
Advance your company…and career
The CFO Accelerator is an interactive, three-day executive course taught exclusively by all-star MIT faculty on their iconic campus. This practical, intensive program is designed and developed to produce high-impact, immediate and lasting results for you and your mid-market business. The focus is squarely on accelerating your development, as CFO, into a true c-suite leader and transforming your finance function from a cost center into a potent strategic asset.
Re-energize your finance department, demonstrate your commitment to excellence and bring world-class ideas and connections back into your organization.
Benefits
As a participant, you will:
- Gain practical ideas on providing better strategic insights to your c-suite colleagues
- Learn about key levers to improve financial performance, including better ways to evaluate new initiatives than traditional return on investment metrics
- Understand how new trends and technologies—including blockchain, digital- and crypto-currencies—will impact finance at your organization, and plan to use them to your organizations’ advantage
- Embrace disruption by adopting a framework that will help your organization play “offense” in an agile way, rather than falling victim to accelerating change
- Obtain new perspectives and best practices on leading your team
- Enhance your CEO-CFO working relationship through improved collaboration and trust
- Realize insights into your personal leadership habits that will allow you to overcome weaknesses and better leverage strengths
- and more
Space is strictly limited to 40 participants and this program is offered only once per year, so register today to ensure participation in this very special program.
Hear from recent attendees
“I attended the MIT Sloan CFO Accelerator program last year and cannot say enough great things about the program. The speakers were excellent and covered a wide range of topics that were particularly relevant to my role as VP & Controller. By incorporating several of the ideas and suggestions that were discussed in my daily tasks I felt I was able to achieve a higher level of effectiveness. The program also provided a wonderful networking opportunity to connect with and hear from others who function in similar roles.”
– Nancy Gleason, CPA, VP & Controller
“It was genuinely the best development program that I’ve attended in a long time. I left highly energized with some new perspectives and new tools. In fact, over one year later, I am still applying some of the things I learned. I also loved the opportunity to interact with a small group of fellow CFOs in an environment that encouraged sharing and advising. These are phenomenal instructors. People should invest in themselves and take advantage of the chance to learn from them.”
– Sandra Clarke, CFO, Blue Shield of California
“Relevant, engaging, inspiring and actionable! These are the words that resonated in my mind as I attended the inaugural program last year. I have attended a few of these over my career and none left such a lasting impression as the Sloan program! In 5 days they managed to impart relevant ideas, thoughts to improve effectiveness and how to drive innovation in the work environment. I would strongly recommend this to CFOs who want their role to evolve to what is needed in today’s environment: a strategic and operational who can be an effective change agent!”
– Sandip Grewal, CFO, Bradshaw International
“Attending the CFO Accelerator course was an excellent use of my time. I found all MIT faculty to be engaging. The content was thought-provoking and relevant. The small group setting was beneficial as it allowed for deeper conversations with my peers. Overall, it exceeded my expectation”
– Kim Eiring, CFO, Mutual Materials Company
Agenda
Monday, May 16 – Macro economics & Finance
All times listed are EST
9:00am – 12:15pm
Demystifying digital Currencies and crypto-Assets
with Roberto Rigobon
This session will focus on crypto-assets and currencies. While the latter are a problem for most CFOs, the former represent a potentially powerful use of blockchain that is likely to have an impact on many sectors to keep track of property rights and complex financial instruments.
12:15pm – 1:15pm
Lunch / Networking
1:15pm – 4:30pm
Entrepreneurial Finance: How to Allocate Capital like a VC
with Antoinette Schoar
Antoinette Schoar, an expert in entrepreneurial finance, will help CFOs evaluate how the capital structure of their companies, as well as their decisions on where/how to allocate capital. Too often investment decisions are driven primarily by ROI metrics…which in many cases are misleading and short term. Antoinette will share insights about the approaches and metrics VCs use to decide how and how much to support early stage companies and projects that might not succeed right away.
Tuesday, May 17 – Strategy & Innovation
All times listed are EST
9:00am – 12:15pm
Strategy & Disruption
with Pierre Azoulay
As business and operating models are being transformed by digitalization and fast moving new companies, Pierre Azoulay, a noted innovation economist and strategy professor, will present a framework that can help CFOs move from relying on “technology forecasting” (a very unreliable activity) and move toward a more agile approach to playing offense and defense vis a vis “disruption.”
12:15pm – 1:15pm
Lunch / Networking
1:15pm – 4:30pm
CFO’s and Diversity, equity and inclusion
with Roberto Fernandez
This session is designed to give CFOs a balanced way to look at DEI issues (i.e. not just as $ and ROI) and will help them achieve a clearer understanding of the social and psychological challenges to working effectively across identity-based differences; assess the work that’s being done/not done in this arena in their companies; and determine how they can help or unconsciously hinder progress.
Wednesday, May 18 – Finance & Leadership
All times listed are EST
9:00am – 12:15pm
Finance IPO, M&A
with Paul Mende
Paul Mende will help CFOs think about the special challenges of initial public offerings and mergers and acquisitions…many CFOs think of just the “financial engineering” aspects of these situations but there are other considerations such as synergy and ongoing financial flexibility that are important to anticipate as well.
12:15pm – 1:00pm
Lunch / Networking
1:00pm – 4:00pm
Leading Change
with Court Chilton
Court Chilton, will help CFOs frame the problem of organizational change and then take actions that increase the odds of being successful and decrease the cycle time to success. He will conclude by helping CFOs think about how they themselves need to show up in the middle of company efforts to make innovation and transformation happen.
Faculty
The presenters are the full-time faculty from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, all of whom are recognized as thought leaders in their field. They will be supplemented by highly-respected executives.

Pierre Azoulay is an expert in innovation and strategy, frequently appearing in media outlets from The Economist to Wired. His research, teaching and consulting work is focused on the gaps between theory and practice in strategy and sustaining innovation and entrepreneurship in environments like yours.

Court Chilton teaches the popular MBA course, Leading in Ambiguity, but spends most of his time in MIT Sloan’s executive education program helping leaders in complex organizations focus on and deliver small changes with big impact. His clients have included Deloitte, Fidelity, Bank of America, Merck, Home Depot and Baker McKenzie.

Prior to joining the finance faculty at MIT Sloan, Paul Mende ran his own hedge fund dedicated to quantitative research, trading and risk management. A student favorite, Mende teaches how to blend innovative theory with real-world applications—and will help you think beyond standard metrics.

Roberto Rigobon has won just about every teaching award there is at Sloan, from Teacher of the Year to the school’s Excellence in Teaching Award. Described by Sloan students as “crazy but brilliant,” he brings his high energy style to the CFO Accelerator to discuss how blockchain and crypto assets are likely to impact your business.

Antoinette Schoar is an expert in finance and accounting and a recipient of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Prize for her insights. She will share tactics for improving how your organization evaluates investment decisions.

Roberto Fernandez is an engaging, thought-provoking teacher with expertise in organizational process. He will bring new perspectives on roadblocks and solutions to help your organization achieve its diversity, equity and inclusion goals.
Pricing
Join your community of peers today & save!
If you’re not a member of CFOLC yet, join for only $425 and take advantage of our preferred member pricing as well as all the other CFOLC membership benefits.
CFOLC Members |
Non-Members |
$7,200 |
$9,000 |
CFOLC Members
$7,200
Non-Members
$9,000
We respect that these are dynamic times. If you need to change your plans, a full refund or credit can be provided up until April 15th, 2022.
Who should take this course?
Financial executives who lead rapidly evolving enterprises and who wish to leverage strategic thinking, global expertise, and technological advances to engineer long-term sustainable advantages for their organizations.
Participant titles may include:
- CFO
- VP of Finance
- Etc.
Please note: In order to craft a meaningful learning environment among peers and leading thinkers, the CFO Leadership Council reserves the right to restrict participation at its sole discretion.
Limited availability to 40 total registrants.

Certification and Continuing Education
Each attendee will receive a certificate of completion from MIT Sloan School of Management. As a powerful symbol of your commitment to excellence and lifelong learning, your certification is also suitable for display on your LinkedIn profile.
NASBA certified CPE
+An MIT Executive Certificate for curriculum learned will be provided.
23 CPE Credits have been submitted for approval
The CFO Leadership Council is registered with the National Association of State Boards-of-Accountancy (NASBA) as a sponsor of continuing professional education on the National Registry of CPE Sponsors (Sponsor ID 109063). State boards of accountancy have final authority on the acceptance of individual courses for CPE credit. Complaints regarding registered sponsors may be addressed to the National Registry of CPE Sponsors, 150 Fourth Avenue North, Suite 700, Nashville, TN, 37219-2417. Website: www.nasba.org
Additional Information
This program has been developed exclusively for CFOLC members . We reserve the right to decline any registration. For more information about this program or The CFO Leadership Council, please contact Jack McCullough at [email protected].
To help ensure the health and safety of our community, our faculty and staff are committed to tackling the challenges of Covid-19 the MIT way – by standing with the science, working the problem, and modeling the solution for our community and beyond. We will continue to follow guidance from the CDC, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and the city of Cambridge. As such, outlined below are the latest Executive Education participant policies as of December 2021:
· Vaccinations (and boosters) and a pre- or on-arrival Covid test are required to attend an Executive Education course
At Program Registration:
· Present vaccination card (photos are acceptable)
· Present a negative Covid result from within 72 hours prior to program (PCR and rapid antigen test are both acceptable)
At Program Registration:
· Present vaccination card (photos are acceptable)
· Present a negative Covid result from within 72 hours prior to program (PCR and rapid antigen test are both acceptable)