Serena Wolfe, CFO of Annaly Capital Management, joins Count Me In to talk about ESG and corporate social responsibility. Ms. Wolfe has over 20 years of experience in accounting, of which 13 years were focused solely in real estate practice. Prior to joining Annaly in December 2019, Ms. Wolfe had served as a Partner at Ernst & Young LLP (“E&Y”) since 2011. In this episode, she addresses how businesses can balance the princip...

Mitch Perry, CFO of BlueCross BlueShield of North Carolina, joins Count Me In to talk about business transformation in the context of accounting and finance. Mitch is an experienced executive with a demonstrated history of leading effectively across multiple industries, including health care, energy, and insurance. In this episode, he discusses the basic nature of a business transformation and what it takes to successfully implemen...

Alan Johnson, President of the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC), joins Count Me In to talk with Loreal Jiles, IMA Director of Research, about the importance of taking action to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) in the accounting profession. On the heels of an IMA and CalCPA-sponsored research study supported by IFAC and 13 other organizations, Loreal shares relevant findings from the research study a...

Brian Suthoff, CEO and co-founder of Tally Street, joins Count Me In to talk about why accounting and finance professionals are well-positioned to drive data across the organization and make strategic decisions to improve the bottom line. Tally Street helps small to mid-sized businesses keep and grow customers via actionable insights automatically generated from sales transactions. Prior to co-founding Tally Street, Brian founded H...

Gary Piscatelli, Senior VP & CFO - North America at Hunter Douglas, joins Count Me In to talk about what business transformation means for today's business leaders. Gary is a results-driven CFO who, in his role, is responsible for Finance, Supply Chain, Payroll, and Information Technology for the North American Region. Prior to taking this role, he served as chief financial officer for Timex Group, as well as 18 years at Gi...

Neil Baier, CMA, CFM, VP of Finance at Crescent Crown Distributing, joins Count Me In as part of the "CMAs Making a Difference" campaign, a part of a worldwide initiative at IMA. In this episode, Neil discusses how IMA and the CMA have continued to offer value to his career and shares some of his professional accomplishments, thanks to his education and certification. To hear more about how the CMA credential and CMAs make ...

Clive Webb, Senior Insights Manager at ACCA, Qualified Chartered Accountant with global experience, joins Count Me In to talk about how the role of the CFO has evolved and what skills are needed to adapt and thrive in the position. He is currently working for ACCA on a number of research projects including role of Accounting Technicians and use of robotics and artificial intelligence in accounting and finance. This episode focuses ...

Loreal Jiles, IMA’s Director of Research for Digital Technology & Finance Transformation, joins Count Me In to talk about the trending theme of agile. In this episode, she explains what an agile finance function looks like, defines "scrum", and shares how finance teams are already using agile and scrum. If you're hoping to get started and are looking for more information on implementing an agile approach to finance ...

Roland Abi Najem, CST, SCD, Founder & CEO of Revotips - Expert Tech Consultants, joins Count Me In to talk about cybersecurity. Roland is a cybersecurity and digital transformation consultant and expert, public speaker, and certified professional trainer with great experience in the areas of IT and cybersecurity. In this episode, we dive into the world of cybersecurity to better understand the evolution of the industry (particu...

Edward Lam, Chief Accounting Officer at Exeter Finance, joins Count Me In to talk about building a culture around continuous improvement, the future of work, and implementing various leadership strategies to best guide and shape an effective accounting and finance function. In this episode, Ed talks about how he has witnessed his own job change in the last 3-5 years, what he's done to develop change management skills in alignme...

Karmin Bailey, Senior Manager, Procurement & Business Diversity at Columbus Regional Airport Authority and member of IMA's Diversity & Inclusion Committee, joins Count Me In to talk about the IMA® (Institute of Management Accountants) Diversity and Inclusion Toolkit. The D&I Committee compiled the leading best practices to help assist in D&I program implementation in an easy-to-use toolkit, and Karmin served as ...

Matthias Tillmann, Chief Financial Officer at trivago, joins Count Me In to talk about the challenges the industry faced following the global pandemic and how they were able to sustain their business. Trivago obviously faced a drastic decline in demand through the early parts of 2020, but Matthias explains how they were able to scale back in certain areas while preserving business operations and really making sure their focus remai...

Liv Watson, Sr. Director of Strategic Customer Initiatives at Workiva, and David Wray, Sr. Director of Accounting and Reporting at Huawei, come back to Count Me In and talk about non-financial standards for digitizing transformation and sustainability reporting. The Impact Management Project has a Non-Financial Digitization Working Group, which Liv chairs, and David chairs the economic workstream within the working group. They have...

Kavya Ramesh is the co-founder and chief operating officer of Technogro Analytics, LLP, a company that provides technology consulting services to the hospitality industry. She joins Count Me In as part of the "CMAs Making a Difference" campaign, a part of a worldwide initiative at IMA. In this episode, Kavya discusses what the CMA has done for her career, how she plans on using the credential to advance in her career, and s...

Dell Ann Janney, Associate Dean of Experiential Education & External Relations and Professor of Accounting & MBA Program Chair at Culver-Stockton College, and Wendy Tietz, Accounting Professor at Kent State University and author, join Count Me In to talk about the Hybrid-Flexible (HyFlex) teaching model and its applications to accounting education. The HyFlex model has gained significant popularity following the need for re...

Rachael Bertrandt Crump, CPA, CGMA, Global Corporate Controller, Principal Accounting Officer at Insight, joins Count Me In to talk about her perspective on global leadership. While working for a leading provider of computer hardware, software, cloud solutions and IT services to business, government, education and healthcare clients, she has developed many skills and understands what it takes to be a global leader. From personal at...

Andrea Williams, Sr. Vice President and Controller at Perdue Foods, joins Count Me In to talk about the future of accounting work, ethical considerations, and the impact of technology on the profession. Andrea is an experienced Senior Vice President with a demonstrated history of working in the food production industry. She's skilled in Food & Beverage, Budgeting, Food Processing, Manufacturing, and Consumer Products, and h...

Nicole Gonzalez Cumberbatch, VP of Finance and HR at Setnor Byer Insurance & Risk, joins Count Me In to discuss some of the challenges working parents are facing while working from home during the global pandemic. Nicole is a senior accounting professional with over 17 years of experience and also currently serves on IMA's Diversity & Inclusion Committee. She is passionate about mentorship and leadership, and she knows ...