In this issue
FEISV Chapter Newsletter | September 08, 2026 
Celebrating 50 Years of FEI Silicon Valley!
2026 marks FEI Silicon Valley’s 50th Anniversary! We’re excited to celebrate this incredible milestone with our Members, Partners, and friends throughout the year.
The celebration will culminate in April with a special 50th Anniversary Casino Night, and we’re making it a night to share — significant others are invited! More details will be coming soon.
But we’re not waiting until April to start celebrating! At each Keynote event leading up to our anniversary celebration, we’ll hold a special 50th Anniversary Raffle, with one lucky attendee taking home a $50 bottle of wine.
50 years of connections, leadership, and community — and plenty to celebrate!
FEI Silicon Valley Events
09/15 - PD: The CFO’s Next Chapter: Leading Through Growth, Capital and Change
09/15 - AI: Hype or Reality? A CIO's Perspective on the Future of the Enterprise and the Office of the CFO
09/25 - Financial Officers Forum (FOF) (Virtual)
09/29 - People, Payroll, and Profitability
10/20 - Monthly Speaker Event - Save the Date!
11/18 - Annual Women CFOs of the Year Awards
12/09 - Annual President's Party
Partners & Other Chapter Events
09/08 - Why Tech Transformation Stalls — and What to Do Differently (Virtual) | BDO
09/09 - ICONS: Women of Note (Hybrid Event) | FEI
09/22 - AI in Action: How NetSuite Uses AI Across the Suite for Financial Executives International (Virtual) | FEI
09/24- How to Improve Financial Forecast Accuracy When Business Conditions Keep Changing (Virtual) | FEI
09/14 - Q3 2026 Quarterly Accounting Webcast (Virtual) | PwC
09/30 - Global Finance Trends Survey (Virtual) | FEI
10/13 - Private Company Roundtable (Virtual) | FEI
10/15 - Financial Scenario Planning: How to Prepare for Disruption and Make Faster Decisions (Virtual) | FEI
10/22 - Is Your Budgeting and Forecasting Software Built for Where You’re Going — or Just Where You’ve Been? (Virtual) | FEI
10/28 - 10/29 - AI Update and Use Cases Conference (Virtual) | FEI
11/10 - 2026 Corporate Financial Reporting Insights (CFRI) Conference (Virtual) | FEI
Latest Trends in FEI
Join us on September 15th for lunch at Pillsbury in Palo Alto as experts discuss The CFO’s Next Chapter: Leading Through Growth, Capital and Change. This panel will explore how finance leaders navigate growth capital, public-market readiness, M&A, operational scale, and strategic change.
We’re excited to hear from:
- Matt Padfield, CFO at SambaNova, who brings firsthand perspective on leading finance and operations in high-growth AI and semiconductor businesses, including more than $1 billion in M&A experience.
- Mahesh Karanth, CFO at Sonatus, whose 30+ years of experience spans IPOs, fundraising, investor relations, M&A, compliance, and public and private company leadership.
- Karen Moran, CFO at Wellth, a seasoned finance and operations leader who has helped companies scale from Series B through post-IPO stages and raised more than $1 billion in growth capital.
- Moderating the discussion is Davina K. Kaile, Partner at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP, bringing deep experience in capital markets, IPOs, M&A, securities, and corporate governance.
If you are a CFO, finance executive, or emerging finance leader preparing for your company’s next inflection point, join us for an afternoon of practical insight and meaningful networking.
Separate registration and badges for Main Program required.
Pre-PD: The CFO’s Next Chapter: Leading Through Growth, Capital and Change will be held at Pillsbury in Palo Alto on Tuesday, September 25th, from 3:30 pm - 5:00 pm Pacific.
FEISV Members & Partners: Free | Other FEI Members: $50 | Registration: Here
Nominations Are Open: 4th Annual Women CFOs of the Year Awards
Nominations are now open for the 4th Annual Women CFOs of the Year Awards, recognizing exceptional women whose financial leadership strengthens organizations, shapes strategy, and inspires the next generation of accounting and finance professionals. See the form attached to nominate yourself or another deserving financial executive.
This is an opportunity to spotlight CFOs who bring rigor to the numbers, clarity to complex decisions, and leadership that extends well beyond the finance function.
Honorees will be recognized across five categories:
- Public Company CFOs at organizations with market capitalization of $1 billion or more
- Public Company CFOs with market capitalization below $1 billion
- Private Company CFOs at organizations with revenue of $50 million or more
- Private Company CFOs with revenue below $50 million
- Non-Profit Organization CFOs
Whether she is guiding a public company through change, helping a growing private business scale responsibly, or advancing a mission-driven organization, nominate a leader whose work deserves to be celebrated.
The awards honor women who lead, inspire, and motivate others while making meaningful contributions to their organizations and to the broader accounting and finance community.
Nomination form is attached to this email.
Please submit nominations by the end of the day on October 30, 2026.
4th Annual Woman CFO of the Year Awards Dinner will be held at the Green Hills Golf & Country Club on Wednesday, November 18th, from 5:30 pm - 8:00 pm Pacific.
FEISV Members & Partners: Free | Non-Members: $275 | Registration: Here
Select Sponsorship Opportunities: 4th Annual Women CFOs of the Year Awards
The 4th Annual Women CFOs of the Year Awards will take place on November 18 at Green Hills Golf & Country Club, bringing together an exceptional community of leaders who are shaping the future of finance.
This event is a platform to recognize and elevate women who are driving innovation, strengthening organizations, and inspiring the next generation of financial leadership. Their impact extends far beyond their roles, influencing industries, workplaces, and communities.
Sponsoring this event is a meaningful opportunity for your organization to align with that impact. It positions your brand alongside excellence, leadership, and progress in the accounting and finance space. More importantly, it demonstrates a clear commitment to supporting and advancing women in executive roles—something that resonates with clients, partners, and employees alike.
With a range of sponsorship options available (some with limited availability), now is the time to secure your place and ensure your organization is part of this important evening.
To explore and claim sponsorship opportunities, please download the sponsorship form attached to this email.
4th Annual Woman CFO of the Year Awards Dinner will be held at the Green Hills Golf & Country Club on Wednesday, November 18th, from 5:30 pm - 8:00 pm Pacific.
FEISV Members & Partners: Free | Non-Members: $275 | Registration: Here
AI: Hype or Reality? A CIO's Perspective on the Future of the Enterprise and the Office of the CFO
AI has moved quickly from a strategic talking point to a leadership test: Can your organization convert new technology into stronger controls, faster decisions, and measurable financial performance—without creating new layers of risk?
Join us as experts discuss what finance executives need from AI now. Rather than focusing on futuristic possibilities, this session examines the operating model behind successful adoption: the quality of enterprise data, the discipline of governance, the redesign of high-value workflows, and the partnership between finance and technology leaders that makes AI investments accountable.
For CFOs and senior finance leaders, the opportunity is larger than task automation. AI can reshape how teams forecast, surface exceptions, strengthen compliance, support working-capital decisions, and provide business leaders with more timely insights, but only when it is deployed with clear ownership, trusted information, and a practical path to adoption.
Attend to hear how two experienced CIOs are distinguishing promising pilots from scalable capabilities, and how finance leaders can help ensure AI delivers durable business value.
AI: Hype or Reality? A CIO's Perspective on the Future of the Enterprise and the Office of the CFO will be held at Pillsbury in Palo Alto on Tuesday, September 15th, from 5:30 pm - 8:00 pm Pacific.
FEISV Members & Partners: Free | Other FEI Members: $135 | Registration: Here
People, Payroll, and Profitability: What Every Finance Leader Needs to Know Before a Transaction, System Change, or Hyper-Growth Event
The financial consequences of workforce infrastructure often become visible only when a company is under pressure: during diligence, in the middle of a payroll system conversion, or after growth has pushed the organization into new states, thresholds, and compliance obligations. By then, correcting classification errors, employment-tax gaps, benefit-administration issues, or fragmented employee data can consume leadership attention, delay a transaction, and put enterprise value at risk.
Join us for a practical lunch session built around a central question for finance leaders: Would your people and payroll infrastructure withstand your next major business event? The discussion will help CFOs, controllers, and senior finance executives recognize the early warning signs—from manual workarounds and inconsistent employee records to systems that cannot accommodate a newly acquired workforce or rapidly expanding footprint—before those weaknesses become costly surprises.
Rather than treating payroll and HCM as back-office administration, this session frames them as financial infrastructure. Attendees will learn where exposure most commonly appears in due diligence and growth scenarios, what to pressure-test before committing to a system change, and how to use a 30-day readiness framework to prioritize action. Leave with a clearer view of the risks beneath the P&L—and a practical way to protect profitability, preserve value, and keep growth on schedule.
People, Payroll, and Profitability: What Every Finance Leader Needs to Know Before a Transaction, System Change, or Hyper-Growth Event will be held at BPM in San Jose on Tuesday, September 29th, from 11:30 am - 1:00 pm Pacific.
FEISV Members & Partners: Free | Other FEI Members & Non-Members: $50 | Registration: Here
The Role of Private Equity in Healthcare
Private equity (PE) firms are major players in the U.S. healthcare industry, investing significant amounts over the last decade to acquire hospitals, nursing homes, and physician practices. PE’s participation in the nation’s healthcare system has led to immense controversy over whether PE should be permitted to invest in certain segments of the healthcare industry without legislative controls.1 Over the last two decades, PE has invested heavily in hospitals and long-term-care facilities (LTCs, commonly referred to as “nursing homes”).
PE firms are estimated to own approximately 8.5 percent of all private hospitals, primarily psychiatric hospitals (where they own more than 22 percent), and rehabilitation and nonspecialty acute care centers. PE firms also own somewhere between 5 and 13 percent of LTCs nationally, although a lack of transparency into ownership structures makes relying on these estimates questionable.
Learn more. Read The Role of Private Equity in Healthcare via our Platinum Partners at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP.
FEISV Member of the Week
Andrea Li currently serves as the External Reporting & Technical Accounting Director at Netflix, having served in various roles since 2011. Before Andrea's career at Netflix, she was a Senior Associate in Audit at PwC.
Andrea earned a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from the University of California, Berkeley.
FEISV Partner of the Week
Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP is a premier global law firm with more than 700 attorneys located across 20 offices throughout the U.S., Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Their commitment is to deliver sophisticated, tailored legal solutions spanning corporate transactions, complex litigation, regulatory compliance, intellectual property, cybersecurity and data privacy, technology, and financial services.
Pillsbury has a leading capital markets practice advising on a full spectrum of transactions, including IPOs and follow-on/secondary offerings, confidentially marketed public offerings, convertible and equity-linked securities, and at-the-market programs. Their attorneys also provide comprehensive counsel to public companies on disclosure obligations, corporate governance, regulatory filings, and ongoing compliance with securities regulations.
Their team leverages their deep understanding of industry-specific challenges and market trends, enabling their experts to anticipate clients' evolving legal needs and proactively develop innovative strategies. Pillsbury's attorneys bring extensive industry knowledge, technical expertise, and a global perspective to help clients navigate complex legal and business landscapes and achieve their strategic objectives. At Pillsbury, they are dedicated to providing exceptional service and helping their clients succeed.
CONTACT:
Davina K. Kaile
Corporate and Securities Partner and Global Leader of Pillsbury’s Capital Markets and Public Companies Practice
[email protected]
Special Thanks to Our Strategic Partners
Marquee Partners
Platinum Partners
Gold Partners
Silver Partners
