FEI Podcast

Over the past year the accounting profession has been waiting for the Securities and Exchange Commission to reveal new disclosure rules around sustainability reporting. The rules will have a major impact on how public companies construct and communicate their finance reports. But a funny thing happened on the way to the new SEC rules: California - the largest US state economy and one of the larges...

Translating new technology into the sometimes slow to change world of accounting and finance takes a fair amount of passion to overcome established practices and generation skepticism. Jesse Rubenfeld and Tom Zehentner of FinOptimal are an example of a new crop of entrepreneurs trying to move the industry in the right direction. In this episode of the podcast Tom and Jesse discuss their passion fo...

Special Guest: Judy Wright.

One of the technical backbones of small and middle market business throughout the US is Oracle’s NetSuite, offering finance and accounting teams a variety of tools that oversees everything from payroll to inventory. Last week NetSuite announced a new initiative to incorporate artificial intelligence into its products, promising a similar paradigm shift for users that it delivered over a decade ago...

For financial executives, that means getting into the weeds of how money is going out and if procurement operations is getting the most value and efficiency out of their work. In this sponsored episode of the FEI Weekly podcast we speak with Matthew Smith, CFO and cofounder of Fine Tune, an expense management firm focused on getting the most value out of a company’s procurement operations and indi...

Tamara Sword is a Certified Public Accountant and ordained minister who works to bridge the worlds of finance and faith. With a passion for making a meaningful impact, she serves as both an employee and consultant, guiding churches, non-profits, and businesses towards success. Become an FEI Engage subscriber today . Special Guest: Tamara Sword.

In this episode of the podcast we speak with Andrew Struthers-Kennedy, Protivit’si managing director and global leader of its Internal Audit and Financial Advisory practice, regarding the firms 14th annual Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Compliance Survey and the changes he’s seeing at the intersection of technologies and internal controls. Learn more about FEI. Special Guest: Andrew Struthers-Kennedy.

Over the past several months tens of thousands of workers– from Hollywood writers and actors, hotel workers, drivers and now auto workers – have organized job actions in an effort to demand higher pay and improved benefits and working conditions. According to reports, more than 300,000 workers walked off their jobs, earning the movement the name “hot strike summer.” Dr. Rouen is an associate profe...

FEI Engage – Financial Executives Internatinonal’s platform for the community of students and early career people in accounting finance – held three discussions during the summer for subscribers that were focused on the skills needed for newly minted professionals. Today’s podcast is a recording of the first seminar held by FEI Engage’s Olivia Berkman with Jeffrey Hales – Executive Director of the...

The post pandemic economy has reset the playbook for many financial executives and industries, but one company that seemed to have thrived in the crisis is Nashville-based Tractor Supply Company. With stores throughout the US and a focus on rural America, Tractor Supply has grown by double digits in terms of sales and new customers. As part of Financial Executive Weekly’s continuing series on fina...

How organizations recruit and retain their top talent has never been more of a hot button issue in the finance and accounting industry than it is at this time. Whether it’s the decline in qualified graduates or a no holds barred war for existing talent, how to incentivise and manage your workforce is going through a generational shift that requires pulling many different levers. But its not just a...

It’s no surprise that the pandemic led companies to reevaluate and adjust their approach to hiring. It also led candidates to reassess their professional preferences and priorities. For Wichita, Kansas-based Koch Industries and its companies, this was an opportunity to disrupt the way they view and hire talent in the tax and accounting fields. Koch developed an apprenticeship program that aimed to...

Accounting fraud and how to model it with Dr. Daniel Beneish The search for corporate and accounting fraud has become its own form of academic study with researchers and universities trying to determine the common threads that would offer the easiest path to discovering deceit. It is also fueled the sometimes highly profitable investment practice of “shorting” stocks. One of the most established a...

To get some clarity around the issue, I speak with Lisa Knee of EisnerAmper, Tax Partner and National leader of the firm's Real Estate practice and the National Real Estate Private Equity Group her perspective on changes in the commercial real estate market over the next fiscal year and what both CRE investors and users are thinking. Take our podcast survey Join FEI Special Guest: Lisa Knee.

There is no shortage of hot takes when it comes to the possibility of generative artificial intelligence in finance, especially when it comes to consultants or vendors talking about the ways it can be leveraged by large enterprises in accounting and financial reporting. But like in many instances, first mover advantage usually belongs to investors leveraging new technologies as a window into the b...

At it's core, generative AI has the potential to bring transformative impact to business and society, comparable to the paradigm shift brought about by cloud technology. Yet despite interest from executives to want to implement Generative AI, a recent survey showed that many CFOs still face significant barriers when introducing AI within their workflow. On this episode of the Financial Executives...

As the US slips closer – again – to the threat of default, one of the ways policymakers talk about delaying the crisis is the use of “extraordinary accounting measures.”. Now, that is not a term you hear in the private market and, I would think, if it were used there would be more than a few red flags brought up by investors and regulators. So in today’s podcast we speak with Justin Marlowe, Resea...

For the State of California, oversight over the water supply is of utmost concern. Especially on the back of recent climate related events. On this episode of the Financial Executives Podcast we sit down with PPIC Water Policy Center Research Fellow, Andrew Ayres to learn about water accounting: what it is and how the accounting model can be applied outside climate related risks. Special Guest: An...

The past three years have been marked by turbulent change. The unanticipated global pandemic fundamentally altered the ways in which organizations operate. From accelerating digital transformations to enabling a highly-functioning virtual work environment, the past three years have forced organizations to be resilient in the wake of adversity.   On the three year anniversary of the COVID...

It didn’t take long following the most recent banking crisis for the conversation to turn to a debate around accounting and disclosure. Particularly, the fair value and hold to maturity treatment that financial institutions employ around the securities on their balance sheets. In this episode of the podcast we speak with Rober Pozen, currently a senior lecturer at the MIT School of Management. Bef...

At the onset of the new year, the WSJ reported the SEC is “considering a softening of planned rules” while also highlighting the proposed 1% threshold, otherwise known as a bright-line test. On this episode of the Financial Executives Podcast, we sit down with Maura Hodge, KPMG’s ESG Audit Leader, to get a better understanding of what the 1% disclosure threshold could mean for companies and their...

The past several days have brought new attention to the way financial institutions communicate the health of their balance sheet and the way that investors and depositors react. In this episode of the podcast we speak with Pingyang Gao, Area Head of Accounting and Law and Professor at Hong Kong University. Before joining HKU in 2020, Dr. Gao had been on the faculty of Chicago Booth School of Busin...

Financial executives across the US were given a taste of the unthinkable last week when Silicon Valley Bank was closed by regulators and thousands of businesses - mostly venture or privately backed – had their deposits threatened. Although regulators stepped in and ended the panic, what was unthinkable suddenly became possible. Would my business lose its deposits? How will I make payments? What if...

Towards the end of last year in December 2022, the Wall Street Journal reported that more than 300,000 US accountants and auditors had left their jobs in the past two years. On the academic front, they reported that college enrollment for finance and accounting degrees fell by 17%. Now, this mass exodus of finance and accounting professionals is not entirely a new phenomenon. We've heard a lot ove...