In this issue
FEISV Chapter Newsletter | October 16, 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
10/20 - Pre-PD: AI and Compliance for Finance Leaders
10/20 - Keynote: How Finance Leaders Can Harness AI Without Losing Control
11/18 - Annual Women CFOs of the Year Awards
11/20 - Financial Officers Forum (FOF) (Virtual)
12/09 - Annual President's Party
04/27 - FEI Silicon Valley 50th Anniversary Celebration: Casino Night - Save the Date!
Partners & Other Chapter Events
10/20 - Bridging the Divide for Private Company Leaders: Manual Debt to High Performance (Virtual) | FEI
10/21 - The True Cost of Finished Goods: From Tariff Exposure to Financial Clarity (Virtual) | FEI
10/22 - Is Your Budgeting and Forecasting Software Built for Where You’re Going — or Just Where You’ve Been? (Virtual) | FEI
10/26 - Private Company Roundtable (Virtual) | FEI
10/28 - 10/29 - AI Update and Use Cases Conference (Virtual) | FEI
11/03 - Talent, Tech Debt, and AI: Inside the 2026 Finance Architecture Survey (Virtual) | FEI
11/04 - From Costs to Collaboration: Better Card Strategy and Vendor Evaluation for Media Finance (Virtual) | FEI
11/04 - Preparing for Liquidity - Strategies for Founders, Businesses & Early Employees (Virtual) | Andersen
11/05 - Managing Lease Accounting and Portfolio Risks in Business Combinations (Virtual) | FEI
11/10 - 2026 Corporate Financial Reporting Insights (CFRI) Conference (Virtual) | FEI
Latest Trends in FEI
Next week, AI and Compliance for Finance Leaders puts a critical question on the table: Can your team use AI to strengthen compliance and defend the decisions that follow? Join experts as they identify where rule-based testing, machine learning, and generative AI can support finance compliance, and describe their limitations.
Neil Chua, Principal and global ERP Advisory Services leader at SOAProjects, will examine what NetSuite readiness actually requires, from data integrity and access to workflows and controls. Drawing on nearly three decades of enterprise advisory experience, he’ll help finance leaders look beyond AI’s promise to the systems and safeguards needed to put it to work.
Alejandro Rodriguez, Managing Director at AIVER, will bring the conversation into practice with an AI-assisted travel and expense case study, exploring how to assess flagged findings, validate outputs, and evaluate supporting evidence.
Manpreet Grover, Managing Partner & CEO of SOAProjects, will connect those technical considerations to leadership accountability, guide the oversight discussion, and moderate your questions. Join the conversation to pressure-test your approach before AI-generated findings become part of your compliance decisions.
Pre-PD: AI and Compliance for Finance Leaders will be held at Pillsbury in Palo Alto on Tuesday, October 20th, from 3:30 pm - 5:00 pm Pacific.
FEISV Members & Partners: Free | Other FEI Members: $50 | Registration: Here
October Keynote: Next Week!
AI is becoming part of the finance compliance conversation. The consequential decisions sit with finance leaders: where to apply it, what evidence to require, and who remains accountable for the findings. Next week’s expert panel on AI and Compliance for Finance Leaders puts those decisions at the center of a focused discussion on NetSuite readiness, responsible AI adoption, and the controls that support reliable review.
Join fellow finance executives to examine how rule-based testing, machine learning, and generative AI fit into compliance monitoring—and what each requires in practice. The panel will address the data, access, and workflow conditions needed in NetSuite, along with the validation, privacy, and oversight considerations leaders need to evaluate before moving forward.
An AIVER travel and expense case study will bring those questions into a concrete review of findings and supporting evidence. For executives responsible for financial controls, audit readiness, and AI adoption, this is an opportunity to sharpen the criteria that will guide implementation and oversight. Reserve your place and bring the questions shaping your organization’s next AI decisions.
Pre-PD: AI and Compliance for Finance Leaders will be held at Pillsbury in Palo Alto on Tuesday, October 20th, from 3:30 pm - 5:00 pm Pacific.
FEISV Members & Partners: Free | Other FEI Members: $50 | Registration: Here
Nominate Yourself or Another Deserving Woman CFO
Hard work deserves to be seen. Put your name forward, or someone else's.
Strong CFOs often spend their careers making other people look good. They steady the numbers, guide the hard decisions, and mentor the people coming up behind them. Recognition tends to come last, if it comes at all.
Nominations are now open for the 4th Annual Women CFOs of the Year Awards, and you have a say in who gets the spotlight. You can nominate yourself. You can nominate a colleague, a mentor, or a leader you have watched make a difference. Either way, you decide whose story gets told.
Honorees will be recognized in five categories:
- Public Company CFOs at organizations with a market capitalization of $1 billion or more
- Public Company CFOs at organizations with a market capitalization below $1 billion
- Private Company CFOs at organizations with revenue of $50 million or more
- Private Company CFOs at organizations with revenue below $50 million
- Non-Profit Organization CFOs
Think of the woman who steered a company through change, helped a growing business scale with discipline, or advanced a mission when resources were tight. Her work shaped strategy, strengthened her organization, and inspired others in accounting and finance.
Now it is your chance to make sure that work is recognized...even if that woman is you!
Fill out the nomination form here. Submit nominations by the end of the day on October 30, 2026.
Don't wait for someone else to speak up. Nominate yourself or the leader who deserves it.
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
The True Cost of Finished Goods: From Tariff Exposure to Financial Clarity
Tariffs are no longer just a trade compliance concern. They’re a Finance leadership imperative. Join FEI virtually to explore a tariff reporting and planning solution built in OneStream that connects fragmented trade data to financial insight.
When policies shift, the business needs more than a report on what it paid. It needs to understand where margins are exposed, how the forecast could change, and what to do next.
Yet many organizations track tariffs at the import or raw material level—far from the products, customers, and decisions that drive profitability. Closing that gap gives Finance the opportunity to lead.
See how flexible modeling helps Finance distinguish actual costs from assumptions, adapt as policies evolve, and compare scenarios that inform pricing, sourcing, and margin decisions.
Beyond the solution walkthrough, we’ll examine what it takes to build a finance-owned tariff planning process: the data, accountability, and capabilities that turn exposure into informed action. Leave with a clearer perspective on your organization’s readiness—and practical priorities for helping the business navigate what changes next.
The True Cost of Finished Goods: From Tariff Exposure to Financial Clarity will be held virtually on Wednesday, October 21st, from 10:00 am - 11:00 am Pacific.
FEISV Members & Partners, and Other FEI Members: Free | Registration: Here
Why Budget Season Is an Alignment Problem, Not a Numbers Problem
How many of your executives could state the organization's strategic goals off the top of their heads? When that question was put to a room full of CFOs, only a handful raised their hands.
Three IBM and analytics experts who started out on the user side of financial planning explain why a budget can be technically accurate and still miss the mark. If the numbers aren't tied to where the company is headed, the organization has an alignment problem, not a numbers problem. Speed doesn't fix that, and neither does AI.
One of the experts remembers 120-slide control books, a single hour to analyze fresh data, and running to the printer before an earnings call. He calls it "assembly." Today, analysis that used to take two or three weeks into the close cycle happens daily.
So what changed, and what does it mean for finance teams still stuck in spreadsheet-driven budget cycles? Read the full recap to learn how finance leaders are moving from data collection to strategy.
Learn more. Read Why Budget Season Is an Alignment Problem, Not a Numbers Problem via FEI Daily.
Preparing for Liquidity - Strategies for Founders, Businesses & Early Employees
Liquidity decisions are happening earlier, and they carry real tax and valuation consequences for companies and employees. Valuations are climbing sooner in the company lifecycle, secondary markets are opening new opportunities, and traditional equity compensation plans don't always meet the needs of employers or the people they're meant to reward.
Companies are also taking more varied paths to liquidity, from tender offers to secondary sales, and each path raises its own questions. Join Andersen's tax and valuation professionals virtually for a focused discussion of today's liquidity environment. The session covers what these shifts mean for your equity strategy, where the tax and valuation risks are, and how to plan before the next liquidity event. Register to take part from wherever you are.
Andersen Webcast: Preparing for Liquidity - Strategies for Founders, Businesses & Early Employees will be held virtually on Wednesday, November 4th.
FEISV Members & Partners: Free | Registration: Here
FEISV Member of the Week
Greta Fitzgerald is Founder and CEO of Bespoke People, where she provides fractional HR leadership and strategic consulting to startups and growing businesses. With more than 15 years of global human resources experience, she helps organizations navigate rapid growth, international expansion, executive transitions, and culture transformation.
Greta has held senior HR leadership roles at Qubole, Mimosa Networks, and iTalent Digital. She brings a strategic, people-centered approach to helping founders and leadership teams build strong cultures, develop leaders, and support sustainable growth. Greta holds an MFA in Theatre Arts from Columbia University and a BA in Communications from Santa Clara University.
FEISV Partner of the Week
Andersen is the founding member of Andersen Global, an international association of legally separate, independent member firms with more than 4,500 professionals worldwide, over 600 global Partners, and a presence in over 148 locations through its member firms and collaborating firms. In the U.S., Andersen has more than 1,000 personnel located in 19 cities across the country. Andersen encompasses top advisors with previous experience in international accounting firms, law firms, the IRS, and state taxing authorities.
Many of their advisors hold multiple professional credentials and have depth in a wide range of capabilities, allowing them to provide clients with comprehensive, integrated solutions. Andersen specializes in full-service individual and business entity tax compliance and consulting.
Their clients are at the center of our operating model, which is structured to allow their experts to be entrepreneurial and proactive in their approach and enable Andersen's Managing Directors to roll up their sleeves and work directly with you. As an Andersen client, the professionals you get to know in your first meeting are the same professionals who will be working with you throughout the process.
CONTACT:
Petra N. Loer
[email protected]
www.andersen.com
Special Thanks to Our Strategic Partners
Marquee Partners
Platinum Partners
Gold Partners
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