new name, new logo, GLOBAL REACH.

• Author: Livingston, Phil
• Position: Brief Article

Phil Llvingston

The response to our move to rename FEI as Financial Executives International has been terrific. It's a move that positions us front and center as the voice of finance executives worldwide, a role that we will embrace and that will ultimately make us an even stronger organization. Many of you know that creating a dynamic and contemporary FEI has been my mantra: an organization in touch with today's financial officers, relevant to their needs and understanding of their situations.

Our leadership's decision to change our name and logo corresponds to this theme and brings on other changes. The most significant, of course, is that we will for the first time accept for membership qualified finance officers from outside the U.S. and Canada. If, as we have estimated, the potential pool of qualified members in the U.S. alone is at least 250,000, imagine the power FEI might one day wield as an organization with global influence and the ability to reach into business centers like London, Paris, Hong Kong and more.

Widely accepted international accounting standards are on the horizon, and the globalization of stock markets is also at hand. Both demand that FEI enhance its efforts to represent finance officers internationally. We welcomed some of our first international members recently, including the CFO of Siemens AG from Germany, who joined via our Web site!

I always like to talk about the power of the FEI network, and much of that power lies in the Internet. Using technology to our advantage, we have literally brought our confederation closer together and increased the value of FEI membership exponentially. Now we can leverage the FEI Internet community to reach desktops anywhere and anytime with valuable information, alerts and best practices for busy financial executives.

Along with overwhelmingly positive feedback about our new name, I've received a number of common questions from members, such as how the name change affects our relationship with IAFEI and what the ultimate vision is for the...