The Virtual CFO Series

Is getting your required CPE every year a struggle because of distance or scheduling constraints?  Executive Education’s Virtual CFO Series allows you to get an entire year’s worth of CPE from the convenience of your home or office with a time commitment of just 100 minutes per week on Friday mornings.  

This classroom will include the following 4 courses:

Data Analysis and Management​

April 5, 2019    9 am CST

Studying financial results can tell us what business activities need improvement, but often leaves little insight into how to improve.  To improve our organization's bottom line, we must learn ways to increase revenue or decrease cost.  This comes from gaining new insights about customers, products and processes.  Learn more about how to gather, analyze and interpret non-financial data.

Develop Your Company's Scorecard:  Keep Success on Track

April 12, 2019      9 am CST

​An introduction and overview of the Balanced Scorecard aimed at executives and financial managers who want or need to understand the principles of the Balanced Scorecard and how it works in practical terms.

The Rittenhouse Rankings:  Cut through Financial Reporting’s FOG

April 19, 2019     9 am CST

Accountants tend to be more interested in financial statements and footnotes than the CEO letter which accompanies the financial statements.  We like quantifiable facts and data.  Management’s discussion of results, on the other hand, is “squishy,” intangible and, arguably, not measurable.  In this seminar we will learn how to analyze management’s discussion of results to predict the organization’s long-term success or failure. 

Laura Rittenhouse developed a methodology called Rittenhouse Rankings in which she reviews all shareholder correspondence and annual reports from 100 companies.  She looks for the difference between candor and quantifiable objectives in this correspondence vs. FOG, Fact-deficient, Obfuscating Generalities such as clichés, jargon, hyperbole and weasel words.  The result is a “candor score” for each of the 100 company reports she analyzes annually.  She then correlates the candor scores with share performance.  Her methodology predicted the collapse of both Enron and the fall of Lehman Brothers.  Trust is the foundation for long-term business success.  Candor is the language of leaders who choose to be trusted.

Measuring and Reporting on Sustainability​

April 26, 2019     9 am CST

Accountants are ideally suited to measure sustainability efforts because we collect and analyze our organizations’ information.  Until we can adequately measure sustainability efforts and their returns in terms of time and money, many businesses will not fully embrace sustainability.  Accountants should lead efforts to report on sustainability because we have the experience and knowledge to create clear, concise and informative documents.  This session reviews the challenges in measuring and reporting sustainability efforts, discusses current best practices and provides thoughts about the future of sustainability measurement and reporting.

Basic Course Information

• Learn about four topics of interest to CFOs

• Information Technology
• Accounting & Auditing