Peering into the CFO's mind

From a CEO's perspective, CFO's just aren't much fun. They put the brake on spending, they put the brake on a CEO's whim of the day/week/month, and they are usually contrarian. That said, they are an interesting study for a CEO, who must work with the CFO constantly and depends upon his CFO to keep him out of trouble.

To further my study of CFOs, I am attending the CFO Rising Conference in Orlando this week. Unfortunately, social settings and large gatherings are not the natural setting for a CFO, therefore my study could be fatally flawed. Having received an advanced attendee list, I targeted specific individuals and researched them using Linked in, zoom info, and - of course - facebook.

On Monday morning, I observed my subjects (roughly 250 of them) milling about, drinking coffee, eating pastries, and mostly avoiding eye contact with those they did not instantly recognize. Then I sat through a presentation where a Yale professor talked about the current economic crisis and laid out what he thought the plan should be. The audience lobbed a few softball questions his way, then politely applauded and went back out for coffee. The points the Yale professor made were:
> The average joe has a limted financial vocabulary and the government should subsidize financial planning for individuals.
>Business Schools should move away from teaching only "Free Market" theory, because there really are no free markets, nor are there efficient markets. (otherwise every company in a free market would exactly break even, never earn a profit)
>There needs to be an improved risk market (futures, options) on such things as home equity, credit card debt, etc., to protect against drastic market corrections
>Individuals should be treated more like companies when their financial situations change (in other words banks should freely renegotiate with individuals on terms)

During the afternoon, I watched a passionate presentation on stochastic modeling and a software tool named Crystal Ball. Basically, predicting the future of your business and thinking in probabilities instead of best, likely, and worst case scenarios.

Later, I tried another experiment. I wanted to know what would happen if I introduced myself, regardless of how quickly he/she tried to scurry away. Surprisingly the person would stick around for a while...small talk being a little difficult, but mostly cordial. As the afternoon wore on, I got sidetracked by a salesman hiding in a CFO title. He convinced me that it was time to have a beer and dragged me (kicking and screaming of course) to the bar, where we talked about the economy and how companies were coping.

The day ended with my head of business development talking me into having dinner with the controller and a couple assistants of a large division of a Fortune 100 company where we enchanged more political views than business views. But it was a good end to the day.

So much for Monday. The study and targeting continues Tuesday.