NEWS

Ten invited cross-industry CFOs and financial leads from some of Norway’s leading international companies met in the AmCham offices for a very engaging introductory AmCham CFO Forum.

The meeting began with brief introductions, which highlighted the variance in attendance from both freshly appointed CFOs to those who have been working in the position for many years.

The AmCham CFO Forum is a platform upon which financial leaders can interact, share best practices and learn from each other about what it takes to run a successful international finance department in Norway.

Invited to introduce relevant topics from their respective industries, IBM, Citi and Microsoft representatives introduced highly relatable issues facing CFOs in a time of emerging financial disruptions.

Jessica de Mare, from IBM, introduced the first topic of finance organization management and transformation, giving a background into IBM’s Think Topic of 2018, “mankind meets machine,” along with innovations within finance-related technologies.

Citibank’s Miriam Hood then led the discussion into the impact of centralization on financial institutions and management. The prevalence of outsourcing in today’s offices, and the accompanying challenges and benefits, was a subject that all around the table could personally relate to.

Involving representatives from Microsoft, IBM, Abbvie, KPMG, GIEK, Discovery, Fast Solutions and Citi, the meeting rounded out with a discussion of business performance management, initiated by Sven Oftedal Nicolaisen of Microsoft. He drew attention to the importance of data sources and taxonomy and turned also to different methods of forecasting.

Overall, the amount of information to be shared and commonalities found around the table, preceded all involved to agree on the relevance and importance of the forum.

With the surface merely being scratched on some of these topics, a second CFO Forum is currently being scheduled for Q1 2019, with select invitations extended in the course of January.

Please contact us for interest in future forums.