Modern Finance Experience Keynotes

Don't Miss Modern Finance Experience Keynote Presentations


Hear industry leaders talk about the future of finance

Tuesday, April 11

3:30
p.m.
Global Financial Trends – Threats and Opportunities
Mark Zandi,Chief Economist, Moody's Analytics and Founder of Economy.com

The current environment suggests that globalization is no longer a given and could be challenged by changing politics, changing monetary policies, changing trade policies and general risk and volatility. Esteemed Chief Economist for Moody's, Mark Zandi will address these topics and offer insights into what to look for and how to respond and how this might affect the finance organizations in all companies.

4:00
p.m.
Modern Finance – Data Driven and in the Cloud
Mark Hurd,Chief Executive Officer, Oracle
Corey West,Executive Vice President, Corporate Controller and Chief Accounting Officer, Oracle
Ivgen Guner,Senior Vice President, Global Business Finance, Oracle

Oracle CEO, Mark Hurd, will discuss how the finance organization can modernize by looking to data and the cloud as a way to control cost, make processes more efficient and drive new innovations in collaboration with all lines of business, deriving new intelligence that can drive better decision making and help companies maintain a competitive edge. Oracle Finance leaders Corey West and Ivgen Guner will join Mr. Hurd for a conversation about Oracle's own implementation of cloud and data driven business transformation.

4:40
p.m.
It's Crunch Time for Finance…Again
Matt Soderberg,Principal and US Finance Operations Improvement Leader, Deloitte Consulting LLP

A spectacular array of emerging technologies is changing how companies conduct business. How are these digital disrupters enabling and challenging CFOs, and what do they mean for the future of finance? Learn how disruptive technologies are creating operational improvement opportunities and new expectations for the finance function.

5:10
p.m.
Business Agility in the Cloud: The Roadmap to Modern Finance
Andrew Boucher,Vice President of FP&A, Western Alliance Bancorporation
Chad A. Eckes,Executive Vice President, Corporate Services, and Chief Financial Officer, Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center
Chris Hutton,Director of Business Operations, Carbon, Inc.
Rod Johnson,Senior Vice President, North America ERP, EPM & SCM Enterprise Business, Oracle

The cloud is changing the face of finance. Complex legacy systems are being replaced by cloud-based platforms for reporting, planning, forecasting and analytics designed to boost business agility, and provide analytical insights to decision-makers across the enterprise. Hear customers describe how the cloud is enabling finance organizations of all sizes to be more agile, predictive, and collaborative, whether you are a digital native with a cloud-first strategy, or a traditional enterprise using a hybrid approach to modernization.

Wednesday, April 12

8:30
a.m.
Disruptive Innovation
Clayton Christensen,Professor, Author, Entrepreneur
9:35
a.m.
Integrated HCM and Finance in the Cloud: HCM/ERP Customers
Thomas Kurian,President, Product Development, Oracle
10:10
a.m.
Business Agility in the Cloud: Customer Vignettes
Patrick Benson,Chief Information Officer, Club Corp
Lucy Dominguez,Senior Vice President of HR and People Strategy, Club Corp
J. Michael Gower,Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration & University Treasurer, Rutgers
Michele Norin,Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer, Rutgers
Jason Ringgenberg,Chief Information Officer, YRC Worldwide
Chris Donato,Senior Vice President, Application Sales, Oracle

Thursday, April 13

9:00
a.m.
Exponential Organizations
Yuri van Geest,Founder, Singularity University Netherlands

As a result of accelerating change, a new breed of businesses is scaling ten times faster than established organizational structures. Yuri calls these "exponential organizations." The talk describes the characteristics and attributes of these organizations, and finishes with how to implement these ideas into established companies.

10:00
a.m.
Modern Finance. Modern Cloud.
Matt Bradley,Senior Vice President, Product Development, Oracle
Michael Gobbo,Master Principal Consultant, Oracle
Jeffrey O. Henley,Executive Vice Chairman, Oracle
Jeff Jacoby,Master Principal Consultant, Oracle
Rondy C. Ng,Senior Vice President, Applications Development, Oracle

Learn how a unified platform for the Office of Finance is enabling the pervasive, actionable insight CFOs need to be effective co-pilots to the business.

Patrick Benson

Patrick Benson is the Chief Information Officer for ClubCorp, the largest owner and operator of private golf and country clubs in the US. Patrick's career as an IT Executive spans multiple world-class consumers, retail, and service corporations including CIO of the Ovations restaurant group, Americas Vice-President of IT for Cadbury, multiple senior IT roles across PepsiCo, and CIO of Lighthouse International in New York City.

Matt Bradley

Matt Bradley is currently the Senior Vice President, Product Development for Enterprise Performance Management at Oracle.

Matt is an experienced executive with global hands on experience running large and small teams in product strategy and engineering. His current role covers Oracle's EPM footprint – Planning, Budgeting and Forecasting, Financial Consolidation and Management Reporting, delivering both SaaS-based solutions as well as for the more traditional on premise based deployments. He joined Oracle in 2007 as part of Oracle's Hyperion acquisition.

As a VP, Product Development at Hyperion Matt helped led the charge in establishing Hyperion as the market leader within EPM. Prior to joining Hyperion in 2000 Matt held several development lead positions at various Medical Information companies supporting EMR, Casemix Analysis, Decision Support and related subjects.

Matt and his family moved from Ireland to the Bay Area back in 1993. Matt holds a degree in Computer Science from Queens University, Belfast. After graduating in 1989 he started his career in information technology at Oracle.

Andrew Boucher

Andrew Boucher is the Vice President of Financial Planning and Analysis and Western Alliance Bancorporation. He has over 30 years of experience in the financial services industry in the areas of strategic financial planning, treasury and asset/liability management, M&A, and financial/operational analytics.

He has demonstrated success in transforming financial processes at MBNA/Bank of America, Asta Funding, and Western Alliance Bancorporation. This includes the implementation of Hyperion Planning at MBNA and Oracle EPM Cloud at Western Alliance. Andrew holds an MBA degree in investment management from Drexel University and a BA degree in Accounting from Penn State University.

Clayton Christensen

A world-renowned innovation strategy and growth expert, Harvard Business School Professor Clayton Christensen is repeatedly recognized as one of the most influential living management thinkers in the world, topping the Thinkers50 list in 2011 and 2013. He revolutionized conventional management thinking with the New York Times best-seller, "The Innovator's Dilemma," which explored the radical paradox that great companies fail by making the "right decisions" in the "wrong" situations. The idea behind Professor Christensen's book "The Innovator's Solution" is don't sell products and services to customers; address their jobs to be done. The Jobs to be Done theory is the focus of his forthcoming book, "Competing Against Luck: The Story of Innovation and Customer Choice." By understanding what causes customers to "hire" a product or service, businesses can improve innovation track records and uncover new growth opportunities.

A widely sought after speaker, advisor, and board member, Professor Christensen's research continues to be applied to national economies, start-up, and Fortune 50 companies, as well as to early- and late-stage investing. He is also an experienced entrepreneur, having started three successful companies: CPS Technologies, innovation consulting firm Innosight, and investment firm Rose Park Advisors specializing in disruptive innovation.

Chris Donato

Chris Donato is Senior Vice President of North American Applications Sales for Oracle Americas. He leads the business' day-to-day operations including its rapidly growing, billion dollar ERP, HCM, Sales Automation, and Service SaaS product sales both direct and indirect, alliances and channels, and business go-to-market. He is responsible for leading the digital transformation for North American customers and partners to realize greater business value through the use of Oracle's Public Cloud. His team spans all business segments including enterprise, commercial, small and mid-market.

Mr. Donato is widely known for his focus on building executive customer engagements, compelling value based selling strategies, and his direct and innovative sales leadership. He brings 25 years of technology and applications industry leadership, computer hardware expertise, and executive management experience to his role with the company.

Prior to this role, Mr. Donato was Senior Vice President of North American Technology and led a billion dollar profit center serving the U.S., Canada, of Middleware, Database, and Engineered Systems. He oversaw a team of sales and engineering professionals defining strategy and direction for the North American commercial accounts. He joined Oracle in 1996.

Before joining Oracle, Chris spent four years at Unisys, where he was part of the management team responsible for the Financial Services Vertical.

Chris earned a bachelor's degree in business administration from Susquehanna University and earned a finance certification from the Wharton School of Management Executive Program.

Chad A. Eckes

Chad A. Eckes, Executive Vice President, Corporate Services & Chief Financial Officer joined Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in March 2014.

Chad provides leadership in the areas of Finance, Managed Care, Corporate Revenue Cycle, Human Resources, Information Technology, Enterprise Information Management/Data Analytics, Enterprise Project Management, and Facilities functions. His Finance duties include reimbursement & revenue, financial reporting, financial planning and analysis, budget & financial operations, divisional finance, investor relations, and treasury.

As Executive Vice President of Corporate Services, he and his team provide integrated Corporate Services support for Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center's operations and ensure alignment with the strategic plan. As Chief Financial Officer, he develops and implements long- and short-term financial strategies to ensure the sustainable growth of the Medical Center.

Prior to joining Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, he was the Chief Strategy Officer for a national for-profit health system. Previously Chad held Chief Information Officer, Vice President, Director, and Controller positions within healthcare, insurance and consulting companies. As a Project Manager by trade, Chad has been responsible for over 3 million project hours and has earned the distinguished Project Management Professional certification.

He holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, a master's certificate in project management from Wisconsin-Madison and an M.B.A. from Wisconsin-Whitewater.

Yuri van Geest

Yuri van Geest is a passionate professional, author, international keynote speaker and entrepreneur on exponential emerging technologies. He has a strong background in corporates, agencies, central government, startups, and his own innovation company Trend8.

Yuri is co-author of the bestselling book called Exponential Organizations with Salim Ismail, Mike Malone and Peter Diamandis. The book is about the fundamentally new ways startups and corporates are organized internally and externally to deal with disruption, exponential technologies and accelerated change. This the first book by Singularity University Press globally.

Yuri is the Dutch Ambassador of Singularity University, Managing Director of the Singularity University Summit Europe and a triple alumnus of the Singularity University, Exponential Medicine and Exponential Finance. He was co-founder/lead organizer of successful corporate hackathons and non-profit events & communities like Quantified Self Europe and Amsterdam, Mobile Monday Amsterdam, Lean Startup NL and TEDxAmsterdam. Yuri was a key member of the Topteam Creative Industry within the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation in the central Dutch government which focused on driving innovation at the ecosystem level.

Yuri speaks at large conferences for presidents, CEOs, CFOs, CIOs, CMOs, and CHROs, and Boards about how to execute successful corporate transformation in a time of fast-paced change. He also offers workshops (mentor/host), and training on the implementation of methodologies, practices and tools to help your organization to become an Exponential Organization.

Yuri is also passionate about Liberal Arts, Ethics, Values, and Socratic Design Workshops (a new emerging field he's very excited about).

Michael Gobbo

Michael Gobbo is a Master Principal Sales Consultant and has been with Oracle for over 10 years. During his tenure he has focused on bringing excitement and value to the Office of the CFO and has assisted numerous Fortune 2000 companies streamline and architect comprehensive solutions optimizing significant business processes. Michael is a Cloud Evangelist and is helping to revolutionize the area of accounting and finance. He is currently working on a groundbreaking initiative to converge the capabilities of Oracle's ERP and EPM solutions into a single, seamless, and unified experience. Prior to joining Oracle, Michael spent over 10 years in the Media and Entertainment industry bringing best practices to Finance and Accounting organizations using technology and started his career in public accounting.

J. Michael Gower

J. Michael Gower is the Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration & University Treasurer at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, and was formerly Senior Vice President for Finance. Michael is the Chief Financial and Budget Officer for the University and is responsible for financial management, planning, and systems; he is responsible for the financial integration of former units of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) into Rutgers. He also oversees Human Resources and Information Technology through the respective Senior Vice Presidents and provides coordination with the Senior Vice Presidents for Enterprise Risk Management, Ethics, and Compliance. Michael is the primary executive liaison with the Finance & Facilities Committee and the Committee on Audit of the Board of Governors and with the Joint Committee on Investments of the Board of Governors and Board of Trustees.

Prior to Rutgers, Michael was Vice President for Business Affairs and Chief Financial Officer at Yeshiva University where he was responsible for business management, human resources management, procurement services, and student financial services. Previously, Michael was Vice President for Finance and Administration and University Treasurer at the University of Vermont, and he was a higher education management consultant for PricewaterhouseCoopers. He spent ten years at Duke University Medical Center where he held various positions including Assistant VP for Finance, Associate Chief Financial Officer (CFO of the School of Medicine), and Director of Financial Planning and Systems. He held earlier accounting and financial management roles at Cornell University and Duke University.

Michael is past Chair of the Board of Directors for the Eastern Association of College and University Business Officers (EACUBO). He is the former chair of the Research Universities Council, the constituent group for business leaders at research universities, for the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO); he is now a member of NACUBO's Board of Directors. He received NACUBO's 2008 Professional Development award for his contributions to professional development for higher education management.

Ivgen Guner

Ivgen Guner is the Senior Vice President of Global Business Finance at Oracle. She is responsible for providing decision support to all business units, strategic planning, financial analysis, business intelligence system management, and management reporting.

Ivgen has more than 25 years of finance, accounting, and executive management experience in the technology industry. Prior to joining Oracle in 1996, Ivgen was with Unisys Corporation for 13 years. At Unisys, she was instrumental and an integral part of the Burroughs/Sperry merger, which formed Unisys, while also holding various financial management roles.

Ivgen holds a Master of Science in Accounting from Walsh College in Troy, Michigan and graduated from the Ankara University, Turkey, with a Master of Science in Agricultural Engineering and Food & Fermentation Technology.

Jeffrey O. Henley

Jeffrey O. Henley is Executive Vice Chairman of Oracle Corporation. Prior to that, he was Oracle's Chairman of the Board since 2004. Henley was Oracle's Chief Financial Officer and an Executive Vice President from 1991 to 2004, and has been a member of Oracle's Board of Directors since 1995. He also serves on Oracle's Executive Management Committee.

Prior to joining Oracle in 1991, Henley served as Executive Vice President and CFO at Pacific Holding Company, a privately held company with diversified interests in manufacturing and real estate, and as Executive Vice President and CFO at Saga Corporation, a multibillion-dollar food service company. He also served as Director of Finance at Memorex Corporation in its large storage division, and as Controller of International Operations at Fairchild Camera and Instrument Corporation.

Henley is a member of the Board of Governors for the Boys and Girls Clubs of America and serves on both the Chancellor's Advisory Council and the International Advisory Council of the Engineering College for the University of California at Santa Barbara. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of Digital Consumer Solutions Inc., which operates a digital-out-of home signage network for retail advertisers, and serves on the Advisory Board of InTouch Technologies, a provider of remote presence solutions for healthcare providers.

Henley has a BA in economics from the University of California at Santa Barbara and an MBA in finance from UCLA. In 2004, he received the UCLA Anderson School's Outstanding Alumnus award.

Mark Hurd

Mark Hurd is Chief Executive Officer of Oracle Corporation and a member of the company's board of directors. He joined Oracle in 2010, bringing more than 30 years of technology industry leadership, computer hardware expertise, and executive management experience to his role with the company. Mark is also a member of the Baylor University Board of Regents.

Chris Hutton

Chris Hutton is the Director of Business Operations at Carbon, Inc. where he oversees the organizations processes and systems and is responsible for Analytics, Forecasting, and Board and Investor Relations. He is a recognized transformation leader who drives operational excellence and performance improvement. He started his career at GE, where he was for almost 10 years in various finance roles around the world before moving to eBay/Paypal for four years. He is a chartered management accountant.

Jeff Jacoby

Jeff Jacoby is a Master Principal Sales Consultant at Oracle focused on bringing value to the Office of the CFO. Since joining Oracle in 2005, he has enthusiastically advised numerous Global 2000 companies on how to overcome a myriad of business challenges and drive measurable results with Oracle solutions. Jeff is a true Digital Finance Revolutionary and Cloud Evangelist, who is currently working on a groundbreaking initiative to converge the capabilities of Oracle's ERP and EPM solutions into a single, seamless, and unified experience. Prior to Oracle, Jeff spent 15 years in various Accounting and Finance roles with several large corporations.

Rod Johnson

Rod Johnson is Senior Vice President, North America ERP, EPM & SCM Enterprise Business at Oracle. Rod is leading the fastest growing cloud business in the industry, helping over 3,000 customers modernize their finance, operations, and technology to meet the challenges of the digital age. During his 9-year tenure at Oracle, Rod has been instrumental in building Oracle's Industry Solution and Key Account strategy and responsible for the development and go-to-market execution of Oracle's Industry Solutions, which are end to end offerings targeted at companies' most critical business challenges and opportunities. Prior to Oracle, Rod spent 8 years at Gartner Group where he held several key research leadership roles in ERP, E-Commerce, and Customer Relationship Management practices. In the role, he was a noted thought leader, consulted with hundreds of Global 2000 clients, and regularly spoke at key industry events.

Thomas Kurian

Thomas Kurian is President of Oracle Product Development and reports to Oracle Executive Chairman of the Board and Chief Technology Officer Larry Ellison. He is responsible for leading software development and transitioning the company's technology to Oracle Cloud. For the past several years, Thomas has been responsible for the Oracle Fusion Middleware family of products. Under his leadership, that business became the fastest-growing within Oracle and the industry's leading middleware product suite. Since 2008, Thomas has also led the development for Oracle's next-generation business applications, Oracle Fusion Applications.

Thomas has been with Oracle since 1996, holding various product management and development positions. Prior to joining Oracle, he worked as a consultant in London, Brussels, and San Francisco with international management consulting firm McKinsey & Company, serving clients in the software, telecommunications, and financial services industries.

Thomas has a BA in electrical engineering from Princeton University, where he graduated summa cum laude. He also has an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar. He serves as an advisory member on the boards of several international venture funds and software companies.

Rondy C. Ng

Rondy Ng is Senior Vice President of Oracle ERP and CX Applications Product Development. He is responsible for leading all aspects of product strategy, product development, and product delivery for Oracle's ERP and CX applications and related cloud services. Rondy joined Oracle in 1990 and has held a variety of leadership positions within the development organization. In 2007 he was asked to lead the engineering of Oracle's next-generation financial suite of software applications, Oracle Fusion Financial Applications. Under his leadership, Oracle has continually delivered on its promise to help its applications customers innovate and remain competitive while leveraging their existing IT investments and increasing the value of those investments with new Oracle products and services. Rondy holds a Master of Science degree in Computer and Electrical Engineering from Cornell University.

Michele Norin

Michele Norin is the Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. As the institutional leader for technology in a highly complex environment, her primary responsibility is to provide leadership in the strategic adoption and use of information technology in support of the University's vision for excellence in research, teaching, outreach, and lifelong learning. Michele serves as the University's primary advocate and spokesperson for IT strategies and policies; defines and communicates a campus-wide vision for technology; and provides campus-wide oversight for IT-related issues and strategic planning. She also works closely with Big Ten Academic Alliance peer institutions, CIO Research 1 CIO Colleagues in representing RU's IT strategies and partners with the chief information technology officers within the northeast region to achieve synergies in IT. Michele has a Bachelor's degree in MIS from the University of Arizona and a Master's degree in Educational Leadership from Northern Arizona University. Her career entails 29 years of experience in the field of technology spanning from administrative systems programming to campus IT leadership and strategic planning.

Matt Soderberg

Matt Soderberg is a principal with Deloitte Consulting's Strategy and Operations group and is the Finance Operations Improvement Leader for the U.S. Matt has over 18 years of finance related experience, and focuses on delivering large scale Finance Transformation programs for industry leading clients. As part of these large transformations, Matt works with clients to realize their vision for finance - optimizing financial processes and new capabilities such as robotics process automation (RPA), and cognitive automation (CA). Prior to joining Deloitte, Matt spent several years identifying potential operational improvements and cost savings opportunities at a Fortune 50 technology company.

Corey West

Corey West was appointed Corporate Controller and Chief Accounting Officer of Oracle Corporation in April 2007. He is responsible for the overall global financial and management reporting. He brings more than 25 years of finance, accounting and executive management experience and expertise to his role at Oracle.

Prior to joining Oracle, Corey began his career with Arthur Andersen in 1984, as part of the accounting and audit practice. He served clients in a variety of industries for 14 years and left Arthur Andersen in 1998 as a partner. After leaving Arthur Andersen he worked in finance, accounting and executive management positions at RPC, Adecco, Cadence Design Systems, The Gap and Intuit. Corey joined Oracle Corporation in April 2007.

Corey graduated from the University of Washington with a bachelor's degree in business, accounting and finance concentration. He is a Certified Public Accountant in California.

Mark Zandi

Dr. Mark M. Zandi is chief economist of Moody's Analytics, where he directs economic research. Moody's Analytics, a subsidiary of Moody's Corp., is a leading provider of economic research, data and analytical tools. Mark is a cofounder of Economy.com, which Moody's purchased in 2005.

Mark's broad research interests encompass macroeconomics, financial markets and public policy. His recent research has focused on mortgage finance reform and the determinants of mortgage foreclosure and personal bankruptcy. He has analyzed the economic impact of various tax and government spending policies and assessed the appropriate monetary policy response to bubbles in asset markets.

A trusted adviser to policymakers and an influential source of economic analysis for businesses, journalists and the public, Mark frequently testifies before Congress on topics including the economic outlook, the nation's daunting fiscal challenges, the merits of fiscal stimulus, financial regulatory reform, and foreclosure mitigation.

He conducts regular briefings on the economy for corporate boards, trade associations and policymakers at all levels. He is on the board of directors of MGIC, the nation's largest private mortgage insurance company, and The Reinvestment Fund, a large CDFI that makes investments in disadvantaged neighborhoods. He is often quoted in national and global publications and interviewed by major news media outlets, and is a frequent guest on CNBC, NPR, Meet the Press, CNN, and various other national networks and news programs.

Mark is the author of Paying the Price: Ending the Great Recession and Beginning a New American Century, which provides an assessment of the monetary and fiscal policy response to the Great Recession. His other book, Financial Shock: A 360º Look at the Subprime Mortgage Implosion, and How to Avoid the Next Financial Crisis, is described by the New York Times as the "clearest guide" to the financial crisis.

Mark earned his B.S. from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and his PhD at the University of Pennsylvania. He lives with his wife and three children in the suburbs of Philadelphia.