Looking back at 75 years of change.

The past 75 years have seen the most tumultuous changes in history, and Financial Executives International has evolved with those changes. From a meeting of eight corporate controllers in New York City back at the end of 1931, FEI has grown into an international organization with more than 15,000 members that serves as the voice of the corporate finance profession. In the process, it has changed its name twice and added a panoply of professional services and functions.

Of course, the finance function has changed enormously as well. Recent generations have seen the evolution of a chief financial officer, tremendous growth of computerization and automation, and the transformation of the top finance role from purely financial control to one that involves strategic leadership at the top reaches of the corporation.

Financial Executive has been tracing the seismic changes at work in the past seven decades in a series of articles this year. The editors have elected to excerpt from some of those articles to reprise some of the thoughts and observations of the writers about vital subjects in the world of corporate finance.

From "Born into Darkness: FEI in the 1930s," by Glenn Alan Cheney (January/February 2006)

It was a terrible time, the dark December of 1931. Eight million workers had no work. Banks closed. Businesses failed. Investment evaporated. Bankruptcy prevailed. The Dow Jones had dropped to a miserable 41, down from 400, and radicals were questioning the viability of capitalism.

News from the rest of the world was no better. England had just abandoned the gold standard, Japan had invaded Manchuria and Stalin was collectivizing agriculture in the Soviet Union. In Germany, the Nazis held 18 percent of the Reichstag and Mein Kampf was a bestseller.

Two days before the end of that desperate year, eight corporate controllers met in New York City. Their conversation may not have bubbled with economic optimism, but their agenda carried a spark of hope. That agenda was to complete the final details to launch a new organization of financial executives, The Controllers Institute of America. The organization they formed would dignify the private practice of accountancy and put it on a professional basis. It would also allow the exchange of ideas, experiences and knowledge for individual and aggregate advantage of corporations. The causes of the Great Depression had little to do with these financial executives, but if the nation's crisis had a cure, they believed it was, to a certain extent, in their hands. After all, it was an economic crisis, and they were the men who controlled the money.

From "Business and Finance Go Global," by Jeffrey Marshall (March 2006)

Globalization of business has been boosted by any number of developments, but none more important than quantum leaps in air travel and communications. Long gone are the days when traveling to Europe from North America meant days at sea; you can be there in six hours by jet, then fly on to Cairo or New Delhi. And telecommunications lines, once limited to heavy physical cables, have gone wireless; you can punch in a few numbers on a keypad and be talking within seconds with someone in Hungary or Argentina. Cable television, business newswires and the Internet have ushered in an era of "24-7," much of that arriving just in the past decade.

Many products are still shipped by sea, but containerization has brought vast improvements to distribution. Goods are now loaded into truck carriers that are offloaded from freighters in the country of shipment and whisked to warehouses and distribution centers. In the air, Federal Express, United Parcel Service, DHL and other freight carriers are flying millions of tons of goods every day throughout the world.

Increasingly, FEI members have been part of the globalization stream, chiefly as their companies have gone overseas for the first time or have expanded their reach to still more world markets. CFOs are busily tapping on their Black Berries or talking on cellphones, whether they are in Tokyo or Chicago; or perhaps they're reviewing spreadsheets on a laptop on a flight from New York to Frankfurt.

From "CFO Evolution: From Controller to Global Strategic Partner," by Robert A. Howell (April 2006)

The CFO is at the crossroads of a firm's information and, as a result, a key source of advice and counsel to the CEO. Together, the CEO and CFO often represent the highest level of strategy formulation for the company. However, in addition, the CFO has the responsibility to assure that the plans are enacted and that the results are accurately and clearly presented to the investor community and others. Being a CFO today is a big job and a huge responsibility!

So, where does the CFO go from here? First, globalization will continue to be a major element of corporate direction, including outsourcing production, offshoring and global sourcing activities, as well as serving emerging markets. The CFO will have to be able to evaluate a host of alternative approaches with global implications and consequences.

Second, more firms will be relying on intellectual capital, rather than physical or financial capital to drive success. Investments in human capital and other intangibles will need to be managed, and accounted for, in very different ways than has been the case to date. Intellectual capital needs to be carefully selected, developed, maintained, and accounted for as an asset, rather than effectively ignored. Stakeholders, rather than just shareholders, will need to be the focus of firms in the future. New metrics that consider all of the firm's key stakeholders will need to be developed, maintained, and reported. Firms will still need to create shareholder value if shareholders are to continue to invest in the firm. Inasmuch as the intrinsic value of any economic entity is the net present value of the future cash flows which it will produce, financial executives must continue to focus explicitly on the cash flows the firm is producing. This should result in new, cash-oriented metrics and financial reporting.

From "The Explosion of Accounting Standards" (May 2006); this section was written by Dennis Beresford, former FASB chairman and one of the Hall of Fame inductees.

The accomplishments [by the Financial Accounting Standards Board, or FASB] add up to an impressive track record to date, and I express pride that at least some of them occurred during my tenure as chairman. However, opportunities to improve continue, and improvement is essential for the board's continued success. Three specific areas are: building trust, strategic planning and simplicity.

* Building Trust. Greater trust must be built between FASB and all of its constituents, particularly the corporate community and accounting firms.

* Strategic Planning. In 1992, the board developed the first notion of a strategic plan when it decided to address many of its constituents' concerns through a new program called "The Three...