2012 New Zealand CFO Summit

About the Summit

Lifetime Contribution

Fairfax Media and Conferenz are delighted to announce that Sir John Buchanan has won the Lifetime Contribution to Finance and Business Award as part of the 2012 New Zealand CFO Awards.

The Kiwi-born businessman described as "the best connected man in the City of London", who was knighted last month for his services to industry, won this award last night at an exclusive dinner sponsored by CIMA.

Sir John is currently chairman of medical device company Smith & Nephew and deputy chairman of Vodafone. Sir John is best-known for his 33-year career with BP, including several years as chief financial officer before retiring in 2003, and he is a director of BHP Billiton.

Although based in Britain, Buchanan has always retained close ties to New Zealand and has been putting his self-confessed "very good network" to effect as a trustee of the British branch of the earthquake fundraising appeal for Christchurch.

About the CFO Summit

The road ahead will require that the CFO is able to be both an accelerator for growth but also a handbrake to ensure the growth is disciplined and focused on the long term.

Chaired by Rod Oram, this peer-to-peer gathering will offer a unique opportunity to gain invaluable insight into the future of finance and allow over 350 attendees the chance to add their views to the discussions.

CFO Keynotes
Sir George Fistonich
Villa Maria Estate		Judith Hanratty
Company Chair and Director (UK)		Ian Mackintosh
IASB (UK)		Idris Mootee
Idea Couture Inc (CAN)		John Judge
Director

Why you should attend

  • Get insight into the leadership challenges CFOs face in today’s complex global economy

  • Understand the changing regulatory and capital market environment

  • Be inspired by top Directors and CEOs as they share their experience and expertise

  • Debate whether companies should have a cautious or aggressive approach to growth

  • Find out about the challenging new risk environment

  • Learn how top CFOs are building and leading high-performance teams

  • Hear about improved financial reporting in a changing world

Agenda

8:30am

Registration and coffee

8:50am

Opening remarks from the Chair

Rod Oram, Business Journalist

9:00am

Opening Address: The disciplined road to long term growth

Behind every successful company is a dynamic breed of leaders who blaze their own trails. What do they do differently? How do they deliver consistent performance in growth, manage finances, keep up with technology, and cope with economic uncertainty? Sir George Fistonich’s passion and determination has made Villa Maria Estate New Zealand a leading wine award winner, both locally and overseas. In this address he will share his views on leadership and the road ahead for CFOs in New Zealand.

Sir George Fistonich, Owner and Managing Director, Villa Maria Estate

9:30am

Life in a volatile world

Are EU policy makers making the right decisions and providing comprehensive solutions to invigorate growth and restructure debt? The US has averted a possible debt default but still faces the challenge of credit downgrades, weak growth and high unemployment. Can the US restore its credibility in global economic leadership? What role will China and India play in the global recovery? What is the outlook for the US dollar and other currencies, as well as global asset prices, especially commodities? The uneven pace of recovery worldwide has made it challenging for many companies and the role of the CFO has become more critical. This session will discuss:
• What is in store for the US, EU and Asia?
• What does the current economic picture mean for the New Zealand CFO?
• How are New Zealand businesses currently coping with this volatility?

Rob Brooker, Chief Economist and Head of Australian Economics, National Australia Bank

10:00am

IASB Update: What do financial reports really report?

• The current state of global financial reporting: Are investors getting information that honestly reflects the finances, and what can be done to reduce complexity and make financial statements more useful?
• Is there too much judgement required in the selection of accounting, measurement, and recognition methods?
• What impact will convergence to global reporting standards have?
• What accounting areas represent the biggest ethical challenges and how should practices such as smoothing be viewed?

Ian Mackintosh, Vice-Chairman, IASB (United Kingdom)

10:30am

Morning Tea

10:50am

Organisational Productivity: How do you compare?

Ernst & Young has undertaken research across Australasia to define productivity, measure performance and discuss the opportunities available to improve productivity and ultimately make a difference.
• Organisation structure, design and operating model - where and how can organisations cut wasteful, bureaucratic and non-value work and outputs?
• Technology - how can your organisation use technology more successfully as an enabler?
• People management - are you making the most of your organisation’s greatest asset?
• Innovation - does your organisation nurture and enable innovation?

Braden Dickson, Partner, Ernst & Young

11:15am

International Insight: A new era in insurance and risk management

2011 has been an unprecedented year, with a prevalence of severe natural catastrophes hitting the Asia Pacific region, which has impacted the global reinsurance industry substantially. Faced with increases in insurance premiums, organisations are re-evaluating the level of risk they are prepared to tolerate. This session will consider:
• A look forward at the global insurance industry
• The top strategic priorities and biggest challenges for CFOs
• How CFOs are managing the growing number of uninsured liabilities

12:00pm

Directors’ Insight Panel: Impact and influence of Centro, Hanover and Nathans Finance

• The global effect on governance - why CFOs need to pay attention to boardroom pressures occurring abroad
• Directors’ responsibilities and those of the CFO
• Working with the Chief Executive to ensure the information presented to the Board does not create risk

John Judge, Director
Michael Stiassny, Independent Director
Sandy Maier, Independent Director
Joan Withers, Independent Director

12:45pm

Lunch

1:45pm

Select the topic of your choice and learn in a more informal and interactive setting

Need for speed: Preparing for the ultra-fast broadband curve
Ultra-fast broadband is said to provide New Zealand business with opportunities to work in new ways and to increase productivity. The speakers will provide an insightful view on what ultra-fast broadband means for New Zealand businesses, why CFOs need to be aware of this changing landscape and how they need to prepare.
Chris Quin, Chief Executive Officer, Gen-i Australasia

FMA Address: Returning investor confidence in New Zealand
• How did we get here - the context, the models, what was the real problem?
• Where the major priorities lie and how the FMA will operate
• The challenges the FMA will face over the next 12 months
Sue Brown, Head of Primary Regulatory Operations, Financial Markets Authority (FMA)

Panel Discussion: Strategic risk management in the face of uncertainty and unexpected risks
Business is often blindsided by unexpected events, like the Christchurch earthquake, that often have ‘fat tails’ for organisations.
• Insights from recent experiences
• How finance executives can build and communicate an integrated risk view
• Strategic risk as a lever for increasing total enterprise value
• Building a strong risk culture
• Credit risk management
Malcolm Wratt, General Manager - Finance, Foodstuffs (South Island)
Kim Wallace, Chief Financial Officer, Westland Milk Products
Brendan Kearney, General Manager Corporate Services, Orion New Zealand
Joanne Ogg, Partner, Ernst & Young
Kirk Cheesman, Managing Director, National Credit Insurance (Brokers)

Panel Discussion: The CFO as a people leader - developing finance talent
• The current finance talent market in New Zealand and the rest of Asia Pacific
• The focus on internal talent, career path development and succession planning
• The broadening role of the CFO in developing the talent pipeline across the organisation
Mark Edghill, Chief Financial Officer, Z Energy
Bruce McEwen, Chief Financial Officer, Coca-Cola Amatil NZ
Scott Scoullar, Acting Deputy Commissioner, Corporate Services, Inland Revenue
Adam Awty, Chief Financial Officer, CPA Australia

2:30pm

Select the topic of your choice and learn in a more informal and interactive setting

Crafting, executing and monitoring strategy effectively to ensure genuine progress and long-term growth
• Working to achieve a clear and concise strategy
• How to maintain a strategic focus in business management particularly in complex corporate environments
• The balance between intuition and analysis - knowing when and how to make the necessary adjustments during execution
• Using the strategy development and management process to build capability and achieve organisational engagement
Sam Knowles, Chairman, Localist

Managing the margins
The past two years have been spent controlling costs to maintain profitability; companies did all they could to increase profits from the cost side, the only lever they had. Getting the price right is now on the minds of many CFOs. They are looking for any source of insight to help them improve and manage profitability, defend margins, and set a competitive price that markets will bear.
• How CFOs can lead the transformation
• Executing a powerful and impactful pricing strategy
• Developments in enterprise technology platforms
Mark Conelly, Chief Financial Officer, Noel Leeming Group
Commentator:
Nigel Greenwood, Chief Financial Officer, Synlait

Panel Discussion: Making the leap - Exploring and implementing successful M&A strategies to deliver growth
• A review of recent developments in the M&A market - the most critical areas of activity and opportunity in the economy
• What is the secret to road-mapping a successful M&A venture?
• Post merger/acquisition integration – how CFOs can avoid disaster
Sean Kam, Chief Financial Officer, Heartland New Zealand
Andrew Taylor, Partner, Ernst & Young
John Quirk, Director, Howard & Company
Bruce Woodward, Chief Financial Officer, Kidicorp

Optimising working capital: Driving capital efficiency throughout the enterprise
Although sustained Working Capital reduction is critical to an organisation’s capacity to grow and lower its cost structure, few CFOs are employing working capital as efficiently as possible. Fonterra has been focused on how it can improve its working capital and increase agility.
• Elevating working capital efficiency to a key line priority
• Leveraging finance’s working capital expertise and vantage point
• The challenges faced in pursuing improvements in working capital across the board
Jonathan Mason, Chief Financial Officer, Fonterra
James Ling, Growth & Performance Manager, Fonterra Brands - Asia Middle East

3:15pm

Afternoon Tea

3:35pm

Enterprise Systems: Where are we headed?

• Global trends in enterprise systems
• Typical ERP solution supports change but at what cost?
• Will future systems enable us to extract more value and if so in what areas?
• What is the right balance? A single system versus best of breed and where to draw the line
• ERP in the cloud

Doug Hughes, Vice President – Applications Product Management, Oracle Corporation (Japan & Asia Pacific)

4:05pm

CEO Insights Panel: Lessons from respected CEOs

CEOs today look near and far for opportunities. They invest domestically and globally, watch over traditional markets and seize openings in new ones. How do these leaders set a clear mandate on what to go after? How do they localise in individual markets and take on entrepreneurial traits such as speed and flexibility? How do they use the cash in their pockets to make acquisitions or squeeze costs to win market share? How do they keep their brands vibrant? What are the strategies they use to ensure their business models create profitable growth and cope with fluctuating economic conditions?

Frances Benge, Managing Director, Pfizer New Zealand
John Hartmann, Chief Executive Officer, Mitre 10 (NZ)
Alex Malley, Chief Executive Officer, CPA Australia

4:55pm

International Keynote: Fostering a culture of innovation through design thinking

The need for 21st century mindsets and protocols has sparked unprecedented interest in “design thinking”, a human-centred, prototype-powered and foresight-driven approach to solving business problems. With radical change in technologies, extreme competition, rapidly changing consumer behaviour, and the blurring of industry boundaries - how do you move beyond the business-as-usual way of doing things and become a creative powerhouse?
• What are the characteristics of an innovative organisation?
• How can an organisation be innovative when staff and finances are already stretched?
• How to build an ongoing innovation advantage to redefine value
• What are the necessary organisational capabilities for continuous innovation?
• How to manage the tension between today’s business and tomorrow’s

Idris Mootee, CEO and President, Idea Couture Inc (Canada)

5:40pm

Closing remarks from the Chair

Rod Oram, Business Journalist

5:45pm

Close of 2012 CFO Summit and Networking Function

7:00pm

2012 New Zealand CFO Awards Gala Dinner

Awards

Do you know someone who should be nominated for their work? Nominations for the 2012 awards are now open - nominate someone now.

Awards recognise New Zealand’s financial leaders 

Focus, dedication and strong leadership have led to success for New Zealand’s top financial minds. More than 300 people honoured the 2011 CFO Awards winners at a gala dinner following the CFO Summit in Auckland last night.

The Summit, run by Fairfax Media Business Group and Conferenz, brought together business experts and top CFOs to discuss current financial issues. The CFO Awards recognised individuals or teams who have made a difference to their organisation or an exceptional contribution to business in New Zealand with quality, insight and steady direction. The leading publications for the summit and awards are Unlimited, CIO and Business Day.

The 2011 CFO winners are:

CFO of the Year: Jonathan Mason, Fonterra

Jonathan  has been recognised for his ground-breaking approach to the co-operative's capital structure.

"He is a passionate, strategic thinker whose prudent financial management during a period of market volatility has Fonterra extremely well placed. Jonathan never underestimates the importance of getting farmers on board and held hundreds of local shed meetings around the country." – CFO Award judges.

Finance Team of the Year: Bank of New Zealand

BNZ Finance was named as Finance Team of the Year for its commitment to becoming a world-class finance team meeting key objectives, including a two billion dollar bond issue.

Project Initiative of the Year: Ministry of Social Development

The Ministry of Social Development's Value for Money Programme won Project Initiative of the Year. It delivers increased value for money from public services, which is relevant and beneficial to all New Zealanders. Applying long-term thinking to everything it does has led to savings and efficiencies of more than $250 million in four years with plans in place to save a further $211 million.

Young Financial Manager of the Year: Sally Kane, Corporate Services Manager/Finance Manager, Rugby NZ 2011.

Judges comments:

Sally is a driven, dynamic financial manager with an ability to embrace change from start-up to kick-off. Her involvement in strategic decision-making through financial analysis and insight to the board has helped shape the structure of the 2011 Rugby World Cup.

She is being awarded in particular for her work in analysing and presenting the financial implications of more than 100 different match and team hosting variations that formed a major part of the allocation process.

A special commendation was also given to Cullum Vibert, NZ Financial Controller, Beca Group.

Lifetime Achievement Award: Chris Liddell (presented on 1 March)

Outgoing General Motors CFO Chris Liddell received the Lifetime Achievement Award.

Award night footage
Presentation photos
stuff.co.nz coverage
Photo: CIMA president Richard Ray congratulates Chris Liddell.

Sponsors/Partners

Interested in sponsorship?

There are some exclusive opportunities to promote your company, and its products and services, at this leading event. Contact the sponsorship team below to request a prospectus or discuss the options, or view more about event sponsorship.

Major Sponsors

DatesLocationEarly bird priceStandard price 
Conference/CFO Awards/Gala Dinner
15 March		SKYCITY Auckland Convention Centre, AucklandNot available$1495 + GSTRegister
Dinner Only
15 March		SKYCITY Auckland Convention Centre, AucklandNot available$210 + GSTRegister
Dinner - Corporate table of 10
15 March		SKYCITY Auckland Convention Centre, AucklandNot available$2000 + GSTRegister