Tackling a very big turnaround: as part of the new executive team at Computer Associates, Robert Davis was intrigued by the challenge and the leadership group he was joining. But the CFO has a lot on his plate--not the least of which involves complying with a deferred prosecution agreement meant to ensure CA's survival.

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Tackling a very big turnaround: as part of the new executive team at Computer Associates, Robert Davis was intrigued by the challenge and the leadership group he was joining. But the CFO has a lot on his plate--not the least of which involves complying with a deferred prosecution agreement meant to ensure CA's survival.

Two years ago, venerable computer software firm Computer Associates Inc. (CA) was in dire straits. Founder Charles Wang had stepped down as CEO, but his hand-picked successor, Sanjay Kumar, had been implicated in a massive accounting fraud and was forced to resign, as was CFO Ira Zar, who later pled guilty to securities fraud. New leadership was brought in from outside to right the Islandia, N.Y., computer giant, but cleaning up the accounting issues and reviving the finance team looked like a tall order. In fact, earnings from both 2000 and 2001 have been restated.

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Interim finance leadership from now-Chief Operating Officer Jeff Clarke, former CFO of Compaq Computer Corp. (later bought by Hewlett-Packard ...

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