119th Annual Conference Sessions
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Sessions for Sunday, June 29
The Leader in You: Creating a Culture of Care and Engagement Through Responsibility, Accountability, and Authority
The ability to lead has never really been a function of your title. Rather, it’s about personal responsibility, accountability, and ethical influence. The best leaders recognize they need an appropriate mix of professional and personal attributes to engage their team.
Bigger and Better: GFOA's New Approach to Membership
GFOA provides education, networking, mentorship, certification, career development, and many resources for members. However, we also realize that in many organizations, formal membership in GFOA is only provided to the most senior level positions in the finance department. GFOA focuses on building financial management skills across entire organizations and is redefining its approach to membership.
Getting Everyone on the Bus for Budget Reform
As a budget professional, you and your team are anxious to embark on a journey to improve your budget process and implement best practice. However, your chief executive and/or elected officials are not on board. Knowing their support will be critical as you challenge the status quo and rethink past practice, what do you do?
Who Does What: Public Investment Professionals
Governments engage with many different external service providers who all play a role in managing their investment program. These providers include investment advisers, broker-dealers, as well as custodians or safekeeping agents. This session will review GFOA’s best practices and resources on selecting and managing these external investment professionals.
Never a Dull Moment: Reflections and Predictions on the Muni-Market
"It’s an interesting time to be alive in the muni-market" should be a 2025 tagline. With policy and market changes and nearly every corner of muni-land having something to say, it's important for issuers of municipal securities to be aware of these conversations and understand how these big-picture issues may affect their own debt programs.
Are We There Yet? The Financial Data Transparency Act
The Financial Data Transparency Act (FDTA), which was signed in 2022, changes the way governments must report their disclosures (in a structured data format) to the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB) Electronic Municipal Market Access (EMMA) system. Federal agencies are currently working through the rulemaking process to implement the act.
Accounting in the Real World
Have you ever tried explaining governmental financial statements to those who've never heard of GASB? The curse of knowledge can make it difficult for us to understand the perspective of those who don't know as much as we do about a given topic. Our challenge is to overcome it so we can explain our work and its importance to individuals outside our field.
Tackling the Travails of Public Transit
Public transit plays a vital role in communities of all sizes. In small towns, medium-sized suburbs, and big cities, residents rely on buses, trains, and paratransit to get to work, school, healthcare appointments, and more. But providing this important service is not easy. Today, public transit agencies are grappling with how to continue providing the level of service their customers rely on without increasing fares to the point they are unaffordable.
Mentoring Made Easy
Many governments have identified a need to retain top talent and develop the next generation of leaders. Mentoring is a proven strategy that helps with both, while also improving employee engagement and fostering a better internal team culture. However, few organizations have built and sustained effective mentorship programs.
Welcome to the Club: Small Issuer Compliance
Governments that infrequently issue debt and/or issue small amounts have unique challenges in the market and in handling their debt management program, yet they face the same reporting requirements as larger, more frequent issuers. This session will review GFOA’s best practices that focus on key elements for small governments, as well as market factors and practices that have traditionally been beneficial to this population of issuers.
Brace for Impact: Proposed Changes to Infrastructure and GAAP
This year, the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) issued preliminary views on major issues related to infrastructure assets that proposed sweeping changes to infrastructure reporting on financial statements, including elements of methods of valuation and additional note disclosures. In response, GFOA offered perspectives from members in accounting, capital planning, and debt management.
From Errors to Excellence: Correcting Common ACFR Deficiencies
GFOA members strive to meet a high standard for comprehensive and timely financial reporting, and overall, they do exceptionally well. GFOA's awards programs recognize almost 5,000 different governments for their achievements. However, no one is perfect and GFOA tracks common deficiencies that are noted in the annual comprehensive financial reports submitted to the Certificate of Achievement (COA) program.
Dude, Where's My Money? Safeguarding Public Funds
Money is constantly flowing in and out of your government. Sometimes that money is held by an intermediary for a matter of hours or minutes or for longer periods of time. Governments need to know not only where their money is being held—in bank accounts, with custodians, with merchant providers, etc.—but also understand if that money is safe.
Sessions for Monday, June 30
The Price is Right? How to Set Compensation Levels in Government
As more and more governments struggle to retain and recruit employees, many are realizing that they need to increase pay for their employees, but are unsure about exactly how to go about doing so. How much should your organization increase compensation levels? Is it appropriate to pay bonuses or establish market rates to compete for qualified staff? And how do you determine what the appropriate market rate is?
Get With the Program: Moving Away from Line-Item Budgets
The traditional local government budget is expressed in both departments and line items such as "salaries and wages," "materials and supplies," and "professional services." While these descriptions are often useful for monitoring spending and preparing financial reports, they often make it difficult for governments to have meaningful conversations about how best to spend its limited resources or to adjust levels of service to meet demand. One way to address these challenges is to adopt a program-based approach to budgeting.
Capital Planning 101: Beginning Your Capital Improvement Planning Journey
For many governments, the budget process provides an opportunity to discuss priorities, goals, revenues, expenses, and services over the next year. However, it does not help prepare for large capital investments that may span fiscal years or where advanced planning multiple years in the future is required. For that governments also need an effective capital improvement plan (CIP).
Accounting and Auditing Year in Review
GFOA's Accounting and Auditing Year in Review provides conference attendees with an overview of changing standards and previews upcoming projects. During this perennial favorite, speakers will provide a comprehensive overview of the key developments in accounting, auditing, and financial reporting that affect state and local governments.
Overcoming ERPphobia: How to Confront Your Next Project
For many finance professionals, embarking on an enterprise resource planning (ERP) project is not something they look forward to undertaking. Long hours, cost overruns, difficult vendors, and resistance to change are not pleasant experiences. However, with careful planning and a focus on organizational readiness, governments can take much of the pain out of ERP.
Prove It: Evidence-Based Policymaking
Governments are under constant pressure to deliver efficient and effective programs and services with the limited resources they have available. Ideally, when legislators and executives propose new projects, decision-makers are using data, not their gut instincts, to determine what activities to support. There are different ways to obtain data to support new initiatives, including contacting other governments, running a pilot project, partnering with academic researchers, or accessing information from suppliers.
Investing in the Future of Public Education: Considerations for Finance Officers
The state of public education is constantly evolving and finance professionals must navigate increasing complexities in funding, facilities and infrastructure, technology, logistics, curriculum, and special programs. Over the past decade, schools have faced difficult challenges related to changing enrollment, retaining and compensating teachers, academic performance standards, introduction of new technology, and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Navigating FEMA Before and After a Disaster
At some point, all communities will eventually face natural disasters that challenge even the most prepared teams and best made plans. For decades, local governments have partnered with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to provide resources when communities are at their most vulnerable point. However, accessing the full extent of these programs can be difficult, complex, and confusing.
Achieving Financial Transparency
Almost all governments post financial reports to their website to inform the public and promote transparency goals. However, do these reports actually provide information that is timely, accessible, and informative for the community? With modern technology, leading governments can create dashboards that offer genuine financial transparency.
Bigger and Better: GFOA's New Approach to Membership
GFOA provides education, networking, mentorship, certification, career development, and many resources for members. However, we also realize that in many organizations, formal membership in GFOA is only provided to the most senior level positions in the finance department. GFOA focuses on building financial management skills across entire organizations and is redefining its approach to membership.
Rise Together: Leadership Through Collaboration with GFOA’s WPFN
In alignment with GFOA's Women's Public Finance Network's (WPFN) 2025–2026 theme, "Rise Together," this session focuses on how women in public finance can leverage their leadership skills to foster collaboration and mentorship within their organizations and communities.
Protecting Payments: Achieving PCI and Nacha Compliance
As more payments are made and received via credit card and Automated Clearing House (ACH), protecting sensitive data is more important than ever. This session will provide an overview of Payment Card Industry (PCI) and the National Automated Clearing House Association (Nacha) compliance standards, along with strategies and best practices for achieving and adhering to these requirements.
Good, Bad, and Ugly: The Debate with Using Cooperative Procurement Agreements
Large cooperative procurement agreements can provide many benefits including better pricing, shorter purchasing timelines, access to pre-negotiated contracts, and improved supplier relationships. However, using a cooperative agreement also can limit new ideas, reduce opportunities for suppliers, require governments to accept less than ideal terms, and create the potential for conflict with procurement policies or grant requirements.
Enhancing Issuer Disclosure Practices
Governments must be mindful of securities laws and disclosure responsibilities that come with issuing debt and managing their debt portfolios, including preparing the official statement, monitoring continuing disclosure obligations, providing voluntary disclosures to the market, and implementing a strong investor relations program. Additionally, governments need to be aware of possible changes to disclosure reporting requirements that the federal government may implement in the near future.
Come Together: Building a More Collaborative Budget Process
Collaboration and trust are essential for governments to build and sustain thriving communities. Partnering with the public is important for understanding community needs, identifying solutions, and balancing competing priorities. Similarly, working together across departments can maximize the use of limited resources. Trust is crucial to ensure that all stakeholders participate in the budget process and unite to support shared goals.
Essentials of a Procurement Policy
Procurement policies provide standards for purchasing goods and services while also navigate complex frameworks of legal, budgetary, management, and ethical requirements. Policies set clear expectations for roles, approvals, transparency, competition, decision-making, and code of conduct and must be evaluated regularly to ensure consistency with both the current business and legal environment. Unfortunately for many organizations, policies are either outdated, vague, or inaccessible to key stakeholders.
Why I'm a Finance Officer
There is no single path to becoming a finance officer. GFOA's 25,000+ members have just as many different motivations, stories, and journeys that have led them to this stage in their careers. However, they all now share the responsibility for maintaining trust, supporting their community, and working to build sustainable organizations despite increasing pressure from political polarization, workforce challenges, and overall distrust of government.
DC Spotlight: Past, Present, and Future of the District of Columbia
Beyond being a major metropolitan area with nearly 700,000 residents, diverse neighborhoods, a cultural and artistic hub, major sports teams, and the United States capital, it also has a unique governance structure. Washington, DC, acts similarly to a city, county, and state, and has an elected mayor and city council, an independent CFO, and is subject to congressional oversight.
To Be or Not to Be: Issues in Defining Materiality
The application of the materiality concept is important to understand in the preparation of financial statements. This session will discuss the framework of materiality thresholds that audit professionals must use and how various fund types are impacted by materiality.
Exploring the Impact of Tax Code Changes on the Municipal Bond Market
This year's Congress ushered in significant shifts in economic policies, fiscal priorities, tax implications, and market dynamics. This timely panel will highlight the political climate in Washington, DC, and the impact of the election on the municipal bond space.
Ready or Not: Managing Artificial Intelligence in the Finance Office
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is just about everywhere and becoming even more prevalent. While early adopters were able to use AI to conduct research, generate images, summarize data, write memos, provide feedback, and refine ideas, it is capable of transforming how local governments manage finances and is integrated with core processes.
Cyber Risk Savvy: GFOA's 2025 Cybersecurity Update
Protecting an organization is not only an IT function. Finance professionals are critical stakeholders in any government's approach to prevent, respond to, and clean up cyberattacks. In this session, speakers will provide an update on the cybersecurity landscape specifically focused on the role of finance professionals.
Kickstarting Results: Applying Procurement Principles to Grantmaking
Thriving communities are not the focus of governments alone. Nonprofits, faith-based organizations, small businesses, and other community-based institutions often share similar goals. Providing grants to these organizations and businesses can be an effective way for governments to meet their objectives, but only if they take a strategic approach. To ensure they are maximizing their investment, governments must define their priorities and intended results, establish transparent processes for soliciting and reviewing applications, and monitor the effectiveness of the awarded grants.
Information from the Real World: Understanding Public Priorities
Most best practice recommendations on budgeting suggest that governments should allocate resources aligned with your community's priorities. But how do you know what those are? And what if their priorities won't actually contribute to a thriving community?
Cutting-Edge Treasury Technology
Customers today appreciate the many different ways they can make payments. Forgot your wallet on your trip to City Hall to pay your water bill? No problem—pay with your phone! Didn’t have a stamp to drop off your property tax payment in the mail and it's due tomorrow? No worries—pay from the convenience of your home. As payment options continue to evolve, it's important for the treasury office to adapt to meet the needs of its customers.
Inside Information: Investor Insight for Issuers
Investors have had a strong appetite for municipal bonds in recent years. This has helped governments consistently access capital markets at low rates. Understanding how issuers view the market is important for finance professionals and can help influence your government's strategy.
Complications with Capital Assets
Capital assets are often the largest assets reported by a government, yet accounting for them often takes place after fiscal year end. This session will cover the complexities related to accounting for capital assets, including proper journal entries for the sale, transfer, and disposal of a capital asset.
The Future of Water: Finance and the Path to Sustainability
Financial sustainability ranked among the top challenges identified in the American Water Works Association's (AWWA) 2024 State of the Water Industry Report. AWWA has created a Water 2025 Vision to promote a more sustainable and resilient future for the water industry and the critical service it provides to all our communities.
Sessions for Tuesday, July 1
Big Questions for Small Governments: Appropriate Reserve Levels Based on Risk
Governments of all sizes must deal with a growing list of threats to the community, including natural disasters, infrastructure failures, disease outbreaks, and public safety emergencies, but smaller organizations are particularly susceptible to the financial impacts of these risks. Small governments can mitigate these impacts by conducting a risk assessment and developing reserves.
Don't Pay More for Less: Strategies for Improving Healthcare Options
Governments, like many other employers, face constant challenges to both improve healthcare options available to employees and control the cost of services. Do governments have alternatives beyond paying more, grappling with complex policies, and minimizing disruption to employees and their families?
Play Ball: Governments and Public Funding for Professional Sports Facilities
Professional sports teams have potential to generate jobs and tax revenue, provide marketing and branding opportunities for the region, and provide recreational options. Teams also provide a unique opportunity to rally and unite a community in support of the home team. However, even the most loyal of fans can be split on the role of government and public funding for stadiums and arenas. Governments are often under pressure to contribute to the cost of construction, maintenance, and operations while also not being able to benefit from the majority of revenue the facilities generate. Stadium and arena projects can be extremely complex and controversial.
The Missing Piece: Using P-Cards to Improve Your Procurement and Payable Process
Procurement and accounts payable functions can be slow, inefficient, and a source of frustration for both internal departments and external suppliers. For governments looking for ways to better manage small purchases, subscriptions, travel, or other transactions not ideally suited for a purchase order, purchasing cards (P-cards) can be an effective tool to improve service, control, and transparency, while also reducing administrative burdens. They offer an opportunity to save time and money. While they do present some risks, these can be mitigated through clear policies and procedures, making them often safer than commonly used alternatives.
Reflections in the Pool: Looking Back at Recent GASB Changes
A year after implementing GASB 100, governments were tasked with implementing GASB 101. While GASB 100 focused on the display and presentation of accounting changes and error corrections in the financial statements, GASB 101 changed the recognition and measurement of compensated absences liabilities. Join speakers as they reflect on their experiences preparing for and implementing these new standards.
GFOA's 2025 Federal Advocacy Update
Some things change, and some things stay the same—so they say. In 2025 with a new Congress and new administration, GFOA's Federal Liaison Center (FLC) in Washington, DC, is advocating to maximize state and local flexibility and to minimize unfunded mandates. At the same time, the FLC is also pursuing opportunities to advance initiatives on behalf of GFOA's members to Congress, the administration, and the Supreme Court.
Level Up: How to Get Your Budget Stakeholders to Stop Playing Games
Earlier this year, GFOA released a report that delves into the tactics or “games" used by participants in the budget process to secure more resources, such as "The Padding Play," where budget requestors inflate their needs. This session will outline the other games budget officers encounter and provide advice on how to contain and even defeat these tactics.
Young Professionals Network: Leadership Skills to Accelerate Your Career in Public Finance
This session is designed for aspiring and current leaders in government finance who aim to accelerate their careers and enhance their leadership impact. Participants will explore essential qualities that define successful leaders in the public finance sector. Panelists will discuss various leadership styles, strategies for navigating organizational dynamics, and methods they have used to influence positive change within their organizations.
Public-Public Partnerships: Case Studies in Small Government Service Sharing
Small governments are often faced with the same complex challenges as larger ones, but usually with far fewer resources. Budgets are strapped, staff are pulled in too many different directions, and community needs are multiplying. So what's a small government to do? Rather than ignore their problems, hope they'll go away, and let the next person in charge figure it out, small governments can partner to share resources.
Homemade Solutions: Working to Solve the Housing Crisis
Housing is an issue challenging governments across North America. The circumstances in every community are slightly different, but the questions are similar. Do we have enough housing? Where should we build more? What type is needed? How can we keep it affordable? How affordable is affordable? Do we have the infrastructure to support it? In any case, housing is a problem that single governments cannot fix on their own. Doing so will require partnering with nonprofit organizations, private developers, and other governments.
If It's Not Broke, Fix it: Proactive Asset Management
While asset management is important for all types of local governments, it is particularly crucial for utilities, as assets are the means by which they provide the services their customers rely on. If an asset breaks down or fails, it can affect the entire delivery system and lead to service interruptions. Over the long-term, continued asset failures can lead to growing distrust among customers. Utilities can avoid this scenario by developing a proactive asset management renewal and replacement program to plan for and maintain critical infrastructure and equipment.
Telling Your Budget Story
Budgeting involves the process of estimating costs and revenues, allocating limited resources among competing needs, balancing community expectations with service-level realities, and driving results for the community. Finance professionals need to possess a variety of technical and leadership skills to navigate the budget process, conduct accurate analysis, and promote effective decision making. However, it often takes a completely different skill set to communicate these decisions to those without detailed budget and finance knowledge.
Essentials of Public Funds Investing
Governments, regardless of portfolio size, should have a strong public investing program to maintain the safety of public funds and ensure their liquidity position is appropriate. GFOA’s best practices address key elements of an investing program and serve as a roadmap to develop and enhance entities’ policies and procedures in this arena.
The Playbook on Qualitative Disclosures
Let's talk about disclosures that coordinate with, but don't actually tie to numbers in the statements. Disclosures on tax abatement agreements, conduit debt outstanding, unused lines of credit, and certain risk disclosures are required by GAAP and should be reviewed annually to ensure the information presented is complete and accurate. These disclosures present a challenge because they take time to draft and often require information from outside the finance office.
Unknown Unknowns: How to Plan for New Risks
In an era of escalating challenges and complex threats, governments must be prepared for a range of risks that can disrupt communities and strain resources. This session will delve into the most significant emerging risks facing local governments today, such as natural catastrophes, cybersecurity threats, and the elusive "unknown unknowns" that can arise without warning.
Construction Zone: How to Communicate Capital Project Information to Your Community
Not only are large capital projects expensive, they are also usually very visible to the community. Some, like the construction of new parks or community centers may benefit from overwhelming public support, while others like rehabilitation of roads or bridges may place significant inconvenience on residents. With all projects, finance professionals need to work with other leaders to engage the public, communicate project information, and provide transparency into decision-making.
Ignoring the Bright Lights: Going Beyond the Funded Ratio
When examining pension plans, many stakeholders and the media tend to zero in on one particular number: the funded ratio. However, the funded ratio tends to oversimplify pension plans, leaving out important details about their health, funding, and trajectories over time.
Smart Cities: Rethinking the Role of Technology in Everyday Life with the GFOA Urban Forum
The concept of "smart cities" isn't limited to large urban centers; it's about leveraging technology to enhance the quality of life and operational efficiency in any community. This session invites finance professionals from local governments of all sizes to explore how integrating technologies—such as Internet of Things devices, data analytics, and digital services—can transform financial management and service delivery.
Treasury Charcuterie: Nibbles for the Finance Professional
Is it difficult to keep up with the many changes to new technology, emerging trends, banking services, and best practices? This session is intended to provide a treasury charcuterie of bite-sized discussions on key subjects. Speakers will discuss topics such as the collateralization of deposits, technology to assist with cash flow forecasting, managing credit card chargebacks, the use of custodians and safekeeping, and the continued perils of cryptocurrency. Attend to listen to the discussion or contribute topics for the panel to address.
Manageable Climb: Preparing for GASB 103
After ten years in development, GASB issued statement 103, Financial Reporting Model Improvements, in June 2024. This session will explore the changes to the Management's Discussion and Analysis, the reporting of the budgetary comparison schedules, and the presentation of discretely presented component units.
Be a Chef: Creating Your Own Recipe for Budget Success
A key tenet of GFOA's Rethinking Budgeting initiative is to encourage government budget professionals to think of themselves as chefs rather than as cooks. No two governments or communities are exactly the same, so what works for one may not work for yours. Rather than follow a specific checklist or recipe for budget success, GFOA encourages you to harness your inner chef and create your own recipe.
Sessions for Wednesday, July 2
New and Improved: How to Initiate Lasting Change
While technology can improve efficiency through automation, true process improvement comes from changing organizational roles, policies, and with using technology appropriately. However, this change can be difficult to initiate and even more difficult to sustain.
Trust in Government: Applying GFOA's Code of Ethics
Trust is an asset as important as any that can be found on any government balance sheet. However, by several different measures, trust in government has decreased in recent years. This lack of trust can hamper the ability for local governments to provide needed services to the community, raise sufficient revenue, or demonstrate value. Similarly, distrust among colleagues within a government can stifle collaboration.
The Customer is Always Right: Defining and Managing Internal Services
Internal service functions like finance, budget, procurement, human resources, and information technology serve important internal customers. However, it can be difficult to develop policies, set clear expectations, respond to feedback, and deliver excellent results. It's also a challenge to allocate funding for these internal services when compared to programs that directly benefit the public.
Budget in the Crosshairs: Using a Target-Based Approach
Are you looking for a new approach to budgeting that can help you control spending growth, minimize budget gamesmanship, and promote autonomy within departments? If so, target-based budgeting (TBB) could be the approach you’re looking for. With TBB, the budget office provides each department with a spending target for core services. This target is less than the total revenue forecasted. The difference between the spending target and the revenue forecast is the amount available for supplemental services. Departments can submit decision packages for the supplemental services funding.
Get Exposed: Future Concepts for Revenue Recognition
Raise your expectations! Changes are coming. Not today, not tomorrow, but before you know it, we will be re-evaluating revenue and expense recognition under an anticipated new principles-based model. This session will cover the latest updates on this project work and how it's expected to provide structure to recognition and measurement of some very complex revenue streams. It will also highlight how common revenue streams would be impacted by the proposed guidance.
Is Anyone Out There? Creative Solutions to Solve the Talent Gap
Many governments continue to struggle to fill positions not only in the finance department, but across the entire organization. Competition for highly qualified workers is intense, and governments need to improve their ability to recruit and communicate the value of a career in public service.
To Budget, or Not to Budget...for Vacancy Savings
When it comes to personnel budgeting, few topics generate as much debate as how to approach budgeting for vacant positions. Should you budget the salary or wage on the low end or high end of the pay scale? Should you budget assuming the position will be filled for the entire budget period? Should you assume that some positions will become vacant through attrition during the budget period? While there's not a singular right answer to any of these questions, there are benefits and risks associated with the different approaches.
The End of an ERA: Winding Down from ARPA
With the expiration of several huge COVID-19 pandemic era programs, government finance staff are tasked with winding down the largest federal funding packages ever received by local governments. This session will provide insight into the close-out requirements of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) Fiscal Recovery Funds and other federal funding trends.
Weather the Coming Storms: Infrastructure Planning for More Extreme Conditions
Conventional wisdom around asset maintenance teaches us that the useful life of an asset is driven by how well we maintain the asset, but times have changed. Extreme climate conditions and weather events have led to decreasing asset life cycles, increasing need for investments in resilience, growing insurance gaps, increasing costs, and failing infrastructure. With these challenges in mind, governments need to consider what investments should be made today to address future climate risks.
Target Practice: Exploring High- and Low-Tech Options for Revenue Forecasting
Finance professionals are always looking for ways to improve their revenue forecasting abilities. Artificial intelligence (AI), with its ability to analyze and summarize huge amounts of data quickly, is a new tool that holds much promise in this area, but finance professionals should also keep in mind other, more traditional skills and strategies for improving revenue forecasts. These low-tech opportunities include enhancing your understanding of the factors that influence your revenues and building your audience's confidence in your forecasts.
Build Your Treasury Fortress: Fraud Prevention Practices in the Treasury Office
Fraud remains one of the most significant threats to the integrity of treasury operations. These threats have serious financial and reputational impacts, and with new forms of fraud popping up all the time, treasury managers can feel like they're playing a never-ending game of whack-a-mole.
All on the Same Team: Managing Relationships with Elected Officials
Working with elected officials can be one of the most difficult parts of a government finance professional's job. The challenges are many: earning and maintaining trust, explaining technical concepts, balancing competing or conflicting priorities, and gaining support for unpopular—but necessary—decisions. It's enough to overwhelm even the most seasoned finance professional.