyone is invited to a cookout. Those who help put sausages on the grill and talk to everyone make the team. Those who “stand in the corner” get cut.

Global Finance: When you took the role of CFO at QIA at the end of 2022, what were your initial areas of focus?

Niall Byrne: When I joined in 2022, QIA was a very well-established organization with a strong finance team. We’ve embarked on a transformation journey to create the state-of-the-art finance function, which hopefully is going to serve QIA for many years to come.

What I want to do is put in place a function, a team, technology systems, an operation that can support the future growth of QIA. Get the right technology in place that’s scalable, that can cope with the increasing size and complexity of everything.

We are migrating our core accounting and investment platforms to a best-in-class, front-to-back solution, and that’s a huge project for QIA. It doesn’t just impact the finance function, it impacts all of the investment teams across the whole organization.

Then I need to create time for my team to do new things that add new value to QIA as an organization. And it’s not about cost-cutting. In fact, my team has grown since I’ve arrived, and I expect it to continue to grow. It is now just over 80 people, and I expect it to grow probably north of 100 over the next couple of years.

GF: Where have you had the most success in QIA so far?

Byrne: The technology journey is probably the most complex part of what’s going on at the moment. And we’ve already seen some successes there. It’s a multiyear journey. As we roll into 2025, we’ll have the core accounting platform in place. And then we’ll be adding things that will be much more visible to the investment teams, such as the way we report on performance.We obviously already have a performance management system, but we’ll have a new cloud-based system.

GF: Is there any concern about moving to the cloud, from a security point of view?

Byrne: Obviously that’s always a focus for any organization. We follow best practices in terms of the security that we demand of our vendors. We’re doing this in a measured, considered way and making sure that it meets all of our requirements, and we don’t jeopardize the security of any of our data.

GF: What are QIA’s key focus areas for investment in terms of geographies and industries?

Byrne: Our mandate is to protect and grow the state’s financial assets and to help diversify the local economy. We invest on a global scale, across multiple sectors, geographies, and we build up strong partnerships with our investee companies, because we’re a long-term investor, we’re able to do that. We have a diversified investment approach, and we really focus on sectors that we think will shape the future global economy, such as technology, healthcare and solutions that power the energy transition.

GF: During your career as a senior financial figure, what have been your best and worst moments?

Byrne: I would say the best is coming to QIA. I’ve worked in many different roles over my career. I was at JPMorgan Chase for a long time. I’ve worked in front-office and support functions, different locations, different businesses. At QIA, I have the opportunity to bring all of that together, leverage all of my experiences, and really deliver value at a level that can positively impact an entire organization. It’s great to be able to do that in such a complex role as the one I have here, and everything I’ve done before essentially prepared me for that task.

Leaving JPMorgan after 25 years was a big step, obviously, for me and my family. I wanted that fresh challenge, a new organization, new set of colleagues, new country and region.

The worst moments involve recognizing when a role isn’t providing the expected challenge and taking action to address it. And that doesn’t sound like a bad moment, but those moments are actually pretty challenging, because you’ve got to recognize that you’re in that situation and then take action to address it.

GF: What can you suggest to a young person aspiring to a career as a CFO?

Byrne: If you’re starting out knowing that you want to be a CFO, it’s great to have that clarity. Number one, invest in yourself. I would also be flexible: you may have a plan, but you need to adjust your plan as opportunities come up. If something different comes up, embrace it, because over time, you’ll build a portfolio of experiences that will make you a stronger candidate for bigger and more complex roles. Generally, building your portfolio of experiences is really important. I would also say, be confident, even when you’re right at the beginning. Be confident in your abilities, but stay humble, ask lots of questions. Admit when you don’t know something, it’s fine to make mistakes, but learn from your mistakes. Probably the most important thing of all is just do things that you enjoy, you get satisfaction from, because you will do your best work when you love what you do.

The deal, should it happen, would represent not only the latest strategic move by Uber but also a nostalgic return for CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, who helmed Expedia for over a decade before swapping flights for surface transport in 2017.

It was during his tenure at Expedia that Khosrowshahi benefited from the mentorship of veteran dealmaker Barry Diller. As board chairman, Diller helped transform Expedia into one of the largest online travel-booking platforms in the world. Its reported revenue for the first six months of 2024 was $6.45 billion; full-year revenue for 2023 was $12.84 billion.

Considering Uber boasts a market cap of roughly $168 billion, it’s plausible that Khosrowshahi may be ready to reclaim a piece of his past. Like Diller, Khosrowshahi hasn’t been shy about wielding Uber’s M&A might, although the results achieved have been mixed. His biggest purchase was in 2019 when Uber bought the Middle Eastern ride-hailing company Careem for $3.1 billion, only to sell it four years later for a disappointing $400 million.

Also with Khosrowshahi at the helm, Uber bought Jump Bikes for $200 million in 2019 as an entrée into the micro mobility arena. And to grow Uber Eats, the San Francisco-based startup snagged grocery delivery service Postmates for $2.65 billion and alcohol delivery app Drizly for $1.1 billion. On the flip side, Uber sold its autonomous-driving unit to the self-driving startup Aurora Innovation in 2020 for $4 billion.

An acquisition of Seattle-based Expedia would elevate Uber’s ambitions to new heights. It could be more than just a nostalgic power play, too.

An Expedia takeover makes good on a promise Khosrowshahi made in 2021 when he outlined a plan to transform Uber into a so-called superapp. Picture a platform where you can not only book a ride but also order a burger and plan your next vacation—all with the convenience of Uber’s app. If Khosrowshahi gets his way, Uber could evolve from a mere car service into your digital personal assistant, managing everything from groceries to travel plans—all while slyly reminding you that surge pricing still applies.

According to the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, there are 340,000 fewer CPAs than five years ago. It is becoming increasingly difficult to do the job expected. Some companies, such as Advanced Auto Parts and Tupperware, failed to file financial reports on time simply because they didn’t have enough accountants.

“We have a brewing crisis,” says Paul Knopp, KPMG US chair, one of the most vocal advocates for change. PwC and EY recently admitted in CFO Dive’s newsletter that they also supported “alternative pathways.”

The Big Four are cautious. They fear states could create a patchwork of varied new rules that would prevent their accountants from working across state lines. Right now, the AICPA’s proposal is out and open to comments. The finalized framework should be ready by February 2025 and help state boards with possible regulation changes. Several states, such as California, are already pressing ahead. Their board of accountancy is drafting legislation permitting work experience to replace one year of expensive schooling. The new law would also preserve serving clients in other states. The board just needs to find a state senator to champion its initiative.