FEI assists peers in Japan, considers FEI chapter.

• Author: Heffes, Ellen M.
• Position: GLOBAL GLANCE

Financial Executives International has long recognized that the most important economic and business issues are increasingly debated and resolved on the world stage. It was with this reality in mind that FEI identified broadening its international influence as a top strategic priority.

FEI plans to accomplish that goal through the creation of chapters in strategically important geographies such as Japan, the United Kingdom, India and China. Japan was the obvious choice to begin this process, given the similarities of economic and regulatory regimes in the United States and Japan.

In late February, FEI President and CEO Marie Hollein and Mitch Dana-her, chair of FEI's International Task Force and deputy controller with General Electric Co., traveled to Tokyo to meet with key Japanese stakeholders and explain FEI's mission and objectives.

The genesis for this trip began nearly a year ago, when FEI hosted a series of meetings in the New York area throughout 2010 for Japanese companies and their industry organizations.

"Our Japanese visitors had a keen interest in developments in the U.S. and how we were approaching such issues as the FASB-IASB joint projects," says Hollein. "Each of their visits to the U.S. concluded with an open invitation for FEI to visit Japan to continue the dialogue we had started."

Over the course of their five-day visit, Hollein and Danaher met with representatives of Japan's Financial Services Agency, Japanese Institute of CPAs, the Accounting Standards Board of Japan, Nippon Keidanren, the leading organization representing Japanese industry, and several leading Japanese companies.

There were far-ranging discussions on topics of mutual interest during the course of a four-hour meeting with financial executives from more than 20 companies and with officials from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) at METI's Corporate Finance Committee meeting. The topics ranged from economic and tax issues to the pending decision regarding adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards in both the U.S. (slated for sometime in 2011) and Japan (expected in 2012).

"It was remarkable to me how similar our views are on the key issues we face with the FASB-IASB joint projects." says Danaher. "We have issued a number of joint letters with Japanese organizations in the past. I left these meetings with a clear indication of interest by our hosts for closer coordination on these projects on a technical level."

FEI has...