Looking for a few good CFOs. In Orlando.

I’m searching for a few good CFOs to participate in a panel session at the eLearning Guild’s Annual Gathering in Orlando this March.

Some of the issues on the table:

• how CFOs evaluate and measure soft-skill areas such as training and development
• why investment in people is a short-term expense rather than a capital investment
• how managers of training, OD, talent, and HR should propose projects to finance
• what measures and evaluations should be built into training/people projects at the front-end
• whether GAAP standards are still valid in a world where most value is intangible, i.e. off the books

Since I expect the economy to have eradicated most corporate travel four months hence, I assume we’re recruiting central Floridians. We’ll welcome astute financial managers and hard-ass management accountants as well as CFOs.

Given that I will lead the panel, let me give you some ammunition to use in recruiting your CFO. While I’m a liberal social scientist and network theorist now, in the Dark Ages I spent a dozen years convincing senior bankers to purchase pricey training systems, can do discounted cash flow with a slide rule, have a Harvard MBA, and vaguely remember that the assets go on the left and the liabilities on the right.

Time is of the essence. The Guild gave this idea the green light today; they don’t need the names of the CFOs until Tuesday.

Know a feisty financial manager in Florida? Send me their name and coordinates; I will invite them to join us.