Part 1: Drawing on findings from Cherry Bekaert’s Middle Market CFO Survey, this session explores how middle market finance leaders are driving modernization by connecting data, improving forecasts, upskilling teams and incorporating AI and automation into finance operations. Attendees will learn about the top challenges and opportunities facing finance today and gain practical strategies to accelerate decision-making, improve efficiency and strengthen business results. 

Learning Objectives:

• Identify key trends shaping finance modernization for middle market organizations. 

• Describe strategies for improving forecasting, reporting speed and decision-making. 

• Recognize practical applications of AI and automation within finance operations. 

• Apply approaches to align people, processes, data and technology to support finance transformation. 

Part 2: Finance in Motion: Navigating Tax Change

This session will cover current legislative and regulatory developments and what they mean for middle-market businesses and their owners.

This session brings together industry experts to address the critical intersections of employee health, benefits administration, payment integrity, and fiduciary responsibility. Attendees will gain practical insights into identifying and mitigating payment errors, ensuring compliance with fiduciary obligations, and optimizing benefit programs to support employee wellness while controlling costs. Whether you're managing a self-funded plan, navigating vendor relationships, or strengthening internal controls, this session will equip you with actionable strategies to reduce risk exposure, enhance transparency, and demonstrate stewardship of plan assets. Leave with a clearer understanding of your fiduciary duties, best practices for claims validation, and tools to align employee benefits with organizational goals. 

Learning Objectives:

• Understand fiduciary responsibilities — Identify key fiduciary duties under ERISA and recognize how they apply across plan design, administration, and vendor management. 

• Assess payment integrity risks — Recognize common sources of overpayments, underpayments, and claims errors, and implement controls to detect and prevent them. 

• Evaluate vendor performance — Establish criteria for monitoring third-party administrators, insurers, and service providers to ensure compliance and accuracy. 

• Align employee benefits with organizational goals — Balance competitive benefit offerings, cost management, and fiduciary protection to support both employee wellness and plan sustainability. 

• Develop an action plan — Apply session learnings to conduct an internal audit of current practices and identify priority areas for improvement. 

• Navigate compliance challenges — Understand regulatory expectations and best practices for documenting fiduciary decisions and maintaining plan governance. 

Unethical behavior can derail careers, damage reputations, and result in fines, penalties, or loss of licensure. This interactive ethics session examines common ethical challenges faced by accounting and finance professionals and provides a practical framework for navigating difficult decisions with integrity and professional judgment.

Learning Objectives:

• List the foundation of ethical behavior
• Detail moral and ethical dilemmas faced in day-to-day situations
• Explain important principles underlying ethical decision-making

This session will provide a lively discussion among a panel of well established, highly successful Chief Financial Officers/Chief Executive Officers who will share their thoughts, techniques, behaviors, training etc. that have enabled them to advance in their careers and serve as effective leaders for their organizations.  

Learning Objectives:

• Participants should obtain greater understanding of proven techniques, behaviors, and skill sets that will help them be more effective in their accounting/finance roles and as organizational leaders.  
• Provide participants with guidance to facilitate their career development. 

Finance teams face a tension: delivering more insight under constrained resources, compliance demands, and expectations for transparency. AI can help—but the question is less what it can do than whether finance leaders can trust how it operates and how decisions are governed. Stuart Langer offers a finance-first framework for AI across close, reporting, variance analysis, spend tracking, and compliance monitoring. The session examines what separates effective implementations—AI embedded in systems of record, explainable outputs, human-in-the-loop control, and auditable governance—and how external generative AI tools fit alongside accounting systems. Attendees leave with an approach that strengthens financial integrity and stakeholder trust.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify finance workflows where AI can improve efficiency, visibility, and control 

• Explain the importance of confidence, control, and accountability in finance AI adoption 

• Assess how trusted AI can support transparency, internal controls, and better decision-making 

• Apply a practical framework for evaluating organizational readiness and next steps for AI in finance 

• Differentiate among core AI technologies—machine learning, large language models, and agents—and explain where each applies in finance workflows 

Part 1: In the first hour Wells Fargo Sr. Economist will provide commentary on the International and US economy.   

Learning Objectives

• Understand current economic landscape 

• Discuss potential future headwinds and tailwinds for the economy.   

• Discuss forecasts economy and rate environment 

Part 2: As technology and automations continue to advance, the way we do our work as finance leaders is changing. This session explores emerging forms of digital money and their potential impact on payments and financial operations.

Learning Objectives

• Understand current landscape of digital assets 

• Discuss the underlying technology 

• Discuss the market including government actions and use cases