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K. Oni Chukwu was one of three chief financial officers to take top honors at the inaugural CFO of the Year Awards in 2012. He immediately made sure that did not happen again.
“Now, I am a CEO,” he told 150 who attended the Business Journal”™s second annual CFO of the Year Awards at the Hotel Zero Degrees in Norwalk the evening of Oct. 2. “And the first thing I did as CEO was to hire a CFO to do all the work.”
The 2013 winners were Eugene Colucci, CFO of Greenwich Hospital in the large-business category; Donald J. Morrissey, executive vice president and CFO, Aquarion Water Co., with offices in Greenwich, Bridgeport and Monroe, in the medium-business category; and Carol Miller, CFO and comptroller of Integrated Medical Centers and imedcenter.com L.L.C. in Fairfield in the small business category.
The event was organized and run by the Business Journal and sponsored by TD Bank and McGladrey L.L.P. Further support came from Arthur Murray Grande Ballroom of Greenwich, which gifted stress-relieving free lessons to the three winners; Mercedes Benz of Greenwich; and White Plains, N.Y.-based Deutsch Family Wine and Spirits.
Speakers and presenters in addition to Chukwu, included Dee DelBello, publisher of the Fairfield County Business Journal and Wag magazine; Michael J. LaBella, market president, TD Bank Connecticut; Anthony D. Ceci Jr., McGladrey”™s managing partner for Connecticut; Peter Gioia, vice president and economist, Connecticut Business and Industry Association; Patricia Poli, associate professor of accounting, Dolan School of Business, Fairfield University; Arthur J. Renner, executive director, Connecticut Society of Certified Public Accountants; and Chris Bruhl, president and CEO, Business Council of Fairfield County.
“This was not a popularity contest,” Chukwu said, highlighting a point made by several speakers. The criteria, he said, included, “What the CFO contributes to the growth and profitability of the company through strategic initiatives” and “Why this particular CFO should be CFO of the year.”
Chukwu read aloud a help-wanted ad for a financial officer. The qualifications quickly entered the arena of the “humanly impossible.”
“It used to be if a person could add, that was it, right?” he said. “Today a person has to be Superman or Superwoman to do the job.” He urged the assembled: “Hug your CFO.”
(A full listing of nominees and their biographies appeared in a previous article.)
