Ms. Scheiber-Kurtz is an active member of the Women of the Harvard Club Committee (WOHC) and invites you to attend:

Linda Fairstein, former prosecutor and best-selling crime novelist

Thursday, March 11, 2010 | One Federal Street, 38th Floor

7:30 am Breakfast, Presentation and Book Signing

Registration:  Tania Wong at  twong@harvardclub.com or  617 450-8468

Linda Fairstein is one of America’s foremost legal experts on crimes of violence against women and children. From 1972 to 2002, she served in the office of the New York County District Attorney, where she was Chief of the Sex Crimes Prosecution Unit for twenty-six years. In 1988, she was the lead attorney in the homicide prosecution of Robert Chambers of the ‘Preppy Murder’ case. Fairstein is an honors graduate of Vassar College (1969) and the University of Virginia School of Law (1972). In 1998, Fairstein’s law school classmates established a scholarship fund in her honor, the Fairstein Public Service Scholarship, which supports law school students interested in pursuing careers in the public sector.

Ms. Fairstein is the author of an internationally best-selling series of crime novels – translated into more than a dozen languages – which feature Manhattan prosecutor Alexandra Cooper. The twelfth in the series, Hell Gate, debuts in March, 2010, published by Dutton. She is also the author of the 1993 non-fiction work, Sexual Violence: Our War Against Rape, which was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. She is a regular contributor on criminal justice issues to magazines, journals, and on-line publications like The Daily Beast.

Price per person: $17.50 (plus Club charge & tax) includes breakfast, presentation and book signing. Copies of Linda Fairstein’s book will be available for purchase. Parking will not be included. Cancellation date: Tuesday, March 9, 2010.

NSS Ambassador Laura Kevghas of Mirus Capital Advisors will be one of the panelists.  We hope you can join us.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

8:00 a.m. – Registration and Breakfast
8:30-10:00 a.m. – Program

Whether you are a buyer or seller, there are opportunities in the current economic climate to maximize your return on a merger, acquisition, or sale of a business. Our panel will review the current M&A market including a discussion of the deals getting done, opportunities for both buyers and sellers, and a review of how to successfully sell or buy a business.

Topics will include:
The Current M&A Market and Trends
The Credit Markets and their Relation to Valuation
Current Business Valuations and the Impact on Estate Planning Opportunities
How to Prepare for and Pursue a Transaction

University of Massachusetts Lowell
MIL Conference Room
Wannalancit Mills
600 Suffolk Street
Lowell, Massachusetts
Directions

RSVP
nutterevents@nutter.com or 617.439.2622

We are pleased to announce the first of four

CEO Seminars  |  Tues March 23, 2010

7:30am -9:00am, 75 Federal Street, Boston

(offices of Furman Gregory Deptula)

RSVP: Rudi Scheiber-Kurtz at 781-929-9125 or scheiberkurtz@nextstagesolutions.com

The “new” economy brings its own set of challenges to companies who want to grow or plan an exit.

In the first of 4 seminars for CEO’s in 2010, we will begin by focusing the discussion on various ways of balancing the risks in our businesses.

• How can I build out infrastructure and create a model that is both flexible and adaptable, one that can constrict and expand with minimum costs?
• What value can I bring to my business by outsourcing any non-core competency to keep agile and nimble?
• What are the next-step tools and solutions in how I can achieve desired growth in a recharged economy and preserve cash with a conservative budget?
• How do I finance growth in today’s economy?
• What innovative strategies can I adopt to increase value in my business that may not involve raising capital?

Join us for a 90-minute interactive dialogue and take back valuable insights from other fast growth CEO’s.  Learn tools, tips and trends to help you navigate in this new economy.

Attendance will be limited to allow more in-depth and interactive discussion. Future seminars will focus on specific topics such as financing, sales and marketing, legal, partnering, and exits.

Why you should attend:

• Network with other CEO’s and gain visibility to best practices in the marketplace today
• Develop new partnering strategies for growing your business
• Learn how to avoid pitfalls of outsourcing key aspects of your business
• Gain critical insights into key legal, financial, and human capital issues in 2010 that will impact your business

Location: 75 Federal Street, 9th Floor, Boston, MA at the offices of Furman Gregory Deptula

Time: 7:30am Continental Breakfast

Program: 7:45am – 9:00am

RSVP: Rudi Scheiber-Kurtz at 781-929-9125 or scheiberkurtz@nextstagesolutions.com

Sponsored by:

Mass High Tech announced the names of 11 women from the New England tech community who will be recognized in March as the 2010 MHT Women to Watch. This year’s honorees will be profiled in the March 17 issue of Mass High Tech and will be recognized at a special event on March 19 (read more)

NSS congratulates the 11 outstanding women!

The 2010 honorees, their titles, industries and locations are:

Marcie Black, Chief technology officer, Bandgap Engineering Inc., Photovoltaic systems, Woburn

A.G. Breitenstein, Vice president and general manager for provider markets, Humedica Inc., Healthcare IT, Boston

Catherine Crawford, Senior technical staff member, IBM Corp., Supercomputers, Bedford, N.H.

Lauren Crews, Technology coordinator, Raytheon Co., Defense, Andover

Elizabet de los Pinos, Chief executive officer, Aura Biosciences Inc., Biotechnology, Cambridge

Michelle Dipp, Vice president and head of the U.S. Centre for External Drug Discovery, GlaxoSmithKline plc, Biotechnology, Cambridge

Jill Drury, Associate department head, The Mitre Corp., Robotics, Bedford

Candace Fleming, Chief executive officer, Crimson Hexagon Inc., Social networking, Cambridge

Katie Hall, Chief technology officer, Witricity Corp., Electronics, Cambridge

Dava Newman, Professor of aeronautics, astronomics and engineering systems, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Aerospace, Cambridge

Livia Racz, Division leader for advanced hardware development, Charles Stark Draper Laboratory Inc., Electronics, Cambridge

Women to Watch 2010
Deadline: December 4, 2009

Mass High Tech is calling for nominations for its 2010 Women to Watch program, in which 10 New England-based women — from fields such as biotech, telecom, software, hardware, electronics, advanced energy, nanotech, medical devices, IT, networks and communications, robotics — will be honored as future leaders and innovators. This is the 7th year of the Women to Watch program.  See past years’ honorees

You know these women to be go-getters — bright, innovative, hard working, inspirational to others and motivated. They are accomplished and up-and-coming, growing in their careers. They will shape the future of their industries, while serving as role models for young girls.

The nomination process is open to women working in the technology and academic communities in New England.

Honorees typically have:

• At least five years of managerial or technical experience in technology or science-related businesses, or in academic research leading to commercialization of tech-based products and/or services. The candidate does not have to be at the CEO or senior academic faculty level; the purpose of this program is to recognize women who are still on the rise, who have not reached their full potential.
• An engineering or science degree.
• Demonstrated leadership abilities, including (please provide examples): proven business results with a project or new technology; ability to mobilize teams and/or projects; use of creative thinking to solve complex problems; sound decision-making; an active role in the community or as a mentor.
• The ability to think creatively and develop new opportunities with regard to business or the commercialization of technology.
• If within academia, the nominee should have worked on research that has been, or soon will be, commercialized.

See examples of past honorees

NOMINATION FORM

If you have any questions, please contact Jim Connolly at jconnolly@masshightech.com.

Deadline for nominations is December 4, 2009. Nominations will be reviewed by an advisory committee, and those individuals chosen to be recognized will be notified by Mass High Tech no later than Jan. 30. An awards reception to honor these women will take place in early March. Keep checking this website for more details about time and location of the event.

MIT CFO SUMMIT:  November 19  7:30am – 6:00pm

Register today at www.mitcfo.com

Next Stage Solutions will be attending and we hope you will join us!  Following the success of prior years, the MIT Sloan Alumni Club of Boston will be hosting this annual MIT CFO Summit on November 19, 2009. They are welcoming 500+ CFO’s to this year’s Summit for an interesting day of dialogue & discourse.

• Joe Capezza, Chief Financial Officer, Health Net
• David Goulden, Chief Financial Officer, EMC
• Steve Isakowitz, Chief Financial Officer, US Department of Energy
• Kurt Kuehn, Chief Financial Officer, UPS
• Gunter Niederhuder, Chief Financial Officer, BMW German Market
• And many more!

Special thanks to Gold level event sponsors ALTRAN Control Solutions, KPMG , and Silicon Valley Bank; Silver level event sponsors AFP, Credit Suisse, Mintz Levin, MUNCMedia, and Watson Wyatt; as well as Networking Sponsors Basware, HR Knowledge, MIT Sloan Executive Education, and Sentinel Benefits.

Jack McCullough and Jeremy Seidman
Co-Chairs
MIT Sloan CFO Summit

email: info@mitcfo.com
web: http://www.mitcfo.com

Last month the Wall Street Journal published an article For Rent: Chief Financial Officer by Raymond Flandez, commenting in how more and more firms are outsourcing this high level function of management. For businesses small and large, especially companies that want to grow, the finances do get more complex. He points out that many of these ‘Rent a CFOs’ are also Certified Public Accountants.

I agree wholeheartedly with Flandez’  assessment  that an outsourced interim or part-time CFO is a capital efficient way to access this expertise and an outsourced CFO can be more objective and give a reality check. I also agree that many of the CFOs are indeed CPAs and this is partially due to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX)  that has driven businesses and their CEOs more to the compliance and technical side of finance enforcing the common belief that if you have a controller and an accountant your financial needs are covered.  That may apply to life style companies who do not intend to grow but simply run a sustainable business.

From this juncture, however, is where I begin to differ.  A company with expansion and growth in their forecast, the paradigm has to shift drastically from technical to strategic. In fact, not recognizing the importance of strategic finance and solely relying on your controller’s risk aversion, you may be holding your company back from that growth.  Here is why I think so.

For a fast growing company, the financial spectrum has to be broader and therefore more complex as pointed out by the author of the WSJ article.  You want to consider a broad based and strategic CFO, one that picks up where the CPA or controller leaves off.  The CFO is your business partner and brings a strategic organizational mind set to the discussion and understands the importance of mapping out the corporate strategy into multiple roadmaps.  Given uncertain economic times, this is more important than ever.  Finance for emerging businesses brings a complexity that is more than accounting and number crunching.

The CEO needs to fully understand the financial ramification and bottom line each decision triggers. SOX compliancy has driven us too far towards the tactical aspect of finance forgetting the importance of looking forward, checking your Financial Headlights.  The CFO plays an important role acting as conduit to growth and walking the fine line between the risk-averse controller and the visionary CEO.  Your future CFO needs to have average appetite for risk, not too little and not too much, understand how to translate the corporate strategy and be a true value creator and not a gatekeeper of growth.

Rudi Scheiber-Kurtz, CEO
Next Stage Solutions, Inc.

Swiss consul general Pascal Marmier has helped transform the Cambridge consulate into a leading-edge diplomatic outpost.    (Pat Greenhouse/ Globe Staff)

SwissNex is an innovative idea of bridging technology and science between two countries – the USA and Switzerland.  As a Swiss Native, I have been very involved in the various activities, particularly with the Venture Leaders.  These are 20 start-ups that each year get chosen by CTI in Switzerland to visit Boston.  Pascal and the SwissNex team host this group and bring Boston area coaches and experts in to provide feedback around fund raising, scaling and entering the US market.

The Boston Globe had a write up last month titled “Diplomacy opens a portal to profit- Boston’s consulates focus on business“  talking about the dynamic consul general Pascal Marmier and how other consulates are now creating similar venues. Pascal is a new breed of consuls, with energy and  innovative thinking abound. He is also the networking king par-excellence.  We are very lucky to have him as our consul general.

To brag just a little more, Switzerland ranked #1 in Global Competitiveness by the World Economic Forum.  Checkout the report:   The Global Competitiveness Report 2009-2010

Rudi Scheiber-Kurtz, CEO
Next Stage Solutions, Inc.

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The team from Duane Morris LLP (Patricia Rich, Steve Honig & Virginia Weeks), riding in support of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Mass Bay

Congratulations to Steve from the NSS team!

The “Duane Morris Team” finished the 25-mile Rodman Ride for Kids and Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Massachusetts Bay.  They raised several thousand dollars for Big Brothers/Big Sisters, says Steve Honig, Senior Partner at Duane Morris.

Rudi Scheiber-Kurtz, CEO
Next Stage Solutions, Inc.

Commonwealth’s Privacy Regulations Revised and Simplified

Citing concessions to the burdens placed on small businesses, on August 17, 2009, the Commonwealth’s Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation (“OCABR”) again revised the so-called identity theft or privacy regulations, further extending the date for compliance until March 1, 2010.

The major conceptual change in the revised regulations is their new emphasis on a “risk-based approach” to implementation.  In plain terms, a company now has the flexibility to scale its efforts  in implementing the regulations based on “the size, nature of its business, the kinds of records it maintains, and the risk of identity theft posed by its operations,” as summarized by the OCABR.  Where the prior version of the regulations indicated that compliance would be judged (assumedly at the time of enforcement) in light of the relative business size along with the amount and accessibility of personal information, that scalability has now shifted to the demands required of a business in initially implementing the regulations.  According to OCABR, the “[n]ew language in the regulations recognizes that the size of a business and amount of personal information it handles plays a role in the data security plan the business creates.”

The revised regulations postpone, again, the date for compliance an additional two months (formerly the deadline was January 1, 2010).  The plain language of the remaining changes to the regulations tighten, focus and simplify language, but do not appear to materially change the process for businesses.  Each company must still evaluate its use and storage of personal information, create a comprehensive written security plan or plans, implement feasible safeguards (including employee training and reasonable protection of electronically stored and transmitted information), and monitor and report breaches and unauthorized disclosures – although each phase may be moderated to the scale and nature of business operations and volume of protected information.  A public hearing on the revisions will be held by OCABR on September 22, 2009, which may result in further updates.  Look for additional alerts throughout the fall.

For more information on these topics, please contact:

Karen A. Whitley, Esq. 617-226-3402 : kaw@hanify.com

Kathleen E. Cross, Esq. 617-226-3433 : kec@hanify.com

This alert may be considered advertising under the rules of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts.  The information in this alert is provided for background purposes and should not be considered legal advice.  Hanify & King, Profession Corporation © 2009