Summit highlights.

• Position: FEI News - Financial Executives International

FEI's 2004 Summit, "Sailing Toward a New Horizon," drew strong praise from those who made the trip to the Manchester Grand Hyatt in San Diego in late April. The format featured no breakout sessions, but a high-level roster of keynote speakers that included luminaries from the corporate world and beyond. The event drew 767 paid attendees, the highest number for a summit in many years.

Among the first-day speakers were: Dr. Arthur Laffer, inventor of the famous "Laffer Curve," a conservative economist who opened the conference with a humorous, energetic and engaging take on the economy and economic growth, as well as personalities like Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger; Don Soderquist, retired vice chairman at Wal-Mart, who spoke eloquently about ethics and how they intersect with leadership; John Connors, CFO of Microsoft Corp., who addressed how the software giant has restructured its finance organization to align it with a larger business reorganization; James M. Schneider, CFO of Dell Inc., who talked about how the computer firm has worked to improve transparency and develop a more mature and careercentric culture; and Samuel DiPiazza, CEO of PricewaterhouseCoopers, who talked about a "widening crisis of legitimacy" in corporate America and about initiatives he thinks are needed to help overcome it.

The second day kicked off with some personal and very thoughtful ideas and reminiscences from Ari Fleischer, former White House press secretary, about his experiences with President Bush and the president's leadership style. Lynn Turner, the former chief accountant with the Securities and Exchange Commission and now a professor at Colorado State University, followed with 10 ideas for improving financial reporting. Following a talk by Susan Schmidt Bies, a governor of the Federal Reserve, on innovation in financial markets and banking relationships...