draft september 2011 issue - fei canada chapter newsletter... · draft—september 2011 issue page...

DRAFT—September 2011 Issue

President’s Report

September 2011

With September coming to a close, we’ve all now cleared our heads, forgotten our short summer and are fully engaged in our various businesses again. The same thing goes for the Chapter. We’ve already had two great events, and the Events Committee has put together a packed slate for the rest of the year, which you’ll read more about later in this month’s newsletter.

Our first event was our AGM and September Kick Off event held September 21 at the Vancouver Aquarium. We squeezed a bit of business in between socializing and admiring the tropical fish, including appointing a new Board. Your Chapter Board for the 2011 / 2012 Year is listed on the last page of this newsletter.

I look forward to serving as President this year, and continuing the excellent work that was started under Brad Cruikshank’s two terms. Brad served the Chapter and our members well, and was a great advocate for us in the National forum. Thanks again for all your hard work, Brad.

Keep in mind that the Chapter Board is not the only opportunity to get involved with FEI Canada. There are a variety of committees at the Chapter level and National level that are always looking for new members. If you are interested in getting involved, please contact any of the Board and we can discuss the various options. It’s a great way to be part of the future of FEI Canada, meet a great group of people and have fun at the same time.

Along that line, we have an immediate need for someone to take over production of our monthly newsletter. As you may know, we are the only Chapter in Canada that produces a newsletter and we need a creative person to take up the mantle. If you’re interested, please get in touch with me.

I look forward to seeing you at the next event. Brad Bardua


Membership

Committee

Report

The FEI Canada Membership Committee met in September and a key focus area that we all agreed on was membership retention. The Vancouver Chapter is no different than any other Chapter, losing a proportionately larger percentage of members after only 1 to 3 years of membership. We need to make a stronger effort in engaging these new members, so they do not fall through the cracks and become disillusioned with the value of an FEI membership. As a re-sult, we will be rolling out a new “Ambassador Program”, where FEI members will volunteer to reach out to at-risk members, who are identified as people that have not attended an FEI event in the last 6 months. The program is very sim-ple and involves reaching out to these particular members with a personal phone call and regular follow-up. We will also be involved with more relationship marketing versus direct market-ing through FEI Canada’s database of prospects. It is very clear that new mem-bers join because of a relationship they have with an existing member. So, the challenge to the FEI Vancouver Chapter Board members and any other volun-teers, is to engage in a new campaign called “Pick 6”, where 6 prospective FEI members are identified. These individuals will be contacted and invited to an FEI event and follow up maintained throughout the year. Finally, I want to announce the winner of the FEI Vancouver Chapter Recruit-ment Contest that was run from March 2011 to June 2011. The big winner is Graham Holliday, who is the CFO for Mosaic Avenue Developments. Way to go Graham! Danley Yip


Membership Committee

Report … continued

Members in the News….

Caroline Dunn, CA – has been hired as the new CFO for DDS Wireless International Inc. in September. She was previously the CFO at the Courtyard Group as well as the Executive VP, Growth Strategies and CFO of Sierra Systems Group. Jim Zadra, CA, MBA – is the new VP, Finance at Great Panther Silver. Jim was previously the CFO at DDS Wireless International Inc. and the VP, Finance – North America at Sophos Inc. Narinder Parmar, CA – is the new Corporate Controller at Elastic Path Software, which provides the industry's most flexible Java ecommerce platform. Previously, he has worked as an IFRS Consultant for HSBC Bank Canada, Director, Management Reporting & Planning for Gateway Casinos and Corporate Controller for 1-800-Got-Junk? Max von Trebra, CA – has become the new SVP, Corporate Accounting at Vision Critical, which is a market research survey software company, providing interactive market research combining technology, researchers and global online panels. He was formerly the AVP, Finance at Ipsos Reid. Trevor Fedyna, CGA – has recently left BC Safety Authority as their CFO and Vice President of Corporate Services to pursue new endeav-ors. BC Safety Authority is an independent, self-funded corporation that provides cost-effective and essential safety services.

Stephen Majlath, CMA – is no longer the Director of Finance for Aqui-

nox Pharmaceuticals and is pursuing new endeavors. He was previously

the CFO for Ignition Point Technologies.

If you have any updates or a new job, please let me know by contacting me at [email protected] or call me at work ph: 604-688-6393.

Danley Yip

mailto:[email protected]


New Member Profile

Andrew MacRitchie

Name: Andrew MacRitchie What is your current role: CFO of Helio Resource Corp. (TSXV: HRC www.helioresource.com), a gold-exploration com-pany focused on expanding its gold-resource in Tanzania and defining a resource in Namibia. What attracted you to FEI: I know a number of FEI members who invited me to attend FEI events as a guest. This introduced me to the organization and the quality of the seminars. It was the outstanding people involved in FEI, though, that was the key factor in my decision.

What do you like most about your job: I like the variability of the work – my role covers strategy, external audit, internal audit, treas-ury management, systems support, legal work, management reporting, and more – there is always something new to learn. What do you like most about your company: Having been to our exploration site in Tanzania a number of times, I’m always struck by the complete lack of basic infrastructure present in the villages near our exploration sites. In ad-dition to jobs, our developments will bring clean running water and proper sewer facilities to the people of these communities, helping to significantly improve their health and overall quality of life, particularly during the dry season. I consider myself incredibly fortunate to be a part of this process. How do you spend your time when you’re not at the office: My wife Heather and I enjoy spending time with our children, Callum, Bridget and Chloe. Our current favourite activity is going for family bike rides. Also, I volunteer as a board member of the Kidney Foundation of Canada (www.kidney.ca). My involvement with the Foundation has highlighted to me the link between the salt in our diets and our increasing blood pressure. Of course high blood pressure is hard on our bodies, especially on the heart and kidneys. What keeps you up at night: Trying to understand the Vancouver real-estate market!


IASB Agenda Consultation 2011

AcSB Roundtable Discussion

On October 17, 2011, the Accounting Standards Board (AcSB) is holding a roundtable discussion in Vancouver from 10:00 – 12:00 PDT to discuss Cana-dian stakeholders’ views on the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) Agenda Consultation 2011. This document addresses what areas the IASB proposes to give priority to over the next three years.

The AcSB is seeking input on its Invitation to Comment on the IASB Agenda Consultation 2011 by October 24, 2011 in order to develop an informed re-sponse to the IASB’s Request for Views on this paper. In particular, the AcSB is seeking input on the following questions:

Do you agree that there is a need for ongoing convergence of IFRSs with US GAAP?

Should issuing interpretations and proposing amendments through an-nual improvements be a top priority of the IASB?

What high-priority standards projects do you think the IASB should add to its agenda?

Register for this roundtable discussion by contacting Florita Dinglasan at [email protected] or Marites Alvarez at [email protected]. Please include your name, organization, location and contact information. If you are unable to attend, get information on the webinars and conference calls the AcSB is also holding on this topic.

http://www.ifrs.org/Current+Projects/IASB+Projects/IASB+agenda+consultation/IASB+agenda+consultation.htm

http://www.acsbcanada.org/documents-for-comment/item52630.pdf



http://www.acsbcanada.org/international-activities/item52738.aspx

http://www.acsbcanada.org/international-activities/item52738.aspx


September

Events

We kicked of the year with our Fall Kickoff and AGM at the Vancouver Aquarium on Wednes-day, September 21st. While not a formal sit down dinner, there was more than enough food (and drinks) to satisfy any appetite. We even managed to conduct some official business by electing, by acclamation, a full board. Most of all, however, a little over 60 members and their guests had an opportunity to network, eat good food and drink some good wine in a unique and complementary environment.

We followed this with our first PD event on Thursday, September 29th. This was a dinner and our speaker was Mike Waites, the President and CEO of Finning International. Finning is a multi-billion dollar publically traded company headquartered in Vancouver with large busi-ness operations in Western Canada, the UK and South America.

Mike's talk was "The Duties of a CFO". He has a rather unique perspective on this, having been a CFO for Finning and for the Canadian Pacific Railway. Our recently retired board member Peter Ballachey used to work closely with Mike at the CPR and introduced him to our membership. Mike explicitly avoided the "traditional function description" of a CFO and focused on three points: In dealing with equity markets, the CFO is a second opinion on the CEO's perspective on

the company, which is often driven by passion. The CFO must ensure that the organization is sustainable with sustainable systems in

place. Examples of systems that are not sustainable include Greece, most defined bene-fit pension plans, pre-bankruptcy General Motors and the US housing bubble. He also made the seemingly simple but often overlooked insight that the economic situation in to-day's world is an "expected value outcome", not a "probability tail".

CFOs must play a role at the strategy table. The CFO must thoroughly understand the financials, and then focus on operational excellence, which will enable meaningful strat-egy to be implemented. He used an example at Finning that involved the understanding of performance fundamentals in safety, using this information in maintaining and improv-ing safety and ultimately enabling the company to get on mine sites.

Mike's talk was followed by an engaging question and answer session that lasted nearly a half hour. I know that I speak for all when I convey our appreciation to Mike Waites for spending an evening with our membership.

Jeff Shickele

Michael Waites, Peter Ballachey, Jeff Shickele.


Date Event Type Detail Location

Tuesday, October 18,

2011 Breakfast

National Breakfast Seminar Grant Thornton LLP and CFERF

Succeeding at Succession

Fairmont Waterfront Hotel

Tuesday, October 25,

2011 Lunch

Cameron Muir, Chief Economist,

BC Real Estate Assn.

Sutton Place Hotel

Thursday, November 3,

2011 Breakfast

Dan Eisner of Mercer

Sutton Place Hotel

Thursday, November 24,

2011 Lunch

David Cobb,

CEO of BC Hydro

Sutton Place Hotel

Wednesday, December 7,

2011 Dinner

John Schreiner Annual Wine Pairing

Rosewood Hotel Georgia,

801 W Georgia St., Vancouver

Thursday, January 19,

2012 Lunch

Alan Oishi, Business Strategy Coach

at Shirlaws

How to impact your business multiple

TBD

After many years of producing our monthly newsletter, Lynne Fraser has retired from the board. This leaves us with an opening for a person to manage our Communications and Newsletter program. Our monthly newsletters for our membership are an important part of our communications program. Please contact Brad Bardua if you would be interested in fill-ing this position or would like more information.

Wanted — Newsletter Editor


Memories

of 9/11

On the morning of September 11, 2001, I took a taxi to Vancouver airport to catch a plane to Toronto for a meeting next day at CICA. In the cab I heard on the radio that “a small plane had crashed into the World Trade Center”. When I got to YVR, I learned that no planes were flying out that day and that the airport was in turmoil. Thinking quickly, I headed back out of the departures area, illegally jumped in a cab that had just dropped someone off and was soon back home. The meeting was rescheduled. This would be a commonplace story except for the reason for my meeting. It was to review the final version of a publication I’d written for CICA: “Crisis Management for Directors”. In it were suggestions on how boards should respond in the event of a crisis in their organization, both sudden crises, like 9/11 and emerging crises like the one at Enron (which hit the news at about the same time). In the week or so before the rescheduled meeting, my CICA project manager and I reviewed the draft and found that the tried-and-true crisis response techniques were appropriate and worked for companies affected by the events of 9/11. We modified the introduction to recog-nize this and published the document essentially unchanged. It was subsequently revised and reissued as 20 Questions Directors Should Ask about Crisis Management. If you want to review your own organization’s crisis readiness, you can download the document (for free) from www.rmgb.ca. It’s in the “Director Series”. Crises are rarely as massive and appalling as the attacks of September 11, but the possibility of crisis calls for constant vigilance and readiness. Being prepared for a crisis involves more than the capacity to manage the crisis itself, it means having the resources and resilience to continue operations. The organizations that survived the immediate impacts of September 11 were best able to recover if they:

Took prompt, decisive action to deal with the immediate crisis and resume opera-tions. They communicated promptly and frankly with employees, customers, suppli-ers, other important stakeholders and the news media, and they demonstrated practical compassion for the injured, frightened and bereaved.

Were prepared - not for such an unimaginable event - but for the more mundane and predictable problems of business continuity: alternative computer and commu-nication systems, off-site back up of vital records, contact information and more.

Had the financial and other resources to absorb the effects of the crisis and return to normal - strong balance sheets, positive cash flow and good cost control.

Hugh Lindsay


Aon Reed Stenhouse

Chapter Supporters

Should you be interested in sponsorship or have a recommendation for us to

follow up on, please contact Fabiana Chubbs by e-mail at: [email protected] or by telephone: 604-601-6654

Chapter Sponsors

FEI Vancouver Salutes

our Sponsors and Supporters!



2011-2012 Chapter

Board of Directors

Brad Bardua Chief Financial Officer, Pacific BioEnergy Corporation 1509 999 West Hastings Street

T: 604-602-1099 F: 604-602-1089 E: [email protected]

President

Angela Yap CFO, Quorum Management and Adminis-trative Services In. CFO of Cream Minerals Limited

T: 604-646-5892 F: E: [email protected]

Vice President

Issa Nakhleh CFO, Heartforce Medical Inc. Suite 305 - 1818 Cornwall Avenue, Vancouver, V6J 1C7


Secretary

Alan Wong Chartered Accountant 2885 W 32nd Ave, Vancouver V6I 2B5

T: 778-772-6511 F:

E: [email protected]

Treasurer

Brad Cruickshank Chief Financial Officer, Dueck GM 400 SE Marine Drive, Vancouver, BC V5X4X2


Past President

Hugh Lindsay President, FMG Financial Mentors Group Inc. 2831 W 19th Avenue, Vancouver V6L 1E4


FEIsters Chair

Danley Yip Division Director Robert Half Management Resources 724 – 1055 Dunsmuir St, Vancouver V7X 1L4


Membership Committee Chair

Robert Hibberd President AIS Advanced Inventory Services Ltd. 303 - 1450 Burnaby Street, Vancouver V6G 1W7


Membership Committee Director

Fabiana Chubbs CFP, Eldorado Gold Corporation 1188 - 550 Burrard Street, Vancouver V6C 2B5


Sponsorship Committee Chair

Roger Bissoondatt Chief Financial Officer BC Liquor Distribution Branch 2625 Rupert St, Vancouver V5M 3T5


Sponsorship Committee Director

Jeff Shickele Vice President Accounting Amacon Group 300 – 911 Homer St, Vancouver, BC V6B 2W6


Events Committee Chair

Marco Faccone Vice President, Finance ACM Advisors Ltd. 210 - 1140 Homer Street, Vancouver, BC V6B 2X6


Events Committee Director

Doug King Chief Financial Officer Fenix Energy #1290 - 1500 West Georgia, Vancouver, BC V6G 2Z6

T: 604-684-7241 ext 321 F: 604-684-7264

E: [email protected]


Doug Morison 2958 Mahon Avenue, N Vancouver, BC V7N 3T1



Cheryl Yaremko Chief Accounting Officer, British Columbia Hydro & Power Authority 333 Dunsmuir Street, 11th Floor, Vancouver V6B 5R3



Donna Denham Support Services Unlimited 102 – 211 Columbia Street, Vancouver, BC V6A 2R5


Chapter Administrator



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