Technical committee profile: CFIT; Committee on Finance and Information Technology.

• Author: Marshall, Jeffrey

This is the first in a series of articles that will profile FEI's eight technical committees. Current information on each is available at FEI's Web site, www.fei.org/committees.

FEI's Committee on Finance and Information Technology (CFIT) overlooks an intersection that has become increasingly important in recent years--the junction of finance and technology. As finance functions themselves have become increasingly automated--and software solutions have introduced products like remote data entry and "dashboards" that allow CFOs to take in financials at a glance--the tools of the trade have become ever more critical to finance departments of all sizes.

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The committee dates back to the 1960s, when it was known as the Management Information Committee. Under its revised charter, adapted in January, CFIT has four principal subcommittees: CFO/CIO, Infrastructure, Performance Management, and Standards, Policy & Regulatory. The committee itself is undergoing some transformation in an effort led by Garry Lowenthal (pictured at right), a longtime FEI member from the Twin Cities Chapter who has held a number of leadership posts at FEI--including Area Director for the Midwest, past President of the Twin Cities Chapter, FEI National Executive Committee and Board--and chaired the CFIT conference in 2003. Lowenthal took over as chairman from Mark Jacobsen last November.

"I've been rebuilding the committee," Lowenthal said in an interview. "I don't care how many people we have if they can do the job. We're trying to reach out to the thought leaders, people like the chief information officers and chief financial officers at companies like Amazon.com and eBay--I'm trying to go to larger and mid-cap companies." While the committee, by charter, can have 35 members, in June it had just 27.

New rules stipulate that national technical committee members must personally attend two of the four meetings in a year, and serve on at least one subcommittee. Members are being asked to pay $1,000 a year in dues to pay for the meetings, and CFIT now allows for alternate members, from the same company as the primary member, if the primary cannot attend.

Lowenthal also points to the model set by prominent FEI members like James Schneider, the CFO of Dell Inc., and John Connors, CFO of Microsoft Corp.--both of whom were CIOs at their respective companies before becoming CFOs. In the big picture, Lowenthal says, "I'm trying to get the IT function and the...