Marie Hollein: it's FEI's time to shine.

• Author: Heffes, Ellen M.
• Position: Financial Executives International - Cover story

As the nation celebrated the inauguration of its 44th president on Jan. 20 in Washington, D.C.,--with much pomp and elegant celebrations--another president had taken her place a day earlier, in New Jersey, in an understated fashion. Lunching on pizza with her staff on Jan. 19, Marie N. Hollein began her post as president and CEO of Financial Executives International--the second female in that role in FEI's 78-year history.

Just as President Barack Obama has begun his term at an unprecedented time in American history, Hollein begins her tenure at FEI at a critical time for finance executives as they are reeling from the global economic crisis.

However, Hollein believes "this is FEI's time to shine."

It's time, she says, to be proactive in increasing awareness of FEI among the many financial executives who don't know about it, but are eligible for membership and would benefit from what FEI has to offer.

For example, she says, as the role of treasurer has now been elevated to a kind of "chief liquidity officer" in organizations, "it's a good time to reach out to more treasurers."

Treasury has become an integral part of the organization. Treasurers have an increasing important role with board-level account-ability and value-added functions. "They're now being invited to audit committee meetings," she adds.

This insight stems from her 30-year career, where she has worked extensively in treasury functions and with treasurers. Indeed, in her prior role, since 2005, she's served as managing director for KPMG's Treasury practice.

To grow those membership numbers--for treasurers, chief financial officers, chief accounting officers, controllers and other senior finance executives, says Hollein, "we need to show them what FEI's value is."

Among those value offerings, she says, are: local chapter events, technical committees, advocacy with key regulators and standard-setters, ability to get continuing professional education (CPE) credits online, timely research reports and insights from FERF, Financial Executive magazine and more.

Hollein says she has started her new role at FEI in an assessment phase, to "see where we are, and what the challenges are."

She acknowledges FEI may certainly feel the impact the overall economy is experiencing, while, at the same time, she believes there are opportunities for FEI to get ahead of that curve. That, she says, "is what we're going to focus on and prioritize what we need to do to get there."

Hollein is a...