One of the most challenging (and sometimes frustrating) responsibilities of a CFO is to successfully manage his/her relationships and interactions with the Board of Directors.  The influence of a board on the day-to-day responsibilities of a CFO can be complex, and let’s be honest, even a bit dysfunctional at times.

Join the CFO RoundTable as we discuss the best practices of managing board relationships in good times and bad. From operational tactics to sound strategies, our panel of experts will share their advice and best practices in fostering positive and productive board relationships.

Learning Objectives:

From this program, attendees should understand:

• How to improve board interactions, both inside the board room and outside meetings;
• What information should be communicated to the board and how to effectively communicate it;
• How to  set and respond to board expectations along all functions; and
• How to manage competing interests among the executive team, the board, and employees.

Our speakers include:

Dave Pierson, Partner, Foley Hoag LLP (Moderator)
David is a partner with the law firm Foley Hoag LLP.  He is a member of the firm’s Business Department and chairs its Venture Capital/Emerging Companies Practice Group.

David represents a broad range of emerging companies, including companies in the software and technology, life sciences, medical device, cleantech and other industries.  David also represents U.S. and foreign venture capital firms in connection with their investments throughout the U.S. His work involves advising public and private companies in corporate finance, securities, mergers and acquisitions and general corporate and contract matters, including entity formation, founder arrangements, angel and venture capital financings, equity incentive plans, strategic transactions, and technology licensing and distribution arrangements.

David earned an A.B. from Yale University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.

Rick Darer, Board Member of Management Dynamics, RewardsNow and Stylesight
Rick brings over 25 years of financial and operations experience as a senior executive and CFO across technology firms focused on software and IT.

Rick currently provides advisory services to high technology growth companies, counseling them on financial and operational frameworks. He also serves as a Director on the Boards of Stylesight, Inc. a SaaS / content company in the fashion industry, and RewardsNow, Inc. a provider of loyalty programs in the financial services sector.

Rick's most recent operating role was SVP & Chief Financial Officer at Gomez, an internet infrastructure company, where he contributed to growing the company at a 40% CAGR during his tenure from 2006 through 2009 that culminated in the company’s sale to Compuware. From 2002 to 2006, Rick was VP & CFO at Unica, a provider of marketing software, where he guided the company through aggressive growth and a successful IPO.

Earlier in his career, Rick held CFO roles in several high technology companies, and various financial and operations positions at Computervision Corporation and General Electric Co.

Rick holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, an M.S. in industrial engineering from Northeastern University, and a B.S. in mathematics from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn.

Steve Wasserman, Chief Financial Officer of Memento, Inc.
Steve comes to Memento as a seasoned Chief Financial Officer with a broad base of public and private company experience. He has led the accounting, financial planning and analysis, investor relations and human resources functions for several high technology companies. Prior to joining Memento, Steve served as Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Constant Contact, a leading provider of email marketing solutions. He co-led the company's $123 million IPO and its $83 million secondary offering, and was part of the executive team that drove compound annual revenue growth of 72% since 2005.

Steve has experience in enterprise software and healthcare, and helped lead the financial strategies as the former Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at Med-i-Bank, Inc., and at ON Technology Corporation. He has also held leadership positions at The Pioneer Group, Inc., GTECH Holdings Corporation and EG&G, Inc.

Steve holds a B.B.A. from the University of Michigan and an M.B.A. from Babson College.

Willow Shire, Owner, Orchard Consulting Management
Willow Shire is an executive consultant focused on leadership development, organization change and executive coaching. She has been involved with building organizations, organizational change and with executive leadership since 1970. Willow began work in the public sector, focused on Chapter 766, which re-organized how Massachusetts' schools addressed the needs of special needs students. In 1976, she began working with high tech organizations to build organizations, marketing strategies, corporate goals and processes including leadership development.

Willow spent 18 years with Digital Equipment Corporation managing Human Resources and Marketing organizations. While at Digital, she was responsible for establishing the Human Resource Planning and Development function for the start-up Semiconductor organization. In working directly for Ken Olsen in the late 80's, she also created a focus on business processes and worked to streamline business decision-making.

In 1990 she assumed control of the Health Industries Business Unit at Digital as a Vice President and Officer of the corporation reporting to the President/CEO. With full profit and loss responsibility for Digital's $1B healthcare market, Willow managed a worldwide organization that worked with customers, partners and industry leaders to develop healthcare solutions, market strategies, business plans, consulting programs, and sales programs for healthcare. She traveled extensively to work with executives from the pharmaceutical, hospital, medical equipment and insurance industries as an expert in applying information technology solutions to healthcare business problems.

She founded Orchard Consulting in 1994 with a focus on helping corporate executives address current business demands and make substantial cultural or organizational changes. Clients include both Fortune 100 companies such as Union Pacific Resources, Royal Dutch/Shell and Ameritech as well as fast growing start-ups.

Featured on the cover of Fortune Magazine for her leadership work in organizational transformation, Willow is also an accomplished speaker. She is frequently sought out to address professional groups, corporate executives and professional women's organizations on the topics of managing change and organizational transformation and the role of women in corporate America.

Willow received her M.A.T. in clinical psychology from Harvard University in 1971 and her BS in biology and education from Boston University. She completed the International Marketing and Management Program at INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France and did advanced study in organizational design and behavior with Noel Tichy at Columbia University.

Willow continues to serve on corporate boards and consult with Fortune 500 executives.

Nina Saberi, Managing Partner of Castile Ventures
An industry veteran with extensive investment and operational experience, Ms. Saberi founded Castile in 1998 to bring capital, deep industry expertise and hands-on management experience to a new generation of entrepreneurial businesses. She has an investment focus on cloud-based services and networking and ecommerce infrastructure.  She is currently the executive chair at VGo Communications and serves on the boards of Agiliance, Aurora Networks and RatePoint.  Ms. Saberi was the founding VC and lead director at Ahura Scientific (acquired by Thermo Fisher) and director at Brix Networks (acquired by EXFO), ChosenSecurity (acquired by PGP/Symantec) and GeoTrust (acquired by VeriSign).  She led Castile's investments in Sonus (NASDAQ:SONS), Network Intelligence (acquired by EMC), and Trapeze Networks (acquired by Belden) and was the chairman of the board of Quantiva (acquired by NetScout) and of Stargus (acquired by C-COR). 

Prior to Castile, she was a general partner at OneLiberty Ventures and president and CEO of Netlink, acquired by Cabletron as one of the top three acquisitions of its year.  Before that, Ms. Saberi led Amnet to its acquisition, managed an international joint venture for Data General and held executive marketing and engineering positions at BBN and Avanti Communications. 

In 2010, Ms. Saberi was recognized by AlwaysOn as one of the top VCs in the East, and in 2006 by Mass High Tech as an All Star in Finance. She is the Chairman Emeritus of the Massachusetts Network Communications Council and currently serves on the President’s Advisory Council at University of Rhode Island where she received her BS in Electrical Engineering.  URI honored Ms. Saberi with the 2007 President's Distinguished Achievement Award.

Other Information:

• Program level: Advanced
• Recommended CPE: 2.0
• Program prerequisites: None
• Advanced Preparation: None
• Delivery Method: Live/Group

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