Topic: Today’s Market for CFO’s

Speakers: Keith Pearson, Chairman, CEO & Co-Founder and Renee Arrington, President & COO, NACD.DC, Pearson Partners International Inc.
 

Presentation:  Perspectives and Q&A 

- Market trends and conditions for CFO positions

- Evolving skills profile of the CFO

- AI and its impact on the job search

- Identifying the right fit.

Agenda:
 - 7:30AM: Meet/Greet, Coffee/Breakfast (15min)
- 7:45AM: Speaker (50-60min)
- 8:45AM: Announcements, Wrap-up, and Socialize (15min)
- 9AM : Adjourn

Speakers' s bios:

Keith Pearson:
As founding partner, chief executive officer and chairman of Pearson Partners International, Keith Pearson manages the firm’s strategic direction and operation. He specializes in securing C-Suite leaders for Fortune 1000 and private equity portfolio companies. Keith’s commitment to flexible, responsive client service has set the companywide standard of excellence that is Pearson Partners’ hallmark. His deep knowledge of the financial officers and private equity leaders spaces has made him an invaluable partner to his clients, whose repeat business is a testament to his unique ability to understand business needs, develop creative solutions and quickly source top talent for the executive suite.

Keith and Bob Pearson launched Pearson Partners International in 2002 as an executive search firm initially serving the leveraged buyout community and have since led the company through twenty years of growth and diversification. Today, Pearson Partners is a global, full-service executive search and leadership consulting firm serving businesses across a broad range of industries while offering a full complement of professional development and coaching services.

Before founding Pearson Partners International, Keith was a managing director with Whitehouse & Pimms in the consulting and technology sectors and with TMP Worldwide Executive Search as a principal in the professional services practice. He began his executive search career as a search consultant with Merritt, Hawkins and Associates. Keith serves on the advisory council of the Naveen Jindal School of Management and the Human Resource Management advisory board at UT Dallas. He is a member and previous chairman of the board of trustees of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, North Texas Chapter, where he is a longtime member of its Team in Training. Previously, he served in an advisory capacity on the Association of Executive Search and Leadership Consultants (AESC) Council of the Americas.

Keith earned a bachelor of business administration degree in management from The University of North Texas and a master’s degree in business administration from The University of Texas at Dallas. He is an avid runner and cyclist who enjoys competing in ultrathons and off-road races as well as traveling with his wife Stephanie and their three children.

Renee Arrington

Renee is a strategic thinker who connects the dots and provides executive talent solutions for clients. She excels in recruiting board and executive talent for Fortune 500 companies, private-equity-backed businesses and not-for-profit organizations across many industries. As president and COO of Pearson Partners, she serves on the firm’s board of directors and provides leadership to its technology practice.

Prior to joining Pearson Partners in 2006, Renee was a vice president in the technology practice of a global retained search firm and was previously a shareholder and partner with another global executive search firm.

Renee serves as global chair of IIC Partners, a top-10 global executive search organization in which Pearson Partners is an independent member firm, and has previously served as its vice chair. Additionally, she is board chair of the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) North Texas Chapter. Renee serves on the advisory board of Rethink Results and the board of directors of the Foundation for the Young Women’s Leadership Academy in Fort Worth, which encourages young girls to excel in STEM. She is a member of the Dallas Regional Chamber’s Executive Women’s Roundtable (EWR) and a past member of Fort Worth’s Women Steering Business (WSB). She has previously served on the boards of the Dallas/Fort Worth chapter of the Society for Information Management (SIM), North Texas Public Broadcasting (an NPR Affiliate) and the YWCA of Fort Worth and Tarrant County.

Renee is recognized as a leader in her profession and community. She was named to the 2021 D CEO Dallas 500, recognizing the most powerful business leaders in North Texas. In 2020, she served as a judge for Fort Worth Inc.’s Entrepreneur of Excellence (EoE) Awards. In 2019, Renee was named an HMG Strategy Technology Executive to Watch. In 2018, the Association of Executive Search & Leadership Consultants honored Renee with its prestigious Commitment to the Community Award, recognizing her excellence in executive search and leadership consulting and her deep commitment to community service. Renee was selected as a 2018 C-Suite Award Winner by Fort Worth Business Press for her business leadership and civic and social contributions to the community of Fort Worth. In 2016, she was a finalist in D CEO’s 2016 CIO/CTO Awards in the Technology Advocate category. Renee was named one of the Top 40 Gatekeepers to the C-Suite in 2014 by Hunt Scanlon, a leading search industry analyst.

Renee is a frequent speaker at conferences, including HMG Strategy’s nationwide CIO and CISO Summits, and she moderates panel discussions for events including the Pearson Partners Spotlight SeriesTM Breakfasts. She was quoted in the book Future State 2025: How Top Technology Executives Disrupt and Drive Success in the Digital Economy (Wiley 2020), wrote a monthly column for CIO Decisions magazine and has been quoted in The Wall Street Journal, CareerJournal.com, IT World, Network World and the book Business Process Outsourcing: The Competitive Advantage (Wiley 2005).

Renee earned a bachelor of arts degree from Trinity University and studied at Parsons School of Design in Paris. She speaks French and lives with her husband, Michael, in her hometown of Fort Worth.

About Pearson Partners:

At Pearson Partners International Inc., we find the leaders our clients need to meet their business goals. We are retained by companies at the Board, C-Suite and Executive team levels and serve public, private, and non-profit organizations of all sizes across many industries. Our active engagement in the top 10 global search organization IIC Partners is a force multiplier, providing 450 consultants through 40 offices worldwide to serve our clients wherever they have leadership needs. Over our 23 years, Pearson Partners has garnered many accolades including as a Forbes Best Executive Search Firm. And our team has received local and national recognition for executive search and coaching excellence.