According to a recent study by Queen’s University – it’s their role as Strategist, including the competencies of strategic thinking, decision‐making and critical thinking. Mastering these key competencies will also help propel the CFO to CEO.

The Queen’s study noted – ‘The Strategist focuses on defining the future of the company to enhance business performance and shareholder value. The Strategist provides a financial perspective on innovation and profitable growth, and leverages this perspective to improve risk‐awareness, strategic decision‐making and performance management integration. The Strategist translates the expectations of the capital markets into internal business imperatives. This role is oriented toward long‐term strategic issues, and is outwardly directed.’

Those who are successful - through generating bottom line results, improved market share, reinventing the corporate culture, and/or strengthening brand – move to the top echelons of their organizations.

Reacting to everyday demands and crises often leaves little time to continuously evaluate your organization’s strategy. This cutting-edge residential program provides you with a rare opportunity to step away from the pressures of work to join a group of peers and focus on what you and your organization need to do to excel in today’s competitive business environment.

How You Will Benefit

This program will help you:

Understand the strategic process that will work best for your organization
Learn techniques for aligning your strategic intent with ‘getting it done’
Define and implement ways to create a corporate culture that enables timely responses to rapid change in the external environment
Why most strategic planning fails
Focus on increasing shareholder value
Learn techniques for identifying your organizations strengths and opportunities
Identify areas to potentially enhance your firms growth
Learn best practices and useful tools
Network with peers and share insights, challenges and best practices

Who Should Attend

Are you your organization’s Chief Strategy Officer? Are you a leader in your strategic planning process? Do your peers turn to you for your counsel and direction? Do you want to take your organization in a different direction? Are you looking to begin a ‘real’ strategic planning process within your current culture? Are you looking for feedback on your current strategies from a group of peers? Do you aspire to become CEO? If so, then this program was created with you in mind.

Dates, Facilities and Registration Information

Dates:
December 9 - 12, 2012
The program begins on Sunday, December 9 at 6:00PM and ends Wednesday, December 12 at 4:00PM.

Location:
White Oaks Conference Resort and Spa, Niagara-on-the-Lake

Program Fees:
The program cost includes the cost of the program, course materials, all meals and individual room accommodations at the White Oaks Conference Resort & Spa (a limited number of spots without accommodations are available).

White Oaks is a premium, four diamond, five-star resort and has achieved a reputation for outstanding comfort, service and atmosphere to ensure a memorable learning and retreat experience for all executives who attend.

	All-inclusive (meals and accommodations) - Recommended	Day package (all meals included, accommodations not included)**
ICAO Members and CAs	$3,250	$2,750
Non-Members	$3,750	$3,250

**A limited number of program spots are available to those who do not wish to have accommodations. As there may be evening activities (including class work and networking opportunities), to maximize your program experience, this option is recommended only for those who reside in the near vicinity. This option is subject to availability.

Registration:
To register, please complete and return this form.

For more information about this offering, contact Lawrence Wong, CA, at the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Ontario at: 1-800-387-0735 ext. 343 or at lwong@icao.on.ca.

What Others Say

This program was created by Larry Ginsberg FCA. Larry is a successful entrepreneur, corporate director, author and teacher. He has been the Managing Facilitator for the ICAO’s CFO and Beyond program, former Chair of the CICA’s CFO Task Force Committee and is an instructor and facilitator with the Institute’s continuing professional development programs. Previous attendees of Master Strategist have stated:

"Larry is a wonderful facilitator - great material - knowledgeable, helpful, addresses specific attendees issues - is fantastic."
"Good to get fresh ideas, sit back and reflect on what others are doing."
"The networking is incredible at these sessions and I will use this tool belt of strategies for a very long time."
"We are struggling with strategic planning and this has provided me with some take-away tools/framework for making some strategic planning decisions."
"The program gave me confidence that you don't have to be a visionary to add value to strategy."
"I think it will allow me to set up a framework that has not existed in the past. Planning will make us more effective as a company."
"Definitely can make a difference."

Alumni

Our alumni include participants from: GE Canada, TVO, Starbucks Coffee Canada, ATB Investor Services, Durham Regional Police Services, Waterfront Toronto, International Association of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Grant Thornton LLP, Research in Motion Ltd., Hamilton Tigers Football Club, Algorithmics Incorporated, Synnex Canada Limited, and Magna International.

The Curriculum

Over the course of three plus days, you will develop advanced competency levels from practical application and best practices. The course is designed to start with understanding ‘What is strategy?’ and move your competency level through a journey to achieve a level of mastery of the process. Learning comes from sharing with your peers, detailed real life case examples, tools and the ability to relate all of this to your specific situation.

Why most strategic planning fails

Strategy the most overused business term
Understanding the difference between a strategy and resource allocation process
Adjusting strategies for different environments
Different models for different situations

Stakeholders – A potential constraint

Who are my stakeholders?
Why do I care about my stakeholders?
Relationship mapping – A tool that bring all stakeholders into focus
Responsible for stakeholder relations – a critical selection?

Review of the different strategy models

Industrial organization model
Resource-based model
Other models

Effective process for strategic planning

Who should be involved?
What are the process timelines?
How to gain buy-in through all levels
CFO’s role in the process – the Chief Strategist

Risk Management – a Strategic Constraint

What is risk?
Understand the different types of risk
Who should be involved in the analysis of risk?
Who should be responsible?
Linking risk management with strategy

Politics – an important consideration

Understand the politics of your organization
Creating an effective strategy that will survive the political process

Best Practices to keep your strategy current

What is strategic agility?
Tools to let you know when your strategy needs to change
Techniques to learn from all levels of the organization
What feedback mechanisms are critical to success?

Fostering continuous innovation – a key to growth

How to encourage continuous innovation as a strategy
How to implement a program within your firm

Getting everyone behind the strategy

Where the rubber meets the road
Best practices for successfully implementing any strategy

A Master Strategist – A continuous journey

How to continue the process of learning and growing
How to manage your day-to-day role
Assuming the role of Chief Strategist

Faculty

Larry Ginsberg is the President of GinsOrg International Inc., a management consulting firm. GinsOrg’s mission is “Helping People Achieve Their Dreams”®. Larry works with Directors and senior officers of various Canadian companies to provide strategic advice and counsel. He also lectures at the Schulich School of Business at York University in strategic management, family business and entrepreneurship. He is author of four books on entrepreneurship and appears in the media to provide insight into various business issues. Larry is a Corporate Director and has been EVP and/or CFO of a number of companies. In addition, Larry is an Exempt Market Dealer and has provided assistance in a number of mergers, acquisitions, financings, and sale of businesses.

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For more information or to register for this offering, contact Lawrence Wong, CA, at the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Ontario at: 1-800-387-0735 ext. 343 or at lwong@icao.on.ca.