An Innovative Panel Discussion on How CFOs are Scaling and Transforming Businesses
Prior to the CFO Leadership Awards presentation, guests were treated to a spirited discussion with visionary thought leaders in the executive finance sphere. Marsh McLennan Agency’s Brian Hegarty served as moderator with a panel of three luminaries: Belva Anakwenze of Abacus Financial, Ahmer Inam of Relanto, and Linh H. Le of MINDERA Health. The panel discussed an array of topics, with a throughline of how to best leverage modern technology to achieve prudent financial management without losing the human touch that makes CFOs more than mere number-crunchers and elevates them to trusted executive leaders.
See the full discussion video here:
Panelists
Principal, L.A. Managing Director – Marsh McLennan Agency
Brian Hegarty is the managing director of the Los Angeles office for Marsh McLennan Agency (MMA). In addition to overseeing the firm’s rapid growth in the Los Angeles market, Brian specializes in employee benefits programs for mid-size to large companies. Since joining the firm in 2008, he has worked closely with many leading Los Angeles industries such as technology, entertainment, apparel, and hospitality, among others. Focusing on enhancing the experience for both employers and employees, he is very proficient at helping organizations that are expanding operations nationally and internationally. Brian is a thought leader who was instrumental in the development of the company’s technology trust, Benefits Tech Trust.
CFO & COO – Mindera Health
Linh H. Le brings more than two decades of experience in the healthcare space, in sectors including molecular diagnostics, infectious diseases, and medical devices. He is the CFO & COO of Mindera Health(tm), the developer of Mind.Px(tm), the first precision medicine for psoriasis. Prior to that, he served as the CFO for Predicine, a company developing genomic profiling tests for cancer diagnostics and monitoring. He served as COO at Ambry Genetics and various positions at Medtronic Diabetes Group. Linh also held leadership roles at The Walt Disney Company and PricewaterhouseCoopers. He began his career at KPMG, providing attestation services in healthcare and technology, earning his CPA designation. He was named an L.A. Times B2B Publishing CFO Honoree in 2022.
Principal & Business Manager – Abacus Financial Business Management, Inc.
Belva Anakwenze IS A California native and proud founder and principal of Abacus Financial Business Management. Belva handles the financial affairs of entertainment professionals, creative corporate executives, and their closely-held businesses. This includes the facilitation and management of her clients’ accounting & bookkeeping, payroll, tax preparation, and nonprofit agencies. As the middle child of three siblings, she learned early on how to stand out and be different; her clients appreciate her ingenuity and aptness for managing financial matters.
Chief Data and Artificial Intelligence Officer – Relanto
Ahmer Inam holds the position of chief data and artificial intelligence officer at Relanto, a global firm specializing in business process transformation and enterprise resiliency. With over two decades of experience, Ahmer has a proven track record of driving organizational transformation by implementing intelligent digital solutions. He also held leadership positions at Nike, PwC and Wells Fargo. His expertise extends beyond his professional roles. Ahmer also acts as a data & AI expert with the International Institute for Analytics, contributing knowledge and insights to the field. In addition, he is a founding member of the Decentralized Society Lab at MIT Media Labs, where he contributes to exploring the societal impacts of emerging technologies.
Shared insights from the Event
BASED ON THE YEAR SO FAR, HOW HAVE INNOVATION AND NEW TECHNOLOGIES AFFECTED YOUR BUSINESS?
Linh Le: In the healthcare space, our primary focus is the customer. Anytime this technology that can really facilitate that, enable that, or really drive that to be a very more efficient perspective, that’s what we embrace. The turnaround time is a key operational factor, and with technology, it really enables that for us. You hear a lot of things about ChatGPT, AI, generative AI - right now, we’re absolutely embracing that.
Ahmer Inam: In the pandemic and post-pandemic, there were a lot of fire drills trying to basically hold on to the business. Now, many of the CEOs are saying never again - we do not want to be surprised by any of the marketplace shifts anymore. So, can we harness essentially the power of AI and machine learning to essentially own our future instead of just continuously and constantly responding to the events of the past?
Belva Anakwenze: As it relates to operations in the entertainment industry, AI is a moving target. It’s kind of wild, wild West right now. People are relying on ChatGPT and operationally, we see a change, but the key part for us is that there’s so much of what we do that’s interpersonal - it’s about relationships, and it’s about having oversight. We leverage technology, we leverage AI, but so much more is needed by humans to oversee it all.
WHAT SKILLS AND COMPETENCIES ARE NOW ESSENTIAL FOR CFOS TO EFFECTIVELY NAVIGATE THE INTEGRATION OF AI TECHNOLOGIES, AND HOW CAN THEY ACQUIRE OR DEVELOP THESE SKILLS?
Inam: We have to think about how AI can integrate into our business processes and transform and evolve it over time. Have a Chief AI Officer. A Chief AI Officer is not a CTO or CIO, It’s somebody who is out there looking at all of the AI technologies that are coming up into the market, what’s on the horizon, and how those technologies integrate with your specific problem set.
WHAT ARE WAYS YOUR CLIENTS ARE ADAPTING AND APPROACHING THE CHANGES BROUGHT ON BY AI?
Anakwenze: What I’m seeing from an AI perspective is that it is a tool: It should be used and it should be leveraged. We are doing that, but we are really spending our time on offering white-glove service to make ourselves relevant and important - this technology can do a lot of the backbone stuff, but what people need us for is for everything else.
WHAT IS A SPECIFIC TECH OR AI-DRIVEN SOLUTION THAT HAS HAD A SIGNIFICANT IMPACT ON IMPROVING PATIENT CARE OR OPERATIONAL PROCESSES?
Linh: We implemented a chat bot - It really works. It really does follow that 80/20 rule, where 80% of our customers’ questions are the same. Through natural language, it really learned all the different questions. So when the patient calls, most of the time those questions are answered automatically 24/7.
HOW DO YOU SEE YOUR INDUSTRY CHANGING WITHIN THE NEXT 18 MONTHS?
Anakwenze: I think that AI learning is going to really help solve the need for very small companies or individuals who need basic accounting and CFO services. I think that’s going to be great. The accounting industry is not “sexy,” and we’re not getting a lot of people into the industry right now. And so there’s a huge gap in terms of human capital and our time is very limited.
Ahmer: Over the next 18 to 36 months we’re going to see two categories of companies evolving: those who have embraced AI and those who will be falling behind, essentially shutting shops down. It’s due to the pace of innovation that is happening so rapidly.
Linh: If you regroup and think about all these new technologies, you no longer have to be the smartest person in the room. What that means is a shift to the “EQ” versus the IQ. So to CFOs out there, let’s just make sure that we fall back and think about the emotional side of running a company