About the Summit

Overview

Amidst a backdrop of deepening digital disruption, growing political uncertainty, increasing regulatory complexity, and shifting consumer preferences, one thing is certain — chief financial officers are creating a new agenda for growth.

To effectively lead in this new environment, chief financial officers and finance executives must become “chief growth officers”— the point person who not only controls stability, accountability and risk, but also grows profitability, enterprisewide agility, sustainability, and customer trust. This growth-oriented pivot will be valuable, yet difficult. The chief growth officer must redefine the playbook of finance by embracing disruption, spearheading the development of new business models, and building agility into operations.

This will often mean managing two or more different business models under one roof, freeing up resources to invest in growth initiatives, measuring new key performance indicators, and creating new ecosystems and platforms for rapid value creation.

To help current and future chief financial officers acquire these new capabilities, the Technology and Entrepreneurship Center at Harvard and Leadership for a Networked World, in collaboration with Accenture Strategy, are convening the 2017 CFO of the Future Summit: Fueling the Growth Agenda, to be held May 17-19 at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

At the 2017 Summit, participants will learn about and share best practices on leading the growth agenda. In particular, the Summit will look at the challenges and opportunities via:

• Strategy - How can the finance organization not only optimize current business value, but also fund and incubate new and disruptive business models?
• Leadership - How can finance executives manage across the c-suite to ensure partners and stakeholders are informed and aligned on the pace of change?
• Technology - What innovative digital tools, data, analytics, and network-enabled platforms can bring newfound speed and agility to finance and operations?
• Human Capital - How should recruitment, hiring, and training of human capital change, and how can organizational culture become an enabler of progress?

Who Should Attend?

The Summit is an invitation-only program designed to develop the next generation of chief financial officers. Participants in the program are chief financial officers and/or a senior-level team member designated by the chief executive officer or chief financial officer of their respective firms.

Admission & Participation

Participation is limited to chief financial officers and/ or their designee. All other applicants will be reviewed and accepted on a case-by-case basis, according in part to space availability and cohort composition. This event is supported by the hosting and collaborating organizations, so there is no tuition or fee to attend. Travel and hotel arrangements, and related expenses, are the responsibility of individual participants.