Link To Guest Website: https://www.feiboston.org/

Title: “FEI Boston Events Are Back In Person!”
Guest: Beth Kurth – FEI Boston
Interviewers: Jeffrey Davis – MAGE LLC & Evan Macedo – Sapers & Wallack / FEI Boston

Click here to read the transcript

Jeffrey (0s):
Well, hello everybody. And welcome back to Radio Entrepreneurs. And just to remind you every day, we are streaming live stories of entrepreneurship and leadership in this very fast changing economy. Over seven years, over a million connections to stories and over 7,000 interviews. I’m so excited to introduce first, my guests host Evan Macedo vice-president of finance operations at Cyprus and Wallach. Who’s going to be my coast, which means this must be an FEI segment. Welcome Evan.

Evan (32s):
Thank you, Jeffrey. And this is definitely an FEI segment. Very happy to be here and to have another wonderful guest.

Jeffrey (40s):
Well, you know, you know, I always use the Thank you got that. Start at the top. My mother used to tell me, tell me so aware if you’re going to start at the top. How about Beth Kurth, president of FEI Boston. Welcome back then.

Beth (53s):
Thank you so much. And what a great introduction. I appreciate it.

Jeffrey (58s):
Well, Beth, you know, we want to know about FEI, but also clearly you’re an entrepreneur too. We want to know bull stories that sort of led you to the path of FEI. So, you know, I’ll, I can let you run free if you want. Or, and I know everyone’s going to jump in at certain points with questions as well.

Beth (1m 14s):
So I’ll start Jeffrey by answering your question about entrepreneurship and FEI. As mentioned, I am a partner in a boutique investor relations firm here in Boston, Conway communications, working with publicly traded companies, helping to increase credibility visibility with the investment community. But in your intro, you talked about making connections. You are, you’ve made millions of connections, and that’s what FEI is about financial executives international. I joined FEI willing, able, interested in learning from peers as well as giving back. And that’s what FEI allows. Senior executives, senior financial executives to do, to learn, to do better in our jobs.

Beth (1m 58s):
We all want to do better in our roles and help our companies succeed and to help the profession grow. So that is F I financial executives international,

Jeffrey (2m 10s):
And you’re back to live events as well or some hybrid form of it. Can we talk a little bit about that as well?

Beth (2m 17s):
Absolutely. When we kicked off this program, year in July, we thought really hard as a time to go back, to move to hybrid. What is the right strategy? And ultimately, as a board, we decided that the only way to get started is to get started. Let’s hold some live events and you can see, I am here at Oakley country club where we will be having our December event because live events allow you to connect and to learn and to engage easier than en-suite

Evan (2m 49s):
And not know that we’ve been working really hard to play in some great events coming up. Cause I know as a fellow FEI member, I get a lot out of these events and it’s so wonderful to see people in person again, can you tell our audience a little bit about some of the events and the exciting, the exciting events that we have coming up that people should be looking forward to?

Beth (3m 14s):
Absolutely. And I’m actually going to start with a look back. So we kicked off in September at the Omni Parker house hotel with inside the CFO suites with a panel of CFOs, talking about how they do their job, best everything from technology to talent management across the board. And then we were at Gillette with Jessica Gelman, CEO of craft analytics group, talking about sports analytics and data. That was super fun. We will be here at Oakley for crisis communications with CFOs, from our pelvis pharma and I robot. That’ll be the chief legal counsel, I robot and isotope and audio software company.

Beth (3m 57s):
Looking ahead to January, we’ll be at the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum for a night at the museum. Anthony Amori is a security director. He’s going to help find those missing paintings. And in February we’re planning a cybersecurity panel.

Jeffrey (4m 12s):
It’s a treasure hunt for paintings. I can’t wait.

Beth (4m 15s):
I am really expecting him to let us know where those paintings are. That’s a joke. No, I’m sure he knows. We won’t be sadly the first people to,

Jeffrey (4m 25s):
You know, also, you know, because we’re doing in-person events again. I assume you’ve thoroughly thought out this whole concept of safety. How are you addressing safety at FPL?

Beth (4m 35s):
Yeah. Thank you, Jeffrey. And that’s really important. So we are having people attest that they have been fully vaccinated. So to attend our meetings, you must attest to being fully vaccinated, but I will also tell you that no one has to attend. I understand we all understand that there are people who for whatever reason are not yet comfortable coming to an in-person event. So we will be here when you are ready. We are planning a full calendar. And if it’s January or February or March, whenever you’re ready, we’ll be here for you. And the last piece I will add is there are people who would still prefer to wear a mask in public.

Beth (5m 17s):
And that is perfectly fine. We encourage you to come, encourage you to interact with however is comfortable for you.

Evan (5m 26s):
Well, I know that’s very important cause I know some people feel safe coming out and I know there’s a third Dorcester shot that people are getting, but other people certainly they do not feel comfortable and that’s okay too. But we want to have an atmosphere that everybody does come in. They feel safe and they can kind of meet all the people in, make the wonderful connections that the FEI provides to all of their wonderful members. Now, speaking of what FEI provides to all their wonderful members, instead of asking you, what does FEI give to its base? I wanted to throw out a fun question and ask you if you could describe the top five words that you would use of why people should join FEI, what would that look like?

Beth (6m 9s):
That is a really good question. I’m gonna have to start counting on my fingers. So we’ll talk about friendly, curious, smart, engaged, and successful. How was that?

Jeffrey (6m 25s):
That’s great. It reminds me of when I was a child reading, curious, George learning, good values of inquisitiveness, but you know, I got a call last week just at the end of the week from a bank and asking me about FEI. And I said to them, how can I can’t see how a bank wouldn’t be a member of FEI if it supported CFOs. And since banks deal with CFOs all the time, I said, I think the absence of the bank is more telling than the presence. And I think, and then he was like, I think you’re right.

Beth (7m 2s):
I do Jeffrey. We appreciate that. Vote of confidence is really important to us.

Jeffrey (7m 8s):
Well, I think it is important and you know, FEI has built and we haven’t talked about that. We talk about unique positioning, but FEI Boston has a unique position even within FEI nationally. Can you talk a little bit about that as well? Because really the chapter for me is probably the most successful chapter in the country.

Beth (7m 30s):
I would have to agree that we are one of the largest. We are the largest chapter and we have a very active community. So if you reach out to a fellow FEI Boston member and say, I am an FEI Boston member, they will take your call. They will take your email. It will take your zoom video conference.

Jeffrey (7m 52s):
You know, you missed, I had a two part first question and you were humble enough to focus on FEI, which you are the PR you know, you are the leader, but tell us a little bit about, you know, your business and how it’s changing. Also during this economic time, because I know public relations firms really do have to adapt to this new digital age.

Beth (8m 14s):
That is so true. And we are learning every day. So in the investor relations world, face-to-face meetings have always been very important with the publicly traded companies sitting across the table, the investment community and the sell side analysts so that both parties can understand what what’s going on, right? What are you looking for? What are you doing? What do you expect to do going forward? And that was done face to face. A lot of travel. A lot of time spent in the airports if we’re getting rooms and now we can do that by zoom. So that’s very efficient. Now, is it as good as being out there in person?

Beth (8m 56s):
I would argue there is a trade off, but certainly we have all learned the power and the possibilities of these video conference calls.

Jeffrey (9m 7s):
Oh, that’s interesting. And as again, we’ve been speaking with Beth Kurth, president of FEI, Boston, and also Evan Macedo, vice president of finance operations at Cypress and Wallach. I’m hosting the Radio Entrepreneurs and also chairman of the board, founder of MAGE, LLC, a management consulting firm here in the area. Beth, if someone were looking for you FEI and all going to, this is a double address and also your PR firm, how would they find you to sort of track down more information?

Beth (9m 35s):
Sure thing. So get out your pen, get out your phone. You can plug this in. Conway comes I r.com for Conway communications, investor relations and for FEI Boston, F E I boston.org.

Jeffrey (9m 52s):
Great. And I know this is going to be a lot of events through the year. So people need to track that. And if you really want to be connected with the financial network of Boston, which I think every company should from small businesses, family owned businesses to companies going public. It is a good network for information and Evan. If I know I’m always speaking with you every week, if someone was looking for you for FEI information or a Cypress and Wallach, how would we find you?

Evan (10m 18s):
The easiest thing to do would just be to go onto our website, which is www.sapershyphenwallet.com. You can go to our team page there, you’ll see myself and the rest of our wonderful team members and all of our contact information. Is there one other point I do want to make too, speaking of the FEI Boston dot org site, if you click on the events page there, you’ll see all the events coming up and you’ll get a chance to see who’s attending as well as be able to register for these events. So if you’re thinking of joining FEI or you’re an FEI member, and you’re looking to get back in person, I would really encourage you to go check out that site.

Jeffrey (10m 56s):
Right? And if you do want to find Evan also personally, you can find him with his furry best friend on Facebook. Beth, I want to thank you for being on the show again today. We know you’re going to be here a few times through the year to talk about events and things are happening. Thank you, Evan. I want to remind everybody, this is Radio Entrepreneurs.

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