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Group Discussion Question: In your role as CFO, where do you see the greatest opportunities to create shareholder/stakeholder value in your company/firm and/or industry?

Summarized Notes from the Roundtables:

• The internal culture of an organization is a to-down driver. The CFO must create, enhance, and lead the corporate culture.

• The CFO must establish metrics/reporting structure and ensure adherence, in order to drive corporate performance and enterprise value.

• If the co. is involved in acquisition/divestiture process, there is some information that must be subject to caveat emptor = some information is only captured through self-discovery and the CFO must play a role in this process.

• The CFO must capture, accumulate, dissect and apply critical market and/or competitor data that can be used to drive enterprise value.

• The CFO must develop the ‘plan of entry’ for any new LOBs, with responsibility coordinating resource allocation, financial forecasts, and capital investment schedules.

• The CFO must as ‘leveler’ to the CEO’s passion, vision, emotion, and potential for volatility. - EG - Barry Diller -Ego-Driven CEO.

• The Public Co. and Investment-Related CFO Roundtable offered that the CFO is the Corporate ‘Storyteller’ balancing the demand for disclosure with ‘too much information’ that could be detrimental to enterprise value. - How does the CFO accomplish this? By ‘Spoon feeding’ the respective constituents/audience with custom information, while still remaining consistent.

• The Private Company CFO Roundtable offered that amongst them, their current ‘angst’ was navigating the current credit crisis with a focus on managing international risks and interest rate risks.

• They were spending a fair amount of time on improving internal communications as a way to drive corporate performance and to better employee morale.

• They are challenged by the issues related to transparency in today’s ‘new’ banking community - Still figuring out the ‘new rules of the game.’ The ‘teams,’ ‘players’ and potentially, the rules of the banking/credit game have changed, and they are still figuring them out as they go along.

• Today’s CFO still spends time focused on how to trim non-core expenses as a way to improve EBITDA, including re-evaluating bulk purchasing power decisions, such as office products and telecom products and services.

• A specific example of a focus on cost-cutting was offered by a CFO from a health system and hospital that oversaw the renegotiation of all vendor pricing arrangements and contracts.

• There is still a concern amongst CFOS regarding the effect increased regulation has on the time and ability the CFO has to spend on driving enterprise performance and value - when confined to deadlines, it requires the CFO to focus on compliance instead of strategic performance objectives.

• The CFO is still, at times, viewed as ‘the Bearer of Bad News.’ The communication dynamic between the CEO and CFO is ever-evolving and changing due to internal and external challenges prompted by the current recession.