Stocking your corporate toolbox.

• Author: Ferling, Rhona L.
• Position: Highlights of the Financial Executives Institute's 1995 conference

At Financial Executives Institute's annual conference in Dallas, attendees had a chance to learn about cutting-edge trends in information technology, re-engineering and productivity. On the personal side, a panel of CEOs told a roomful of financial executives what they want from their CFOs. Read on for some conference highlights.

THE INFORMATION DELUGE

"Companies that continue to manage technology as a line-item cost will not succeed.

Technology must be looked at as an essential business tool," says Lester M. Alberthal Jr., chairman, president and CEO of EDS Corp. In his speech, which kicked off FEI's annual conference in Dallas, Alberthal emphasized that "the pace of change is still much faster than the rate at which companies are progressing toward new organizational structures," so it shouldn't surprise anyone that "never before has experience been worth so little."

One of business' greatest needs within the next few decades will be "attracting quality high-tech people," because "companies need to be ready for the next generation of consumer," warns Alberthal. To underscore his point, he showed the conference attendees a video clip of the ACT Academy, a public school in Texas fully equipped with computers, laptops, printers, Internet capabilities and other facets of the information age - all explained to the viewer by an 11-year-old boy. "What are your companies planning to do when little Tommy grows up?" Alberthal asks.

ABOVE ALL, WEAR A CEO TIE

At one of the conference's breakout sessions, a panel of two CEOs and one CFO (substituting for his CEO), moderated by Mitchell Hartman of G. Mitchell Hartman and Associates for Dale Carnegie Training, told conference attendees what qualities CEOs look for in a CFO. All three panelists say CEOs want a financial officer who's more than a strictly financial person, someone who can be a business strategist and a partner.

According to John Gillespie, CFO of Innovation Luggage, CEOs expect their CFOs "to be very creative - a person who can ask all the 'what-if' questions, take action when necessary and not be reactionary." In other words, someone not unlike a CEO. In fact, he points out, at times the CFO must be able to stand in for the CEO. "My CEO often travels to the Orient for 10 days at a time. People in the organization come to you with needs, and you have to address those needs and make decisions."

In general, you have to think as if you own the business and your name is on the door, Gillespie...