Institute of Management Accountants Event Draws Over 100 to UMass Club
Image by courtesy
11/06/2018
By Ed Brennen
For Manning School of Business Dean Sandra Richtermeyer, “it was like having my two families come together.”
The Manning School and the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA) recently co-hosted the Women’s Accounting Leadership Series (WALS), a semiannual event that provides a forum for professionals in accounting and finance to exchange ideas on leadership development and strategies for success.
The half-day event drew more than 100 participants from 17 states to the UMass Club in Boston. About a half-dozen students and faculty from the Manning School also attended.
Richtermeyer, the former global chair of the IMA, co-founded the WALS initiative almost five years ago with Leslie Seidman, former chair of the Financial Accounting Standards Board.
“The event was inspired to help women at the controller level advance to the C-Suite,” Richtermeyer says. “There are lots of women in the accounting and finance profession, but they’re not at the senior-level roles.”
Accounting alum Tammy Concannon ’89, who is chief financial officer at Corporate Technologies Inc. in Burlington, led a session with Seidman called “Journey to the C-Suite.”
“We, as women, need to support each other no matter what we do,” Concannon told the audience.
Richtermeyer kicked off the day with a presentation called “Listening to the Numbers,” providing the latest data and insights into the evolution of leadership in the world of accounting and finance.
“It was great to have women from early, mid and late career present,” Richtermeyer says.
While previous WALS events have been held in New York City, Houston, Phoenix and Amsterdam, Richtermeyer says she was “so happy” to have the Manning School serve as host for the first time.