From the editor.

This issue marks the final installment of our FEI@75 series, in which we've celebrated FEI's 75th anniversary by looking at a host of issues that finance professionals have had to confront and strive to master during the past three generations--as well as trying to give a feel for the evolution of FEI itself.

This last article, logically enough, tries to look ahead. It's impossible to guess what the CFOs of 2081 will be doing (though performing the quarterly close by telepathy seems unlikely), but we have turned to a wide array of executives, consultants, academics and others to get their thoughts on how key areas in finance may be changing.

A major theme, not surprisingly, involves the march of technology and its ability to present data faster, in greater detail and more opportunistically. As Taylor Hawes Sr., Controller/Finance Operations for Microsoft Corp. and chair of FEI's Committee on Financial Information Technology, puts it, "Financial information will be readily available and easily accessed, and the ability to integrate a wide range of supplemental data with financial information will drive business analysis and detail understanding of business opportunities and challenges."

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Most observations about expected changes in the CFO role essentially reflect current trends: more of a business partner than a numbers-cruncher, expanded focus on growth and competitiveness and aligning finance to shifting business models. One CFO maintained that finance chiefs' salaries will rise at public companies, coming closer to CEO levels, because of the myriad responsibilities CFOs will have.

A couple of respondents talked about the future importance of intangible assets. This area will grow in importance, and "CFOs will have to develop the capabilities to manage intangible assets efficiently and report them accurately," noted Raj Aggarwal, a finance professor and Financial Executives Research Foundation (FERF) trustee.

Just one more challenge to look forward to, in other words.

Ethics is one of those bedrock business issues in which FEI has been a recognized leader. FEI's code of ethics, which prospective members must sign, is a beacon for good ethical conduct. Unfortunately, the news offers regular examples of finance executives whose ethical compass failed them.

The Wall Street Journal carried news about two of them on one page late in October. The first, David Kreinberg, the former CFO of Comverse Technology Inc., pleaded guilty to securities-fraud charges related to stock option backdating (for an update on backdating issues, see InBrief, page 10). Kreinberg admitted that he helped the company's fugitive CEO, Kobi Alexander, select particularly favorable dates on which to grant stock options after the fact. The result was inflated net income on financial statements that Kreinberg signed and submitted in regulatory filings.

A second CFO, Robert Trosten of the failed commodity brokerage Refco Inc., was indicted on charges that he helped hide hundreds of millions of dollars in debt from investors and auditors. His indictment follows that of the CEO, Phillip Bennett. And while an indictment is not a clear indication of guilt, it's certainly not an endorsement of good conduct, either.

Neither man is an FEI member, though both are young--Kreinberg is 41 and Trosten 37--and at an age at which executives often join FEI. It's interesting to wonder if the import of FEI's code of ethics might have had any impact on the course either chose to take.