CFO Leadership Summit, a virtual conference gathering 250+ Finance heads from cross-industry verticals across India, taking place on 18 February 2021. The 19th Edition CFO Leadership Summit agenda summaries the developing need to lead on driving long-term value creation, through digitization. In a conversation with CXO Outlook, Deeksha Bhandary, Conference Producer, Exito Media Concepts, gives an overview of 19th Edition CFO Leadership Summit, challenges of organizing a massive summit like this virtually, speakers of this year’s summit and much more.
Please give us an overview of what the 19th Edition CFO Leadership Summit will entail and what you hope to accomplish with conferences like this?
The past year has charted the course for the transformative role of the CFO from a finance leader to a strategic business head. Digitization of functions, optimization of operations and prudence in cost management are some of the key discussions that will be covered in the 19th edition of the CFO Leadership Summit 2021. With the principal theme being ‘EVOLVING ROLE OF THE DIGITAL CFO’, this summit will host 200+ finance leaders from across industries in India. This conference will serve as a platform for an in-depth peer-to-peer engagement of learning, ideating, networking and building business relationships for finance leaders.
The 19th Edition CFO Leadership Summit agenda summaries the developing need to lead on driving long-term value creation, through digitization. What went into the thinking behind putting this on?
The CFO plays a pivotal role in leading their organization to its long-term growth, with digitization being at the forefront of business transformation. Finance leaders are now making significant contributions in this domain. The current crisis has only increased the need for a simple, agile and accurate finance function and CFOs are waking up to exponential benefits with its automation. The digital CFO must not only adapt to the rapidly changing business environment but also get ahead of it and bridge the gap between financial processes and digitization to make a positive impact on the larger businesses.
It is crucial for the finance leaders to take advantage of this opportunity and walk into a digitized future with preparedness. Keeping this in mind the 19th edition of the CFO leadership Summit will be talking about the digital role of the CFO.
What are the benefits professions would get when they attend the CFO Leadership Summit? Please tell us about the speakers of this year’s summit.
The CFO Leadership Summit will serve as a platform for engaging conversations around pressing pain-points in the finance domain its impact on the overall business strategy to win.
The leaders get an opportunity to discuss how to be prepared for future challenges by learning from thought leaders of the industry, connecting with peers and solution providers, discovering latest technologies and networking to identify various opportunities of partnerships or expansion.
We have a stellar line-up of finance leaders representing various industries speaking at the event. The well-rounded speakers will be able to bring forth a versatile approach to learning, understanding and uncovering best practices from tried and tested use cases. Some of the confirmed speakers for the event are:
Parthasarathy V S – President Mobility Services Sector, Mahindra Group
Sugata Sircar- CFO and Country Finance Partner, Greater India Zone – Schneider Electric India
Jayaprakash Kalappan – CFO & Company Secretary -Panasonic Appliances India Company Limited
Anand Agarwal – CFO V-Mart Retail Limited
Sudhir Singhvi – CFO – Sterlite Power Transmission Limited
Will the pandemic have an impact on the CFO Leadership Summit this year? If yes, what are you doing differently this year?
The CFO Leadership Summit which is normally hosted as a physical conference in the cities of Bangalore, Mumbai & Delhi will be taking place on a virtual platform this year in the light of health and safety concerns of its attendees.
Further, the overall theme and topics of discussions in the agenda have also been aligned to the imminent business needs brought forth by the post pandemic situation.
What are the challenges of organizing a massive summit like this virtually? How has been the preparations so far to make it flawless?
Like any other virtual event, the main concerns revolve around the reliability of the digital platform. However, we have an experience in successfully hosting large virtual conferences and have hosted over 40+ virtual business events in the past year alone. We rely on a vetted platform that is supported by two servers. Also, the entire conference is recorded for backup, so it can be shared with our attendees upon request.
What advice do you have for a first-time attendee to help them get the most out of CFO Leadership Summit?
We have paid additional attention to make sure the summit is interactive. The format has more panel discussions over keynotes to ensure engagement of all the participants. We would advise the attendees to make the most of this and put forward any suggestions, experiences and questions during the interactive session earmarked at the close of each session.
This virtual platform also has the capabilities to host one on one meetings. Participants can login prior to the summit and stay back post summit to engage in networking with other attendees and speakers.
For more information, visit: https://cfoleadershipsummit.com/CFOonline/