Technical committee profile: Committee on Corporate Finance.

• Author: Heffes, Ellen M.
• Position: Financial Executives Institute

If John Weisenseel gets his way, FEI's Committee on Corporate Finance (CCF) will--within the two years of his chairmanship--become an exceptionally active committee of about 35-40 members who work primarily in the treasury area.

Although the committee was established in 1980, it had been "essentially dormant," says FEI Director of Public Affairs and General Counsel Mark Prysock, who was charged with resuscitating the committee last summer. He determined that the formal structure of quarterly meetings wasn't working, and there wasn't consensus on which issues to focus on. So, he began rebuilding from scratch. He identified a few individuals from the former committee, as well as others who had expressed an interest in getting involved with the new group to help "work some of the issues."

The new CCF had its first in-person meeting with the Corporate Finance Division of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in October--an event that was "undertaken to really kick things off," says Weisenseel. An FEI member for four years, Weisenseel is senior vice president and corporate treasurer of The McGraw-Hill Companies in New York City.

Who would be interested in working with the committee--is it the treasurer? Since the function of corporate finance does not always fall to the treasurer role, but rather to a CFO, EVP or VP of corporate finance, Weisenseel wants to target other job titles--in addition to treasurers--for this committee. He says that while other organizations target treasurers' interests, none has FEI's depth and membership base from which to draw.

Weisenseel wants to focus on corporate finance issues, with links to Washington lobbying efforts--"to lobby Congress and the SEC on issues that all of us in the corporate finance world face." In addition, he wants to develop links with universities, saying, "I'd like to see it as a bridge to the academic world." He notes his involvement in the National Forum on Corporate Finance, which meets annually and is comprised basically of academics and practitioners. "The academics are always looking for avenues for feedback on their research, and many in the corporate world would seek out this research."

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Both Prysock and Weisenseel are looking at the original committee charter and changing it appropriately. The original charter authorized the committee to formulate statements and positions on capital markets and the capital structure and financial resources of...