AFP Conversations

AFP 2024 is headed to Nashville this October 20-23. To give us a preview of the city, we invited Heather Middleton, Chief Marketing Officer for the Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp., onto the AFP Conversations podcast. During the podcast, Heather shared what makes Nashville such a popular destination, her must-visit spots within the city, and where to get the best Nashville eats. Learn more about AFP 2024.

Adam Kruis, Senior Vice President, Manager, Working Capital Consulting, at U.S. Bank, and Anu Somani, Head of Global Payables and Embedded Payments, at U.S. Bank, discuss why real-time payments are becoming important, common use cases for real-time payments, and how to stay current on developments in the real-time payments space. This episode is sponsored by U.S. Bank.

Erica Orange, speaker for the AFP 2023 MindShift Keynote, sponsored by Capital One, is the Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer of The Future Hunters, one of the world’s leading futurist consulting firms. She analyzes emerging sociocultural, technological, economic, geopolitical and environmental trends and identifies the strategic implications (the “So what?”) of those trends for several of the most influential Fortune 500 companies, trade associations and public sector clients. In this episode of AFP Conversations, Erica explains what a futurist is and how she became one, shares her perspective on what the future holds, and gives advice to help organizations future-proof.

Fotini Iconomopoulos, the speaker for the AFP 2023 Monday Executive Institute Keynote, sponsored by PNC, is an expert communicator with a passion for helping organizations and individuals get what they want. For over a decade, she has been helping Fortune 500 clients and their teams achieve their business goals, increase profitability, and create a competitive advantage. She is also the author of the best-selling book Say Less, Get More: Unconventional Negotiation Techniques to Get What You Want. In this episode of AFP Conversations, Fotini shares what to do — and not to do — when negotiating and how people with a risk minimization and certainty mindset need to adapt to succeed in negotiations.

Olivia Fox Cabane, the speaker for the AFP 2023 Tuesday Executive Institute Keynote, sponsored by PNC, is an expert in charisma and leadership. In addition to co-founding KindEarth.Tech, Olivia Fox Cabane has taught at Harvard, Yale, MIT and the United Nations and has spoken to countless leaders in Fortune 500 companies. Her best-selling books, The Charisma Myth and The Net and the Butterfly, have been translated into 32 languages. In this episode of AFP Conversations, Olivia talks about what led her to study charisma and leadership, what it means to be charismatic and the biggest inhibitor to charisma.

AFP 2023 Tuesday Keynote speaker Ian Bremmer is a political scientist who helps business leaders, policymakers and the general public make sense of the world around them. He is president and founder of Eurasia Group, the world’s leading political risk research and consulting firm, and GZERO Media, a company dedicated to providing intelligent and engaging coverage of international affairs. In this episode of AFP Conversations, Ian talks about geopolitical trends to watch for and how treasury and finance professionals should account for geopolitical risks in their work.

The speed of business and disruption means that we need to do more than simply run our planning routines faster, we need to change how we deliver planning services. Pietro Castelli, Head of Product Marketing at Board, talks through his research paper on “Creating Value Through Planning” and offers five ways to improve finance processes and add agility to the business. This episode is sponsored by Board.

Business school education is changing to keep up with the rapidly evolving finance profession. Jim Washam, Dean of the Neil Griffin College of Business at Arkansas State University, and DJ Masson, Clinical Professor of Finance at Indiana University's Kelly School of Business, discuss the state of business school education and how business schools are evolving to meet the needs of students, as well as those of employers who can't seem to find enough talent. This episode is sponsored by AARP.

It’s not just about reporting on the data. CFOs who leverage data-driven insights are serving as strategic advisors by shaping business strategy and driving the organization forward. Bryan Hipsher, CFO of Dun & Bradstreet, explains data strategy, getting data right, and how his department transforms data into analytical insights, yielding smarter decisions that benefit every function at the company.

Welcome to a special three-part series of AFP Conversations, The Road to Treasury Optimization, where we take a deep dive into how the treasury landscape is transforming in the Asia-Pacific region. What should you consider when you’re looking to enhance liquidity management? How has the pandemic accelerated finance and treasury transformation? And what does the future of digital treasury look like? We answer these questions and more. This series is a companion to the Executive Guide: A Treasurer’s Guide to Centralization, as underwritten by Standard Chartered. If you want to learn more about the topics covered in this series, visit AFPonline.org/TreasuryCentralization. In this podcast we discuss how the pandemic has accelerated finance and treasury transformation. We explore challenges encountered during transformation projects and processes that had to be re-engineered.

In this podcast we address how MUFG's clients are responding to a very complex operating environment. From Covid, to High Inflation, Interest Rate increases and Strained Supply chains, we discuss how companies can best operate their working capital to be resilient, maintain the course and help the company using a multitude of tools available. We also discuss how companies can see an increased return on cash by using their own balance sheet for payables processing.

What do you do when you’re tasked with solving a big problem using only the resources you already have? Dr. Simone Ahuja makes the case that with a growth mindset and a simple toolkit of strategies you can generate high-value solutions. Dr. Ahuja is the founder of Blood Orange, a global innovation and strategy firm headquartered in Minneapolis, and the co-author of the international bestseller, Jugaad Innovation. During the AFP 2022 Certification Keynote Breakfast, sponsored by PNC, Dr. Ahuja will share her five-step process to innovation that will help you gain support for new ideas and create greater impact. Want to hear more? Register for AFP 2022, October 23-26, in Philadelphia: https://conference.afponline.org/registration

Effective leaders need to be able to see the big picture. Chloe Demrovsky, president & CEO of Disaster Recovery Institute International, is a globally recognized thought leader. She has been a commentator for national news outlets, presented on global risk at events across five continents and conducted on-site briefings for government officials. During the AFP 2022 Monday Executive Keynote, sponsored by PNC, Demrovsky will leverage key findings from Disaster Recovery Institute research to review the decisions leaders must make in a post-COVID world. She will also provide tactical insight on how to strengthen and improve enterprise-wide business continuity practices to address various risks. In this episode of AFP Conversations, Demrovsky shares how she became a resilience professional and why resilience should be a strategic investment for organizations.

An organization’s greatest asset is its people. Dr. Lisa Bélanger is an award-winning researcher who helps leaders and teams optimize performance, productivity, and innovation through leading-edge scientific research. With a PhD in behavioral medicine, Bélanger is the CEO of ConsciousWorks, a consulting firm that supports leaders and teams in maximizing their mental capacity and performance. Dr. Bélanger is the AFP 2022 Wellness Keynote. Drawing on psychology, behavioral science, and neuroscience, she will empower attendees to take control of their behaviors and offers daily practices to think more clearly, make better decisions, be more productive, build resilience, and have more energy. In this episode of AFP Conversations, Dr. Bélanger shares practical ways to incorporate mindfulness into our everyday lives. She also shares the most effective ways to manage short-term and long-term stress while providing practical exercises and strategies that require little time but offer significant gains in mental strength.

Stacey Vanek Smith is a longtime public radio reporter and host, highly regarded for her insight and journalism on work, business, and economics; I mentioned her Indicators podcast, she is also a correspondent and host for NPR’s Planet Money and Marketplace, and her work has appeared in Time Magazine, The New York Times, and People Magazine. Vanek Smith is also the author of Machiavelli for Women: Defend Your Worth, Grow Your Ambition, and Win the Workplace. Stacey is also the FP&A keynote speaker at AFP 2022 coming in October; the title of her keynote presentation will be Numbers and Narratives: Seeking a Story Among the Indicators.

We are experiencing a historic acceleration in the pace of change in our world. Artificial intelligence, digitization, robotics, 3D printing, and the rise of purpose-driven enterprises are reconfiguring how industries operate. These changes divide us into two camps: the “Disruptors” and the “Disrupted”. AFP CEO & President Jim Kaitz recently sat down with 2022 AFP Annual Conference MindShift Keynote Kaihan Krippendorff to discuss what makes companies and individuals thrive in the face of disruption. Krippendorff is an entrepreneur, author, consultant and CEO who is is known for his ability to turn difficult concepts into easy-to-understand ideas that drive meaningful outcomes and actions. In his MindShift Keynote at AFP 2022, he'll break down the underlying patterns of disruption and with compelling stories of successes, failures, and yet-unknown innovations, teaches practical tools to help you take action and become a Disruptor.

In this episode of AFP Conversations, AFP President and CEO Jim Kaitz sits down with Laila Ali, an undefeated world champion boxer, entrepreneur TV, personality, author, and wellness advocate. Ali is also the Sunday Keynote at AFP 2022, October 23-26 in Philadelphia. As the youngest daughter of Muhammad Ali, Laila Ali has developed the values of hard work, determination, courage, and self-belief that have guided her throughout her unique career. Listen in to hear how Ali's career has evolved and how all of us can adopt an all-in attitude like hers to successfully navigate our own careers. Learn more about Ali and register for the conference at AFP2022.org.

What makes some companies succeed at creating an analytics hub within finance, while others fall short? Larry Maisel, President of DecisionVu, joins AFP's Director of FP&A Practice Bryan Lapidus to discuss how to navigate the challenge that digital transformation presents. They discuss the role of executives in project success and provide lightning-round definitions of often-confused terms.