Agenda
12th Annual CFO Leadership Conference
MEGATRENDS FOR THE NEW WORLD CFO
In collaboration with:
Day 1: Thursday
May 19, 2022
All times listed ET and are subject to change.
8:30a – 9:30a
Breakfast
9:30a – 9:45a
Opening Remarks
9:45a – 10:35a
Keynote
Leading Through Inflation: The CFO Essentials
Ram Charan, Global Adviser & Bestselling Author
Moderator: Dan Bigman, Chief Executive Group
Ram Charan, one of the world’s best-known and most widely respected advisors to boards and C-Suites is one of the top experts in business on the lost art of guiding companies to success in periods of high inflation.
In this masterclass session developed and presented exclusively for the CFO Leadership Council, Charan will arm you with the tools and techniques required to be a successful inflation-era finance leader, tackling issues such as:
- Modelling and mapping the company’s full value chain to find opportunities to win amid rising inflation
- Essential CFO communication strategies for the C-Suite and throughout the company
- What the CEO and board should—and will—expect of the CFO, and how to exceed those expectations
- How CFOs can better lead the sales, marketing and purchasing departments to real, cash-profit success
- Rethinking and rebuilding company KPIs to assure alignment and incentivize the right behaviors
- How terms and conditions with customers must change–and how to help negotiate to lock down wins
- And much more.
For CFOs, inflation is the challenge of our time—Charan will help you become the leader your organization needs you to be right now.
10:35a – 11:25a
The Ultimate Balance: How To Tackle Growth & Efficiency
Chris Caprio, CFO, Focus Technology
Glenn Hopper, CFO, Sandline
Ranga Bodla, VP of Field Engagement & Marketing, Oracle NetSuite
Growth? It can come in many forms – product and geographic expansion, acquiring new customers, top-line growth. But it can also come in the form of increasing margins through better efficiency and higher productivity. In this conversation, we’ll discuss how you balance these two aspects of growth.
11:25a – 11:45a
Coffee Break
11:45a – 12:35p
Innovator Breakouts*
Attend the session of most interest to you:
Future-Proof Your Finance Team: Structure for Success
Michael Bayer, CFO, Wasabi Technologies
Brian Schilling, Manager, Technology Consulting, RSM US, LLP
Alex Cedro, VP Finance, Tipalti
The ‘organizational flattening’ of finance departments has allowed for more autonomy amongst individual contributors, but it has also saddled finance leaders with far more management challenges, and teams with additional responsibility when it comes to overall business outcomes. We’ll dive into strategies and tactics to help finance executives excel in this new world, with a focus on emerging workplace trends, managing expectations in a horizontal environment and building the kind of best-in-class team you’ll need to win now, and in the future.
Payment Tech: What You Need to Know Now
Neal Anderson, President & CEO, OnPay Solutions
In an era of soaring inflation and ever-tightening talent markets, creating smarter, smoother, more automated payment systems is more essential than ever—and could be existential for a lot of firms. We’ll look at how can finance departments can leverage new technology to get ahead of rapid change, both now and in the years to come. What will supplier payments look like in 2025 and 2030? What shape will international payments take in the next 3 – 5 years? And what about crypto? We’ll arm you with smarter strategies to take advantage of the state of the art to surpass organizational expectations—and get an edge on rivals.
Today’s cfo: harnessing the power (and avoiding the pitfalls) of automation
Tina Gregory, Head of CFOs, Escalon
Scott Peterson, VP, Government Relations, Avalara
David Bataille, VP, Financial Operations, Avalara
The global pandemic challenged the resilience of organizations, exposing gaps in technology, processes, and operations. This drove many organizations to reassess key areas of their digital strategy to ensure business continuity and future resilience. With many organizations putting more energy into digital transformation efforts, finance teams are increasingly part of that conversation. This panel will discuss the top areas of concern for CFOs and the ways digital transformation is helping plus dive deeper into sales tax automation as an example.
Training & Development Essentials: Investing In Your Team To Keep Your Team
John Regan, CFO for Finance Reinsurance Americas, Swiss Re
Donald R. Tomoff, CPA, MBA, Founder, Invenio Advisors LLC
Tom Hood, EVP Business Engagement & Growth, AICPA
If you’re hoping to recruit and retain the caliber of talent required to keep your finance department on track you’re going to need to do more than stand still when it comes to investing in training and development. Too often leaders think of the risks and rewards associated with investing in change–process, technology, and people. But what about the Risk Of not Investing (RONI)? In this session, you’ll hear from finance leaders on lessons learned over the past two years and how they’re actively ensuring the finance organization moves from a rearview mirror to a forward-looking windshield view and how they are viewing talent and capabilities differently to deliver.
12:35p – 1:25p
Lunch with Peers
1:25p – 2:15p
CONNECTING CASH IN THE ERA OF INFLATION
Mathieu Gagne, CFO, Wiser Solutions, Inc.
Scott Torrey, Executive Chairman, Tesorio
Dan Fletcher, CFO, Planful
The annual inflation rate in the US accelerated to 7.9% in February of 2022, the highest since January of 1982. But what does this mean for the current public market? What does it mean for you as a CFO? In this era of inflation employee retention, tighter cash management, and reponsible growth are the highest priorities of many businesses. 2021 was a record-setting year in private markets but things have changed in 2022. Now, as the market becomes saturated with new tech—it wants to see responsible growth, growth at all costs is no longer the name of the game. It is not about what you do, but how you do it. Join us to learn:
- The role of cash in scarcity
- How the CFO can make the biggest impact
- How to scale responsibly
2:15p – 3:05p
Human-Centric Finance: What Top Talent Really Wants
Marshall Cooper, CEO, Chief Executive Group
With significant changes in the business environment the past few years–the rise in remote work, the “great resignation,” increased digital interaction–it’s no wonder the core functions of corporate finance have expanded to include employee experience. Andrew Hoag, Founder and CEO of Teampay will share best practices and pragmatic tips he’s gleaned from working with hundreds of finance leaders who successfully transformed their own organizations to better attract top talent. Learn the value of human-centric finance and walk away with key insights for how to get started.
3:05p – 3:25p
Coffee Break
3:25p – 4:15p
Innovator Breakouts*
Attend the session of most interest to you:
Future-Proof Your Finance Team: Structure for Success
Michael Bayer, CFO, Wasabi Technologies
Brian Schilling, Manager, Technology Consulting, RSM US, LLP
Alex Cedro, VP Finance Tipalti
The ‘organizational flattening’ of finance departments has allowed for more autonomy amongst individual contributors, but it has also saddled finance leaders with far more management challenges, and teams with additional responsibility when it comes to overall business outcomes. We’ll dive into strategies and tactics to help finance executives excel in this new world, with a focus on emerging workplace trends, managing expectations in a horizontal environment and building the kind of best-in-class team you’ll need to win now, and in the future.
Payment Tech: What You Need to Know Now
Neal Anderson, President & CEO, OnPay Solutions
In an era of soaring inflation and ever-tightening talent markets, creating smarter, smoother, more automated payment systems is more essential than ever—and could be existential for a lot of firms. We’ll look at how can finance departments can leverage new technology to get ahead of rapid change, both now and in the years to come. What will supplier payments look like in 2025 and 2030? What shape will international payments take in the next 3 – 5 years? And what about crypto? We’ll arm you with smarter strategies to take advantage of the state of the art to surpass organizational expectations—and get an edge on rivals.
Today’s CFO: Harnessing the Power (and avoiding the pitfalls) of automation
Tina Gregory, Head of CFOs, Escalon
Scott Peterson, VP, Government Relations, Avalara
David Bataille, VP, Financial Operations, Avalara
The global pandemic challenged the resilience of organizations, exposing gaps in technology, processes, and operations. This drove many organizations to reassess key areas of their digital strategy to ensure business continuity and future resilience. With many organizations putting more energy into digital transformation efforts, finance teams are increasingly part of that conversation. This panel will discuss the top areas of concern for CFOs and the ways digital transformation is helping plus dive deeper into sales tax automation as an example.
Training & Development Essentials: Investing In Your Team To Keep Your Team
John Regan, CFO Finance Reinsurance Americas
Donald R. Tomoff, CPA, MBA, Founder, Invenio Advisors LLC
Tom Hood, EVP Business Engagement & Growth, AICPA
If you’re hoping to recruit and retain the caliber of talent required to keep your finance department on track you’re going to need to do more than stand still when it comes to investing in training and development. Too often leaders think of the risks and rewards associated with investing in change–process, technology, and people. But what about the Risk Of not Investing (RONI)? In this session, you’ll hear from finance leaders on lessons learned over the past two years and how they’re actively ensuring the finance organization moves from a rearview mirror to a forward-looking windshield view and how they are viewing talent and capabilities differently to deliver.
4:15p – 5:05p
Keynote: Analytics For The Win!
Jessica Gelman, Kraft Analytics Group
Moderator: Rose Zhong Punkunus, SuDozi
Few people in the world have more experience in doing just that than Jessica Gelman, CEO of Kraft Analytics Group, the numbers and insights company that spun out of the sports empire behind the New England Patriots. She’s one of the most influential people in the post-Moneyball revolution transforming sports, and she’ll share strategies to help you attract great analytics talent, measure smarter, know what’s really valuable—and stop drowning in data.
- Create an environment where the best and brightest data analysis talent will thrive
- Figure out the right KPIs that have real meaning for value creation
- Build a data-driven culture without creating analysis paralysis
- Get buy-in for new measures and metrics that help the whole business evolve
- Put insights to work in a real-world context
- Manage information flow to empower decision-making, not stymie it
- Glimpse your AI-driven future and chart a path to what will soon be possible
- And more…
As CFOs, you are required to make better, faster decisions than ever before, and sometimes the amount of data can overwhelm even the best analytical mind. What can CFOs learn from the world of sports? Join Jessica and find out.
5:05p – 6:30p
Cocktail Reception
Day 2: Friday
May 20, 2022
All times listed ET and are subject to change.
8:30a – 9:30a
Breakfast
9:30a – 9:45a
Opening Remarks
9:45a – 10:35a
Keynote: HOW TO CHANGE THE WORLD
David Meline, CFO, Moderna
Moderated by: Danielle Li, MIT Sloan
Moderna is one of the great success stories of recent years, perhaps the greatest success story as the company and its revolutionary Covid vaccine saved countless lives during the greatest global health challenge in a century.
But turning a small company few people had heard of into a global health juggernaut in just over two years isn’t just about science—it’s about finance, it’s about business and it is most of all about execution. One of the key architects in that journey—who joined Moderna in 2020 specifically to explode the size of its commercial operations—joins us to share lessons on how modern financial executives must rethink their leadership to be bolder, more agile and more scalable in pursuit of breakthrough success, including:
- Building and scaling systems and staff at a breakneck pace
- Creating a finance function that’s more imaginative, flexible and passionate
- Leadership skills that attract and retain the kinds of talent needed to attack the biggest opportunities
- Developing a culture of excellence that’s mission-driven and able to tackle huge challenges
- And more…
It’s an exclusive look inside one of the most remarkable success stories in the history of global business, with lessons for every CFO trying to help build a team—and a culture–dedicated to being the best.
10:35a – 11:25a
The CFO-CTO Collaboration: Unlocking hidden potential through data
Rauli Garcia, VP of Strategic Marketing, Sage
In this fireside chat with Sage executives Rauli Garcia, VP Strategic Marketing and Aaron Harris, Chief Technology Officer, we hear how they first met when Rauli was Chief Administrative Officer at the Houston Zoo. He was responsible for a business with a 52-acre campus, 52 buildings, 3,000 animals, over 400 employees, over 400 volunteers, and several large unconnected pools of data.
Rauli had a “vision to bring pockets of data together through digital connections in order to support the Zoo’s mission of animal conservation.” One result of the collaboration with Aaron and Sage was the “Elephant Dung Dashboard.” As Rauli states, “our 11 elephants produced 1,100 pounds of dung a day. It was costing us a ton to dispose of the stuff. When we considered the impact to environment, we realized that it was a useful resource and that led us to selling our dung to Live Earth, which helped to mitigate our costs.” Today, Rauli and Aaron continue to work with companies to unlock the value of data in all forms.
11:25a – 11:45a
Coffee Break
11:45a – 12:35p
Innovator Breakouts*
Attend the session of most interest to you:
THE GOLDEN AGE FOR THE CFO IS NOW
Dan Fletcher, Chief Financial Officer, Planful
Regardless of whatever future scenario comes to pass, today’s CFOs have three major priorities: How do you get more effective & efficient? How are you contributing to the business and elevating organizational financial IQ? How can you ensure you’re motivating, retaining, and managing a high performing team, in an ever-changing landscape? In this interactive deep-dive session, we’ll evaluate how the smartest and most forward-looking CFOs have done more than grow accustomed to the uncertainty in the business landscape. They have acquired the right people, processes, and technology to make sure their business strategy thrives.
Facing the Next Decade of Change: How to Prepare Your Workforce
Andrea Spinelli, Managing Director, Protiviti
Jim Dinneen, Managing Vice President, Robert Half
The last two years has reconfigured where we work and accelerated trends on how and when we work. While these changes were jumpstarted by the pandemic, they will continue to reimagine what it means for the flexible workforce. Where are we headed? Join us for this session to better understand:
- Way to evaluate labor models into the next decade
- The importance of how work gets done, not where
- How to increase the value of the employee experience in a distributed work environment
JOURNEY TO THE EXIT: PREPARING FOR AN IPO AND LIFE AS A PUBLIC COMPANY
Mike Ellis, CFO, Flywire
IPOs had a record year in 2021and the market still shows little sign of slowing down. But whether your team is planning for an exit or just trying to tighten processes and sharpen performance to public-company levels, there’s plenty to learn from the process for preparing for an IPO. It adds considerable pressure to an already maxed-out CFO and their team, with difficult milestones, a condensed time-period and steep mountain of capital markets requirements you’ll need to meet. We’ll dig into the expected—and unexpected—journey CFOs will face as they tackle this most challenging of assignments.
12:35p – 1:25p
Luncheon Keynote
GROWTH: WHAT MODERN CFOS NEED TO KNOW NOW
NAVNEET GOVIL, MANAGING PARTNER AND CFO, SOFTBANK INVESTMENT ADVISERS
Moderated by Erin Scott, MIT Sloan
As the world gyrates with endless disruptions—in technology, finance, demography, health, war—the job of being a CFO, helping navigate through these waves of change, becomes ever more difficult—and critical.
For insights, we’ll hear from one of the most important financial players in the world, Navneet Govil, managing director and CFO of the $100 billion Softbank Vision Fund, the largest technology investment vehicle on earth. From his unparalleled vantage point working with leaders and investors at fast-growth companies, he’ll share his unique insights and sharpen your thinking on some of the most critical issues faced by CFOs today, including:
- Thinking more strategically to prepare for periods of accelerated growth
- More proactively engaging with the executive committee and investors
- Preparing yourself—personally—to scale with the organization
- Understanding state of the world’s capital markets—what comes next—and how CFOs can navigate more effectively
- Building a truly state-of-the art finance team that can grow and scale at startup pace
No matter what size your company—or your team—Govil will share practical insights and hard-won wisdom that will give you the edge you need to keep pace with the world as it changes once again.
1:25p – 2:15p
CFO Connect Huddles
Explore trending topics & your current challenges with finance peers. You select your topics of interest. We’ll connect the dots.
2:15p – 2:30p
Coffee Break
2:30p – 3:20p
Innovator Breakouts*
Attend the session of most interest to you:
THE GOLDEN AGE FOR THE CFO IS NOW
Dan Fletcher, Chief Financial Officer, Planful
Regardless of whatever future scenario comes to pass, today’s CFOs have three major priorities: How do you get more effective & efficient? How are you contributing to the business and elevating organizational financial IQ? How can you ensure you’re motivating, retaining, and managing a high performing team, in an ever-changing landscape? In this interactive deep-dive session, we’ll evaluate how the smartest and most forward-looking CFOs have done more than grow accustomed to the uncertainty in the business landscape. They have acquired the right people, processes, and technology to make sure their business strategy thrives.
Facing the Next Decade of Change: How to Prepare Your Workforce
Andrea Spinelli, Managing Director, Protiviti
Jim Dinneen, Managing Vice President, Robert Half
The last two years has reconfigured where we work and accelerated trends on how and when we work. While these changes were jumpstarted by the pandemic, they will continue to reimagine what it means for the flexible workforce. Where are we headed? Join us for this session to better understand:
- Way to evaluate labor models into the next decade
- The importance of how work gets done, not where
- How to increase the value of the employee experience in a distributed work environment
JOURNEY TO THE EXIT: PREPARING FOR AN IPO AND LIFE AS A PUBLIC COMPANY
Mike Ellis, CFO, Flywire
IPOs had a record year in 2021and the market still shows little sign of slowing down. But whether your team is planning for an exit or just trying to tighten processes and sharpen performance to public-company levels, there’s plenty to learn from the process for preparing for an IPO. It adds considerable pressure to an already maxed-out CFO and their team, with difficult milestones, a condensed time-period and steep mountain of capital markets requirements you’ll need to meet. We’ll dig into the expected—and unexpected—journey CFOs will face as they tackle this most challenging of assignments.
3:20p – 4:10p
Keynote Panel
INTO THE UNKNOWN: NAILING THE IPO & BEYOND
LAUREN STCLAIR, NerdWallet
AGLIKA DOTCHEVA, Riskified
MARCELA MARTIN, Squarespace
Moderated by: Paul Mende, MIT Sloan
CFOs of newly public companies that went the the traditional route—no SPACs—share candidly on the promise and perils of going public and being public: the transparency, the scrutiny, the compliance and regulatory requirements. They’ll discuss the essentials, with lessons for every CFO, whether they’re public, going public or looking to make their privately-held company more disciplined and prepared for owner scrutiny:
- Attracting and retaining great talent after the liquidity event
- Communicating with the board and investors—what’s worked, what hasn’t?
- Restructuring the finance function to meet the reporting challenges of a public company
- Using automation and technology to make their teams more flexible and agile
- What they wish they’d known before they went public
- Lessons for CFOs in PE-owned firms
There’s more pressure to perform than ever before. This trio of top-flight CFOs will help you think through your operation whether the exit is months—or years—from now.
4:10p – 5:15p
Closing Reception
CPE Credits have been submitted for approval
(12 CPEs for Live, 8 CPEs for Virtual)
*Innovator Breakout Sessions availble only for In-Person attendees. Recordings will be made available after the conference.