This year”™s CFO of the Year Awards highlighted a spectrum of firms and executives who have faced a variety of challenges to best make the numbers work.
The event, sponsored by the Business Journal”™s parent company, Westfair Communications Inc., was held at The Briarcliff Manor in the village of the same name. AÂ panel of three judges ”” Marissa Brett, former president of the Westchester County Association; Robert J. Chersi, former CFO of Fidelity Investments; and Francis Petit, associate dean at Fordham University’s Gabelli School of Business Lincoln Center ”” announced three winners from the nine finalists.
The winners were: Susan Bartow of the School Choice International education consulting firm; Gary F. Brudnicki of WMCHealth Network, a system that includes seven hospitals on five campuses; and Mark Hirschhorn of telehealth provider Teladoc.
The other finalists were: Debra Feldman, Westchester Jewish Community Services; Jerry Harnik, partner at Strategies for Wealth; Robert C. Hultgren of fire-sprinkler manufacturing company Reliable Automatic Sprinkler Company Inc.; Arthur Schwacke, ENT and Allergy Associates LLP; Debra Stanson, New York School for the Deaf; and Joy Traille of the home care group Comfort Keepers.
While some finalists said their companies are trying to find more innovative solutions for annually decreasing budgets, others said they are working to adjust to expanding portfolios and more complex businesses. “Change is the way of life” and “no rest for the weary” were two ways judge Chersi summed up the common challenges facing CFOs as they work to protect their companies.
In their remarks, the finalists discussed the difficulty of adapting to new technologies and how to reinvent their companies while maintaining original missions.
Bartow, who won in the small company category, said her company”™s “systems have to be more and more robust” to keep up with the increasingly complex ways businesses are run. By implementing more sophisticated tools, Bartow said her team is able to use “data in a way that”™ll be more useful, efficient and effective.”
Brudnicki, who won in the large company category, said the medical community has been forced to keep pace with advances in technology.
“The real challenge providers like us are faced with is how do we take the technology of today, how do we roll that technology into the communities where people live so they can receive the care they need closer to home, or even at home,” Brudnicki said.
Feldman, who works for the Westchester Jewish Community Services nonprofit that provides mental health programs to the community, said her organization is largely funded by the government, which means there can be many unknown components in funding.
“There are constant changes in how our revenue is computed and how the streams are coming in,” she said. “It”™s our goal in our finance department to be well-informed of all these revenue streams and advise all the administrative leadership of the changes that are coming.”
Hirschhorn, who won in the mid-sized category, has helped lead Teladoc through four acquisitions and an IPO. He his company has lasted by finding innovative ways to connect patients with physicians.
“The challenge we”™re faced with is continuing to evangelize, evangelizing the fact that, with Teladoc, we”™ve created and we”™ve removed barriers to access. Barriers that now 13 million people have access to a physician in typically under 10 minutes,” he said.
This story has been updated to clarify the description of the WMCHealth Network.
