CFO Studio Magazine - Curt Allen, CFO, Subaru

up half a percent, we can absorb that. So I’m quite optimistic.” On a macro level what worries Henn is the national debt, but “to be honest, for ’15 there aren’t very substantial risks.” Mark Guinan, senior vice president and CFO, Quest Diagnostics, has a more muted take on the U.S. economy: “We’re still looking for the recovery from 2008-2009.” Quest’s finance team monitors consumer confidence by looking at hospitalizations, scripts ordering tests, and other kinds of data, and “we’re starting to see some signs that the economy is lifting the business.” The State of New Jersey’s economy is arguably shrinking, not growing, says David Huber, CFO of Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey. “The commercial health insurance market grows along with the economy, and the growth is just not there. The small-group insurance market, which includes groups with between two and 50 employees, has been particularly hard hit, with fewer small businesses in the state and many of them either shedding employees or dropping health insurance in the face of cost pressures. In addition, there has been a lot of M&A activity in the pharmaceutical industry and the casinos are struggling.” Commenting on the national and global economies, he thinks there’s a risk we’ll see an uptick in inflation, and if that happens, bond prices will drop. The considerable amounts of unrest overseas also will affect investors’ moods, driving them to make “emotional decisions quickly that can end up having downstream implications.” The GDP, says Fran Shammo, executive vice president and CFO, Verizon Communications, “will, I think, be similar to ’14,” in the range of “at least 2.5 percent.” In the international markets, there’s “some instability, with some countries, such as Germany, stepping back a bit. We will have to keep a close eye on the global economic situation by country throughout 2015.” In general, Shammo sees “slow growth, steady as she goes,” and he does not expect a huge uptick in employment. David Marberger, CFO, senior vice president, and head of strategy for Godiva Chocolatier, is also looking at numerous economies in his assessment of the 2015 outlook. The U.S. economy, he believes is “solid. Unemployment is lower, there is growth, but there are still questions on the consumer side in terms of the strength of the recovery.” However, in Japan, one of Godiva’s biggest markets, the yen is weak versus both the dollar and the euro, and that hurts companies that sell product there but source materials in countries with stronger currencies. “When the yen weakens, it effectively results in higher costs and shrinking margins in that market,” he says. Marberger is watching China. “It’s our biggest emerging market,” he says. “We’re opening stores there, but is the growth going to continue? ... Everything we read out there tells us that longer term, you want to be in China. But you always have to [watch the] short term.” “China’s growth has slowed down some,” says Irv Rothman, CEOof HP Financial Services. 1st QUARTER 2015 WWW.CFOSTUDIO.COM 13 “WE EXPECT FURTHER YEAR-OVER-YEAR INDUSTRY GROWTH IN 2015, MAYBE A LITTLE LESS, BUT STILL GROWTH.” — HARALD HENN, MERCEDES-BENZ Mark Guinan, Quest Diagnostics David Huber, Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of NJ