Ep. 130: Keith Terreri - The Intersection of a CFO & CIO

Contact Keith Terreri:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/keith-terreri-595b4bb/


NEC Corporation of America: 



https://www.linkedin.com/company/nec-corporation-of-america 

https://www.twitter.com/nec 



FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTAdam: (00:05)
Welcome to episode 130 of Count Me In, IMA's podcast about all
things affecting the accounting and finance world. This is your
host, Adam Larson and today I'm pleased to introduce our featured
guest speaker, Keith Terreri. Keith is the Chief Financial
Officer and Senior Vice President of corporate operations, and IT
for NEC Corporation of America. In his double role of CFO and
CIO, he has developed a wealth of skill and knowledge necessary
for effectively overseeing and managing accounting, FP&A,
supply chain management, corporate operations and IT. In this
episode, Keith describes the convergence of these two pivotal
roles and explains the value each team brings to the business
regardless of the organizational size. Let's head over the
conversation to learn more.


Mitch: (00:57)
So our listeners are well aware of the changing role of the CFO.
It's something we talk about all the time, you know, the need for
a strategic foresight decision-making business partnering is
something that's very popular. A lot of this is due to the
evolution of technology, but you have a unique role. You have a
double role of CFO and CIO at NEC. So what does this convergence
of the two roles really look like to you on a daily basis?


Keith: (01:22)
Thanks, Mitchell. That's actually a great question because it's
certainly different than when I was just CFO. The convergence of
these two roles, it's actually been a very eyeopening experience
to say the least. So the convergence has come with some great
synergies, and also a significant amount of risk management. From
a synergy perspective, obviously our back-office functions of
OTC, which is order to cash, PTP, which is procure to pay and
record to report, or RTR have been greatly enhanced, right? So
finance corporate operations, and IT are all one team now and
communicating regularly. The interaction in visibility for both
groups has been fantastic as one team and under this scenario, we
work on a daily basis to make sure not only our ERP is running
smoothly, but also our network and data is secure. For a risk
management perspective, obviously cybersecurity has become a
major part of all IT team's responsibilities over the last
several years and now it's a part of daily operations for
companies. However, in this dual role it's been becoming
increasingly clear to me that cyber security is everybody's
responsibility, not just the IT department. As everybody knows,
ransomware attacks are very prevalent right now making
cybersecurity the utmost importance on a daily basis. So we
constantly monitor our network for security purposes and many
companies are moving towards a zero trust approach from a cyber
security information perspective and so that is also part of our
daily discussion. Customers are also getting much more stringent,
you know, on their contract requirements, requiring information
security clauses in the contracts with us, so that we have to be
very cognizant of that as well. So now we are very involved as we
continue to make contracts with our customers. So, I mean, all in
all it makes for quite a different daily routine than just
finance.


Mitch: (03:32)
Well, as far as finance goes, you know, I know much of your
career prior to this role, prior to taking on CIO also was
specifically in the finance function. So talk a little bit about
how those experiences and those skills helped you prepare for the
responsibilities you just discussed and what you've taken on
involving IT.


Keith: (03:51)
That's another great question, Mitchell, thanks. I mean,
primarily, it was really my training in risk management that has
helped me the most. Always concerning myself with the downside of
either operational or finance issues has been very helpful
throughout my career and now with that, the added responsibility
for IT, thinking about the downside, or any type of issues from
an IT perspective, has really been a good mix for me. Also having
had experience in cyber liability insurance probably since it
started, or when it was first offered, I've almost kind of grown
up with that. So as a CFO, financial risk management is very
important and frankly cyber risk has become, definitely become a
financial risk to everybody these days based on all of the cyber
activity that's out there in the world. I mean don't forget, I
mean risk management is not only for services you provide to your
customers, but also for your own network and your data. So you've
got two things you have to look at from a risk management
perspective and we do this frankly, on a regular basis. So when
you think about all the, you know, traditional finance
experience, most of the times the CFOs are responsible for risk
management insurance. I think that the cyber liability insurance,
which is changing rapidly as we've seen in the last month or so
is very important for both the CFO and the IT guys to understand
completely. I particularly, if you have a chief information
security officer, that employee needs to be very familiar with
how the policy works, if you should ever have a claim.


Mitch: (05:34)
Now, oftentimes because of the risk management perspective, you
were just talking about how that falls on the CFO's shoulders.
They're usually responsible for forging a relationship with the
CIO because of the cyber security, cyber liability, things like
that and the joint relationship is responsible for handing the
priorities of finance and IT individually. We spoke a little bit
your role prior to this call and, you know, you serve both. So
how do you really communicate the needs and further support the
relationships of two different teams as one person?


Keith: (06:08)
So this was definitely something I wanted to focus on when I took
over IT three years ago. And I really think, you know, as a CFO
and being able to look holistically at the financial statements
and also preparing our annual budgets and forecasts, it becomes
slightly easier to allocate resources for cybersecurity and for
IT initiatives. There's no longer in my mind, right? In the way
we have things set up a competition for funds or resources
between finance corporate operations and IT. So it really makes
for a more collaborative approach on resources so that when we
prepare our annual budgets, we go together as a team and we've
already kind of vetted out, you know, the priority of funds and
funding for resources. The entire team discusses and ranks the
needs so that we're all in sync. You know, one of those slogans I
adopted early on with the finance team was “we're all IT now”,
and that has really helped kind of change the mentality and
increase the collaboration between the two groups. I mean, under
this type of scenario, there's no longer any finger pointing and
everybody accepts accountability. You know, in a traditional
scenario where you have the two teams separated, in a traditional
scenario, there separation of these two teams can create
friction, which is not necessary in today's ultra fast paced
business world. The entire leadership team of finance and IT, and
corporate operations meets once or twice a week. They think
that's an update from my perspective, but really it's for them to
interact and update each other so that we're all on the same page
and so no one person can say, “I didn't know IT was doing this”,
or “I wasn't aware of finance wanted to do that”. And this
communication has brought foresight and respect,...