Prior to Nick's appearance chairing IQPC's forthcoming CFO Exchange in Switzerland, November 11-13, Outsource magazine spoke with Nick about his organisation, his views on the economic landscape and trends within financial planning, and what keeps his members awake at night...

1. Q&A: Nick Araco, CFO Alliance
Nick Araco is the President and CEO of the CFO Alliance, a
"community that brings together the experience, knowledge,
and collective wisdon of peers, subject matter experts, and
academic authorities to enable senior financial leaders and
decision makers to be more effective and act with greater
confidence throughout their careers". Prior to Nick's
appearance chairing IQPC's forthcoming CFO Exchange in
Switzerland, November 11-13, we spoke with Nick about his
organisation, his views on the economic landscape and trends
within Finance, and what keeps his members awake at night...
Outsource: Nick, thanks for joining us. What is the CFO Alliance, and what are you
trying to do there?
Nick Araco: I am CEO and President of the CFO Alliance; we have built and
extended this community as a means and mechanism to bring CFOs and related
finance leaders round the US and the globe together, with the intended purpose of
providing them with a meaningful, safe place where they can openly debate, discuss
and dissect critical issues and opportunities as the roles continue to increase in scope
visibility and as the economic climate continues to change on a global level. We bring
CFOs together face to face and online for very focussed, strategic and tactical
discussions; we capture these discussion points and create an opportunity for the
CFOs to access the discussion takeaways and add those to a vibrant online community
platform.
O: How long has the organisation been going?
NA: We began the development of the CFO Alliance community in late 2008 and
piloted the development of the community here in the north-east US in late 2009 and
2010. On an ongoing and forward basis we have expanded the community to about
3500 C,FOs from around the US, and are now gathering together additional
participation from around the globe - the common tie being the middle market in
terms of the companies that these CFOs serve in and the role they play.
O: What’s your definition of the middle market?
NA: So I would say that 70 per cent of our CFOs are finance leaders inside privately
owned companies, with revenues of $50-500 million and anywhere between 50-5000
employees - so a very unique demographic, one that is hard to reach at times and one
that is critical to a global economic recovery.
O: A recovery which is obviously sorely needed… One of the problems assailing the
finance community at the moment is how to drive that recovery in terms of growing
their own organisations whilst minimising their exposure to risk. From your
perspective what risk management technologies in particular are CFOs looking to
invest in?

2. Download a copy of this complimentary article here: http://bit.ly/11UNWzb
Visit CFO Exchange Resource Library: http://bit.ly/Yw5F0Q for complimentary eBook,
infographics, videos and podcasts. The resource library includes interviews with CFOs and
Finance Directors of Vimpelcom, Novartis, Wind Energy and more sharing their insights about
some of the most pressing issues affecting finance departments today.