Effective Management Accountant

About

Senior management are looking to their finance teams to support the business strategically, to demonstrate the ability to identify the business realities as well as the financial implications of decisions and to ultimately drive business objectives in an increasingly complex and competitive business environment.

Why you should be here:

  • A focus on practical takeaways that will deliver greater value to your organisation
  • Gain perspective on the integrated reporting future and what it means for management accountants
  • Understand how to better manage evolving business expectations and gain stakeholder buy-in
  • Gain insights into how to optimise your cost centres and achieve full spend visability
  • Develop your ability to build business case evaluations for critical decision-making
  • Drive a more streamlined financial management structure

Be at the front line - transform your thinking and enhance your decision making.

Agenda

Agenda: Day 1

8.30

Registration & Coffee

9.00

Opening remarks from the Chair

Richard Smyth, General Manager Group Finance, SKYCITY Entertainment Group

9.10

Building a world class finance team, the BNZ experience

As business demands evolve, finance leaders are challenged by a range of competing agendas. They must contribute actively in key decision-making, provide risk oversight, as well as manage compliance and control, in addition to managing and engaging a high performing team. What sets top finance performers apart and how does a finance leader develop an efficient and effective finance team during times of business change?

Nikki Fowler, Financial Controller, Bank of New Zealand

10.00

International Address: The future of finance: Issues and challenges

Research suggests that business has a challenge in balancing short term operational capabilities with long term profitability and sustainable growth. The same research evidences the need for Finance to be more than just number-crunchers and backward looking accountants. Paul will outline the key issues and challenges and potential options with some leading edge practice examples.

Paul Thambar, Lecturer - School of Accounting, University of Technology Sydney (UTS); and Chair, Australasian Regional Board CIMA

10.50

Morning tea

11.10

International Address: Towards an integrated reporting future

The GFC underscored the importance of an integrated and holistic approach to the strategy and management of the organisation. Management accountants and financial managers need to not only consider financial performance, but also the risks and opportunities inherent in the impacts of the organisation on the environment and society in which it operates.
• The role of the IIRC and IR adoption trends world wide
• What does integration really mean?
• What can management accountants do to incorporate sustainability policies into best business practice?

Nick Ridehalgh, Senior Director, KPMG Sydney; & Member, International Integrated Reporting Committee (IIRC)

12.00

Driving financial management, accounting and accountability improvement frameworks

• Adapting to strategic financial change at a fast pace
• Managing the finances of a government department - the challenges of keeping multiple stakeholders happy
• Finding resources and installing process improvements
• Developing strategies that lead to greater cost control
• Implementing a more streamlined financial management accountability structure

Lara Ariell, Chief Financial Officer, Ministry of Justice 

12.45

Lunch

1.45

Conflict resolution and negotiation: Managing difficult situations... and people

• Valuing differences – the magic of different perspectives
• Handling anger – theirs, and our own! How not to take it personally
• Soft & hard v principled negotiation
• Winners & losers, and other old-fashioned ideas
• Useful tips & phrases – a verbal toolkit

David Henton, Director, Confident Communication

2.35

Business case development and evaluation for critical decisions

• Using a consistent approach in creating business cases
• Key inputs, activities, and outputs of the business case
• Integrating key market drivers and customer needs
• Establishing realistic forecasts and establishing achievable metrics
• How best to clearly convey financial and non-financial benefits to decision-makers and other stakeholders

Bruce Harris, Group Management Accountant, Ballance Agri-Nutrients

3.20

Afternoon tea

3.40

Optimising Corporate Centre costs

• Approach to Corporate Centre design
• Value of the Corporate Centre
• Corporate Centre operating model
• Corporate Centre cost trends
• Shared service model trends

Spencer Scoular, Executive Director - Performance Improvement, Ernst & Young

4.25

Rethinking finance: Finance as a business partner

AUT has established a reputation for being relevant and responsive university. The process of financial management at AUT has been organised in a way that supports this reputation and enables the finance team to contribute to the strategic development of the University. Judith will discuss how finance has built a successful business partnership with the University.
• Rethinking budgeting – how to move budgeting from compliance exercise to forward-looking strategic support tool
• Preparing a 10-year financial forecast to support the University’s long-term strategy
• Insights into the role of finance as a business partner

Judith McKay, General Manager Finance and Estate, Auckland University of Technology (AUT)

5.10

Networking Drinks Reception

A great networking opportunity and ideal time to relax with industry colleagues over complimentary drinks

Agenda: Day 2

9.00

Welcome back from the Chair

Richard Smyth, General Manager Group Finance, SKYCITY Entertainment Group

9.05

Achieving full spend visibility at Fonterra

The success of many programmes is largely dependent upon the ability to access, organise, and analyse spend data. Spend data is also vital for other business strategies, such as budgeting and planning, contract compliance, working capital management. Fonterra has been on a journey to achieve full visibility of spend across the organisation.

Joanne Davenport, Procurement Manager - Shared Services and Indirects, Fonterra Co-operative Group

9.40

Utilising Business Intelligence to contribute to strategic decision making within the business

Management accountants have important roles to play in unlocking the potential in BI and finance transformation. BI presents new opportunities to stimulate stalled finance transformation projects and release management accountants’ capacity to take on decision support roles and improve decision-making.
• The trends that will dominate BI and what they mean for you
• Aligning your BI analysis to the strategic direction of the organisation
• What tools have been useful, challenges to lookout for and future directions

Phillip Higgins, Business Intelligence Manager, Mighty River Power

10.30

Morning tea

10.50

Delivering simplified planning, forecasting and management reporting

The budgeting, forecasting, and reporting process presents a formidable challenge to most organisations, regardless of size or industry. Leading organisations have learned how to overcome key challenges and have gained a competitive advantage by adopting simplified practices for budgeting, forecasting and reporting.
• Managing change – acknowledging that business is never static
• Bring to focus key variances and business levers that enable business performance
• Preparing forward looking accurate forecasts
• Management reporting that delivers meaningful insights

Sacha Pettitt, Management Accountant,  SKYCITY Auckland

11.30

The management accountant and continuous improvement: Putting Lean & Six Sigma to work

Lean activity focuses on eliminating waste; Six Sigma on reducing variability. Together they form a proven business strategy to reorganise and revitalise your business. Glenn will discuss:
• Streamlining Finance processes
• Striking a balance between BAU and transformation at enterprise-level
• Lessons from the obstacles we’ve faced

Grant Humm, Business Improvement Leader, Kiwibank

12.15

Lunch

1.15

How to lead every time you speak

• How to lead and inspire every time you communicate
• From listening to understanding to speaking with clarity
• The art of persuasion and the skill in communicating complex matters to all levels of the organisation

Craig Lewis, Managing Director, Lead to Succeed

2.00

Integrating strategy execution, risk and analytics for business performance improvement

• Using analytics for the selection of strategies for incorporation in operating budgets
• Applying investment evaluation methodologies for decision making and performance optimisation
• Using predictive analytics for forecasting demand and risk analysis
• Developing driver based models to evaluate performance options to shape budgets and forecasts

Jeff Jackson, Director, De Winter International

2.50

Afternoon tea

3.10

Using performance management to transform financial planning and reporting

Conventional financial planning is filled with obstacles. The challenge in the public sector is to deliver better service to more people and improve its performance year on year, usually with a smaller budget.
• A framework for integrated performance management, including financial planning and reporting/analytics
• Advanced solutions to enable organisation-wide reporting
• The role of business analytics

Ray Wolken, Senior Management Accountant, Ministry of Health

3.50

Closing remarks from the Chair and end of conference

Sponsors/Partners

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