There are many schools of thought on how best to manage the transition to IFRS. Finance directors can hire external help or manage the change in-house with available resources. Aveva Group FD Paul Taylor says the engineering software organisation chose a hybrid option.

Credit crunch fatigue or no credit crunch fatigue, there’s no denying that the chief financial officer's role is currently very focused on how to add value to the business on a much broader agenda.

Do you have charm, brains and common sense?

The ideal finance director makes it easy for investors, builds relationships and isn’t too possessive, according to Paul Lee from Hermes Private Equity.

The wonders of virtualisation have stirred up IT departments for the past couple of years, and the technical benefits of the technology have been well-heralded: it simplifies server management, reduces hardware overhead and increases agility. Now, virtualisation is reaching the attention of finance directors.

Doing deals and growing businesses is what makes AES Engineering finance director Neil MacDonald tick.

G4S chief financial officer Trevor Dighton says tougher competition regulation is becoming an issue because it’s getting harder and harder to gain approval for deals.

BT finance director Hanif Lalani is the 2008 Real FD/CBI FD of the Year (FTSE 100) but the competition amongst the shortlisted blue chip FDs was extremely fierce this year.

Last month, I touched on the subject of the changing role of the modern finance director. This month, I'd like to take a look at this issue for FDs in the public sector – and discuss how a new attitude to financing can help them facilitate the shift to a more forward-thinking approach within their organisation.

A crowd of 400 people were at the London Marriot Grosvenor Square last night to witness the crowning of the winners of this year's Real FD/CBI FDs' Excellence Awards.