CFO THOUGHT LEADER

A distinguished finance leader answers our question: When you entered the CFO office for the first time, what’s the one piece of advice you wish someone had given you?

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Bender: “I think the one thing that I would like to have done that I didn’t in my career is, I wish I had taken the time at some point a little earlier in my career to get an MBA. I’d like to consider myself a recovering CPA, recovering accountant. The numbers are important, but use them, don’t let them use you. I think that over the years, something that has made me more successful is that I worked for a family that has allowed and encouraged me to be involved in my profession and my industry. I made this comment earlier.  “Therefore, I have been around as a member and in some cases in leadership roles in both professional and industry organizations, and I have met incredibly gifted, talented, bright, just nice people who share. I know, as you know, that in writing an article, plagiarism is a no-no, and it gets you in trouble. But the truth of the matter is that there just aren’t that many new ideas that crop up every year. If you’re around a lot of people who do a lot of different things, you learn from them. It goes back to that we live in an age when it seems like all we talk about is technical advance after technical advance. I would propose to you today that social capital is every bit as important today as it was in 1954 or 1914. I think that this is the root of many of my successes¾that I have been allowed to be around others who have shared with me, and our companies have occasionally reaped large benefits because of that.”

Join us when Steve Love, CFO, Dialpad and performance thought leader Brett Knowles, reveal how RPA is reshaping corporate functions while making finance’s analytical rigor more accessible across the organization.  Growing numbers of CFOs are already marching in step with the robots as they evaluate and automate the processes that will allow their team to refocus on becoming exceptional analysts and strategic advisors, rather than yesterday’s bean counters.

Over the next decade Vincent Manier believes growing numbers of finance leaders will adopt the dictums of "green finance" extending the influence of finance leadership well beyond its traditional role.   Simply put, green finance characterizes the financing of investments that generate environmental benefits as part of the broader strategy to advance resilient and sustainable development. As CFO of Ecova, an energy and sustainability solutions company, Manier, perhaps has more reason to be bullish on the opportunity than many of his peers - still there's no dismissing the momentum behind the green finance movement.  Join us when Vincent Manier recounts the milestones of his finance career and discusses the opportunity that has made him a champion of customer-centric finance.

As the complexity behind the new revenue recognition standard ASC 606 discharges a cloud of angst and consternation over many accounting departments, a growing number of SaaS technology firms have begun to help their customers address the burdensome standard allowing their finance teams to sharpen their customer focus.   Few SaaS firms perhaps tout software offerings more enmeshed with the standard’s requirements than Xactly, the San Jose, Calif.  software developer specializing in sales performance and incentive compensation.   Join us when we ask Xactly CFO Joe Consul to recount how the developer recognized that the burdensome standard was an opportunity to better serve its clients.