CPE requirements for each session can be completed by December 31.
Day 1
Opening Remarks
Speakers:
Staying Positive Through Unprecedented Change
Are you feeling abnormally stressed out? Maybe working from home has introduced unexpected interruptions and habit changes? Is your team remaining accountable and productive? Society is experiencing change at levels not encountered for a very long time. Humans naturally struggle with change, so if you’re feeling out of sorts - you are not alone! To help you remain optimistic and navigate change with a proactive plan, we’ve invited executive coach Michael S. Seaver to share research, stories, and easily implementable best practices. He’ll share ideas about emotions in the workplace and how they affect trust-filled relationships. You’ll learn about time management and limiting interruptions. Michael will discuss frameworks for personal and peer accountability he’s implemented with clients. By the end of this session, we hope you’ll feel clarity and ease, confident to choose your next steps, and prepared to implement an action plan that moves you in alignment with your goals.
Speaker:
If You're Not in a Hurry You're Probably Too Late
Join Howard Tullman, a serial entrepreneur and investor for over 50 years in this fast-paced humorous, content-rich survey and analysis of the emerging trends, competitive considerations, new behavior drivers, and latest tools and technologies which are changing the face and the future of our lives and our businesses. Walk away with concrete details on essential system and process changes and actionable take-aways.
Speaker:
- Howard Tullman | General Managing Partner | Chicago High- Tech Investment Partners
Cybersecurity: Building Resilience in Your Organization
The role of the CFO has expanded to include establishing and executing strategy, as well as ensuring all risks are identified and managed. Cybersecurity is one of the top risks CFO’s face, but many lack the knowledge to stay ahead of an ever-evolving threat landscape. Assessing and improving cybersecurity is not just a risk mitigation exercise but provides a strategic advantage in today’s online world. Learn what strategic CFO’s do to optimize the long-term return from their cybersecurity programs.
Speaker:
- Jeff Dawley | President and Founder | Cybersecurity Compliance Corporation
Small Business Tax Planning Process Improvement
Solid tax planning strategies, preparation and compliance activities are critical to running a healthy business and maximizing the bottom line. Join us as we explore planning ideas and tax-saving strategies to help you realize appropriate tax advantages.
Speaker:
Day 2
Strategies to Retain Top Talent in the Digital Era
It’s no secret that the fight is on to retain top talent. With the growth in job opportunities for finance professionals, your best workers have figured out they are the top of their game in the hiring market. Employers will need to pull out all the stops to retain their best and brightest. Join the discussion on developing a strategy for retaining your top employees.
Speaker:
Finance 3.0: Beyond Data-Driven
From big data and artificial intelligence (AI) to the subscription economy and cloud computing, modern finance is undergoing its most fundamental transformation ever. Today, it takes a data-driven finance leader – someone who understands and embraces the promise and power of technology – to navigate this exciting, uncertain future. Attend this session and hear how Sage Intacct customers became data-driven finance leaders that proactively drove strategy and improved operations.
Key Learnings:
- The technologies and skills you need to move to a digital, data-driven world
- How to graduate from Finance 1.0 and thrive in Finance 2.0
- How to "Twitterize" your reporting and analytics
- When you should automate and when you shouldn't
- How AI and machine learning enables Finance 3.0
Speaker:
Lease Accounting Moves Beyond Compliance: A Catalyst for Process Automation
The shift to compliance standards has made leasing an unexpected catalyst for digital finance transformation, with organizations starting to use Lease Lifecycle Automation (LLA) to deliver end-to-end process improvements and cost savings. Many companies have avoided taking full advantage of leasing, because leasing is complex. To make leasing easier, a new breed of LLA solutions have evolved from early compliance and lease accounting tools. Now organizations can drive down cost and risk by automating every lease from beginning to end with standardized processes. Join us to hear best practices and real-life examples of how to move beyond compliance in a “new normal” of increased complexity and remote workers, using automation.
Speakers:
Using Data to Drive Strategy - Brought to you by the American Management Association
Whether you want to attract new customers, improve products, forecast sales, or streamline operations, your decisions are much more effective when you put data to work for you. Learn how to create and analyze KPIs, apply data analytics to make and defend decisions, persuasively communicate your insights via spoken word and data visualization, and create a competitive advantage through data-driven insights.
This session will provide an overview of American Management Association's (AMA) course “Using Data to Drive Strategy”. FEI recently partnered with AMA to offer additional professional development opportunities for FEI members. Many of AMA’s courses in Finance, Accounting, and Data Analysis are eligible for Continuing Education Units to maintain your credentials, including FP&A, CTP, PDU, CPE, CAP, and CEU.
Speaker:
- Jay Frischkorn | President and Principal, Strategic Profitability Consultants | American Management Association
Impact of COVID 19 on Human Resource Issues and Future Workforce
As shelter-in-place orders are lifted, employers will be presented with unprecedented challenges as the on-going COVID-19 pandemic continues to have a great impact on the workplace. This session will discuss the key legal issues to consider as you develop an approach to operating in a post-COVID 19 environment. Experienced attorneys will offer practical and actionable guidance on the business and legal issues you need to be ready for.
Speakers:
Day 3
Bonus CPE Session: 3 Tips for the 2021 Plan: Let’s Not Make the Same Mistakes Next Year
With so much change happening in the world, relying solely on the traditional annual budget process is no longer an option. Organizations today need to be quick on their feet. Our finance experts will reflect on lessons learned and discuss automation companies are putting in place to be able to navigate the ‘new normal’ -- how to formulate plans, run scenarios, get data to stakeholders -- all while keeping everyone aligned and on budget.
Speaker:
CFO 2020: How CFOs Can Prepare for the New Future of Work
The role of the CFO is changing. Instead of looking backwards and focusing on what happened, real-time analysis of historical data allows CFOs to better shape, predict and optimize business outcomes. Advancements in technology are providing CFO’s the opportunity to play a more strategic role. But how does a CFO keep up on technology? Learn the future of technology and how it will impact every CFO.
Speaker:
- Ram Ramanan | Partner | Ernst & Young LLP
- Margaret Merritt | Partner of Americas Financial Accounting Advisory Services (FAAS) | Ernst & Young LLP
- Samir Jaipati | Americas Finance Solutions Leader | Ernst & Young LLP
Playing Monopoly: How the Concentration of Wealth and Power Threatens the Post-Pandemic World Economy
The biggest are getting even bigger. As the coronavirus pandemic ravages the global economy, middle class workers and small businesses are losing out to powerful and politically connected elites. But this isn’t new. Technological changes, low interest rates, government bailouts, and a growing thicket of regulations have enabled the rise of a winner-takes-all economy over the last two decades - and the consequences are beginning to make themselves felt. In this session, we will discuss how weak growth, rising debt, social unrest and trade wars are rooted in the way modern societies distribute wealth and power - and how, through advancing the interests of elites over those of workers, leaders have unleashed forces that will shake the political landscape, distort financial markets and reshape the post-pandemic global economy in the years to come.
Speaker:
CFO Roundtable: Failure is Only an Illusion
Success isn’t always a straight path. Thomas Edison developed thousands of prototypes of the light bulb before finding the one that worked, and Albert Einstein was unemployed for two years after he graduated college. In some cases, struggles can be valuable learning experiences. It was Albert Einstein that said, “if you’ve never failed, you’ve never tried something new”. And he was right. Today’s modern CFO is expected to be a key driver of innovation, but to successfully innovate, failure is key. To breed business success, you’ve got to embrace failure. But how do you do it? A panel of CFOs will share their experiences, lessons learned from failure and how they used setbacks to push them forward.
Speakers:
- David Johnson | Founder and Managing Partner | Abraxas Group
- Donald McCree | Vice Chairman & Head of Commercial Banking | Citizens Financial Group, Inc
- Adam Remis | Owner | Remis & Associates, LLC
Moderator:
Day 4
Bonus CPE Session: From Survive to Thrive in a Global Pandemic: Cultivate Relationships in a Social-Distanced New World Order
During this session, learn how to break down the persistent barriers to human interaction we face in a self-distancing, quasi quarantine "new normal" to establish and nourish mutually beneficial and more rewarding relationships.
Ethan Chazin will discuss how to cultivate powerful relationships in a global pandemic specifically and offer strategies to connect, engage, and relate in a self-distancing new normal. Now more than ever, it can be daunting to forge and nurture meaningful and mutually beneficial relationships as we all self-distance and remain in a perpetual state of "quasi" quarantine. Fortunately, there are effective strategies that you can leverage, in order to break down the distance caused by virtual networking as a means of furthering your career.
Speaker:
- Ethan Chazin | Executive Coach & Author, The Compassionate Organization | The Chazin Group
Getting on Board
Being invited to serve on a corporate board is considered an enormous professional compliment. Corporations as well as non-profits need to carefully consider the professional attributes and expertise of their board candidates, as well as the candidates’ private and professional reputations. Learn how successful board candidates have balanced multiple priorities while positioning themselves for board consideration.
Speaker:
How and Why Financial Executives and Professionals Need to Network and Build Relationships in The New Normal
Join member favorite speaker, Larry Kaufman as he shares insight from his book, “The NCG Factor: A Formula for Building Life-Changing Relationships from College to Retirement.”
When Networking, Connecting, and Giving collide you create the NCG Factor, an explosive formula for fast-tracking anybody to authentic, powerful, life-changing personal and business relationships. With practical, real-world examples from successful “NCG Masters,” the NCG Factor is a guidebook for life. During this session Larry will share how the NCG Factor can be a formula for financial executives and professionals, looking to advance their career and professional network, to build life-changing relationships with your board, peers, team members, trusted advisors to re-write your legacy professionally and personally.
Speaker:
- Larry Kaufman | Managing Director of Midwest Region | Jefferson Wells
Credit Losses / ASU 2017-13 (Topic 326)
This session will provide updates to participants on the financial reporting implications associated with credit losses as changed by the issuance of ASU 2016-13 (Topic 326) and its subsequent amendments. The scope of this FASB Topic includes loans and accounts receivables.
Speaker:
- Kenneth Heaslip | Accounting Professior, Seton Hall University | Kaplan Financial Education
Special Purpose Acquisition Companies
Although Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (“SPACs”) have been around for decades, they have recently come into vogue as seasoned investors and management teams have turned to SPACs to mitigate the market volatility risk of traditional IPOs. However, a private company going public through a SPAC transaction comes with its own set of challenges. We will discuss:
- Conditions and trends driving the momentum of SPACs in 2020
- An overview of the lifecycle of a SPAC, from inception through the consummation of a merger
- A survey of the core competencies that must be examined and elevated after a target company is acquired
- An overview of the regulatory requirements, including SEC compliance for annual and interim financial statements, PCAOB opinion considerations, the Super 8K, and ongoing public company report
Speakers:
- John Wilde | Partner of National Office and Accounting and Reporting Services | Deloitte & Touche LLP
- Derek Gillespie | Audit Partner of Accounting and Reporting Advisory | Deloitte & Touche LLP
- Allison Patti-Oliveira | Lead Client Service Partner | Deloitte & Touche LLP
- Samantha Pietsch | Managing Director | Deloitte Tax LLP
Day 5
Transition & Transformation: Building and Leading Future-Ready Finance Teams
Leadership carries a heavier burden due to the global COVD-19 pandemic. Leaders have had to quickly transition their business model while balancing digital transformation and reporting initiatives with building and leading resilient teams in preparation for what lies ahead. As companies shift to fully remote workforces or hybrid teams of on- and off-site staff, they must take a proactive approach to financial and change management. In this session, you will learn how to incorporate a positive corporate culture into this new dynamic, create balance for those on-site and at home, and implement strategies to optimize your staffing model based on specific needs of the organization.
Speakers:
Work Smarter, not Harder. The New Game Plan for the Financial Leaders
Are you being asked to do more with less?
Do you regularly:
- Benchmark your company's performance against peers?
- Check to see what your peers are saying about emerging topics like COVID, D&I or Going Concern?
- Research financial statements, disclosures, and other filings for due diligence or see industry practice examples?
We can show you how to drastically reduce the amount of time and effort you spend doing these prevalent analyses and:
- Set up a recurring search (great for benchmarking) that automatically updates as soon as new data is filed
- Click on any item and be taken to the source document
- Visualize the data in charts and graphs for inclusion in reports
- See your search results for disclosures in context, and
- Easily share your results with others.
Join us and gain insight into how to work smarter.
Speakers:
Creating Business Value with Microsoft Teams and Office 365
Office 365 and Microsoft Teams enables people to chat, meet, call and collaborate all in one place effectively wherever and whenever, even when global circumstances require work-at-home arrangements. Whether working in the office, at a client site or from home, Teams provides efficient management of day-to-day operations. Attend this session and learn about the features of Microsoft teams essential for today’s digital worker.
Speaker:
- Chris Paris | Senior Customer Success Manager | Microsoft
Day 6
Bonus CPE Session: Tax Implications of the 2020 Election
Join Withum’s Federal Tax Expert, Dan Mayo as he gives an overview of the tax proposals from both candidates and what they mean for you and your business. We don’t know yet which proposal will be implemented but tune in for the different possibilities of what could happen November 3, 2020.
Speaker:
- Daniel Mayo | National Lead Federal State Tax Policy | Withum
Digital Transformation and Disruption in Business Models
With the acceleration of digital transformation and disruption in business models, technology is taking a center stage to keep businesses relevant and continue to meet their everchanging customer needs. These trends have created new expectations for Finance professionals who, in addition to being function experts, are now required to lead transformation journeys. In this session the speaker will share his journey and some best practices in conceptualizing and leading Finance Transformation projects. He will also demo few transformative solutions.
Speaker:
The Critical C-Suite Connection
CFO’s are feeling greater pressure and responsibility to realize and increase the ROI on technology investments. Yet, many finance executives struggle to understand the rapidly changing world of technology. In this session you will learn how to lead and influence your technology teams, how to identify what technology your organization would benefit from, and how to create a culture the embraces technology.
Speaker:
- Heather Cole | Executive Coach/Business Analytics Advisor | Lodestar Solutions, Inc.
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