In our third annual CFO of the Year awards, Crain's Detroit Business selected nine winners among 12 finalists. A panel of four judges, two of them former CFO of the Year winners, selected the winners based on their demonstrated savvy and skill in solving financial and corporate management problems and their contributions to the community.
Winners and finalists were honored June 11 at The Henry Ford in Dearborn. Marsh Inc. was presenting sponsor.

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Crain's CFO Awards 2009 Winners

Susan Ide, Chief Financial Officer
Lighthouse of OaklandCounty,Pontiac
WalshCollegeBachelor of Accountancy

Lighthouse of Oakland County's financial systems hadn't been keeping pace with its growth.
The nonprofit had broad financial systems set up when it was a smaller organization, but it couldn't track the detailed transactions from the more diverse and complex programs that came with growth, CEO John Ziraldo said.
As CFO the past two years, Susan Ide has brought a rigorous, detailed approach that has greatly improved the quality and accuracy of the forecast, he said.
Nothing falls through the cracks on her watch, and there are no surprises that prevent the nonprofit from continuing to make payroll or operate programs, Ziraldo said.
Ide has put in place a comprehensive accounting system for the Pontiac-based nonprofit and its three subsidiaries, which are operating on a consolidated 2009 budget of $8.5 million.
“If we're going to have a cash shortage, we need to know ahead of time so we can plan accordingly, whether that's through borrowing money or requesting additional contributions ... (or) looking for cuts in expenditures,” she said.
Managers now receive cash-flow projections for three to six months out and are better able to plan for the needs of their departments.
She redeveloped the internal accounting system for Lighthouse and its subsidiaries, with standardized coding that enables consolidated internal statements.
Ide also put in place a system to monitor the expenditure of grants, developed new purchasing policies and redesigned the process for allocating revenue and expenses between the budgets of Lighthouse and its three subsidiaries so that it was fair and reasonable.
She renegotiated vendor contracts for general property insurance, telecommunications and building maintenance, among other things, saving Lighthouse more than $23,000 annually.
By going line by line, “like any CFO,” Ide said, she was able to hold the line on employee benefit costs while adding long-term disability coverage to their benefits by changing plans within the same network.

Crain's CFO Awards 2009 Winners

John Stchur, Chief Financial Officer
Asterand plc, Detroit
WalshCollege Master of Science

in Accountancy

John Stchur has had a lot of explaining to do for analysts and would-be investors over the years. What does a tissue-bank company do? What are the market needs? When will the company start making money? What is a company traded on the London Stock Exchange doing with its headquarters in Detroit?
His job got a lot easier after Asterand plc's performance last year, when it was the top-performing company based on increased share price of the 2,000-plus stocks that trade on the exchange. Since the beginning of 2008, the price has risen more than 400 percent, from 5 pence to a close of 25.5 pence.
Stchur, who cut his teeth at Coopers & Lybrand as part of the team that split Visteon off from Ford in 2000, joined Asterand — then a startup housed at the Karmanos Cancer Institute — in 2002. He said he had a lucrative job offer from a major auto supplier but was asked by a head-hunter to meet with Asterand's co-founder, Randal Charlton, who now is the executive director at TechTown, Asterand's landlord.
The company had 12 employees scattered in several labs and offices at Karmanos, revenue of about $1 million, and it had lost money since being founded two years earlier.

“I couldn't resist the entrepreneurial environment. It seemed like I could have a lot more fun there,” said Stchur, who accepted the position of controller.
Over the next two years, he helped lead two rounds of venture-capital financing, then in 2005 helped lead a reverse merger with a biotech company called Pharmagene plc that resulted in Asterand being listed on the London exchange in January 2006.
An initial public offering is usually the time when early investors and venture capitalists make their exit and cash out. Not this time, though. The share price dropped almost from the start and would-be investors and analysts paid little attention to the small biotechnology company based in Detroit, known for its declining auto industry.
But Asterand continued to grow revenue. Last August, a key licensing agreement Stchur helped negotiate — he was promoted to CFO in 2007 — with Allergan Inc. to commercialize compounds developed by Asterand to treat eye disease, generated an up-front fee of $6.3 million, caught analysts' attention and led, in November, to a stock placement of 4.3 million shares.
On March 30, the company announced that it had made its first profit ever, in 2008, going from a loss of $2.9 million to net income of $5.8 million.