It became obvious that there is a real need for financial controllers with both technical and soft skills, capable of managing reporting procedures and implementing innovative financial and management accounting solutions but with additional skills such as communication, strategy, project management and human capital management. 

The school's close proximity with the technological park of Sophia Antipolis makes the French Riviera campus the ideal setting. It has also allowed the programme manager, Pierre-Laurent Bescos to form professional links with several companies present on the site.

Its mission is to develop generally accepted international standards, definitions, methods, and quality criteria on non-financial performance indicators (customer satisfaction, brand equity, human capital, etc.). The researchers identify and document relevant concepts, develop rigorous measurement methodologies and transfer this expertise to businesses.

The great diversity of backgrounds is one of the advantages of the research centre (specialists in financial analysis, accounting and law and researchers from academia or business), and it allows it to take a multi-disciplinary approach to financial analysis: company valuation, impact of IFRS and Solvency II on insurance companies, the impact of IFRS on the valuation and pricing of risk, growing use of fairness opinions, and the status of the outside expert.

The research centre, in tandem with major financial institutions, plans to do substantial work on the themes that account for the bulk of its growth, to validate the quality of this work by having it published in leading journals, and to promote constant dialogue with practitioners by organising regular conferences and writing press releases in response to current events.

Professor Bescos was recently invited to give a conference in Toulouse for CFOs entitled Strategic Alignment, creating synergies via the trend chart forecast and co-authored the article Characteristics of Performance Measures for External Reporting with other EDHEC faculty Eric Cauvin, Christel Decock and Anders Westlund. This article appeared in Total Quality Management & Business Excellence Review, 2007.

This sponsorship committee helps the programme manager define course content, ensuring that it matches the needs of business as closely as possible.  It will also be involved in the courses in various ways such as by providing testimonials, actively participating in courses and supervising students' Master Theses etc in close collaboration with the programme manager. Another aim of the sponsorship committee and one which is particularly noteworthy is to facilitate students' access to professional life by offering specific internship and recruitment opportunities to graduates of this programme.

Professional organisations are expected to join the sponsorship committee too and negotiations are also currently underway with international firms, in particular within DFCG (National Association of Financial Managers and Management Control, member of the IAFEI (International Association of Financial Executives Institutes).

View his presentation here