I first met Tom Stewart in 1998 when I was involved in bringing him to Australia to speak about intellectual capital to the local business and finance community. We became friends and we kept in touch while he moved on from his role at Fortune magazine to become editor-in-chief of Harvard Business Review, and then to become Chief Marketing and Knowledge Officer at Booz & Co.
Tom came to Sydney a few weeks ago to do the keynote at the CPA Congress, and I was asked by the CPA Australia magazine In the Black to speak to Tom for the magazine. Here is the article.
In Conversation: Value Judgement
Tom Stewart discusses the new imperatives in corporate finance with Ross Dawson
Tom Stewart, keynote speaker at CPA Australia’s Congress in October, has a challenge for financial executives. “You are the executive in charge of knowing value,” he says. However, as he rightly points out, only part of an organisation’s value is captured in financial accounting.
The field of ‘intellectual capital’ proclaims that for many companies the most valuable productive assets are intangibles such as knowledge and business processes, and these need to be measured and managed better. The idea is far from new. Indeed, Tom Stewart was there from the outset, when his 1991 ‘Brain Power’ cover story for Fortune magazine first introduced the issue to a broad business audience.
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