CFOs Collaborate in the Big Easy

New Orleans provided a great venue for this year’s AICPA CFO Conference. CFOs from around the country arrived to expand their knowledge on topics from risk management to being an effective leader.  As someone in the accounting profession and not in that CFO, here are a few of my takeaways from the conference. 

Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity continues to be a hot topic at industry conferences.  As I observed and listened, company leadership falls into one of three categories.  The first group fully understands the risk and the depth of procedures being performed to mitigate loss from an attack.  The second group understands the risk but don’t really know what’s being done by consultants or their internal IT team to mitigate loss.  Lastly, the third group understands the risk but follows the belief that this will never happen to us. Hopefully all three groups will continue to collaborate on this topic as it surely will become more relevant in the future.

Leadership

Certainly my biggest take away on the topic of leadership is that you have to show it with all levels of the company.  The CEO is counting on the CFO to help make those difficult decisions.  The accounting and finance team members are counting on the CFO for career guidance.  Being in that leadership role can be very rewarded but difficult at times.  From my vantage point, this group is hitting on all cylinders when it comes to leadership.

Accounting Standards Update

As you can imagine, revenue recognition and leases were the hot topics.  We know that the new revenue recognition standard is effective for public companies in 2018, but surprisingly, approximately 70% of companies remain in that “still reviewing” stage which can mean anything from I read the first few pages of the standard or followed someone’s blog on the topic. In all seriousness, the new revenue recognition standard could have the biggest impact companies have seen in recent history.  It’s time we all get going on this and move to the action stage. 

The convention offered a great opportunity to spend time discussing these and other important topics with a smart group of financial leaders.   I hope everyone continues to collaborate and grow to make their companies as successful as they can be.

As always, the HORNE PMM team is available if you need advice or assistance with your changing risk, compliance, expansion and IT security needs.

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