FAO Today fêtes the outstanding practitioners, advisors, and providers of the past year.

by Peggy Cope

For four years now, FAO Today has recognized the stars of finance and accounting outsourcing in print. This year, we began a new tradition: Training a spotlight on the top people and companies in seven categories at our FAO Summit. This year’s gala award dinner took place on June 3 at the Union League Club in New York City. Join us in congratulating these luminaries of the FAO world! (Photos of all the happy winners are on the following page.)

2008 FAO Practitioner of the Year / North America
• Sam Borghese, CEO, Catalina Restaurants
• George Bryan, Vice President, Financial Services, Office Depot
• Jake Farkas, Director Financial & Accounting BPO, Trinity Industries
• WINNER: Jay Hughes, VP & Controller, Unilever USA
• Fillippo Passerini, Chief Information & Global Services Officer, P&G
• Dusty Profumo, EVP and CFO, Church’s Chicken
• Tom Waller, Head of Global Procurement & PMO, Electronic Arts

2008 FAO Advisors of the Year
• Bob Cecil, EVP & Mark Toon, CEO, Equaterra
• J. Ross Docksey, Partner, Sonnenschein
• Phil Fersht, Research Director, AMR Research
• Karen Ikeda, Partner, Global Finance & Accounting Practice Leader, TPI
• WINNER: Michel Janssen, Managing Director & Wayne Mincey, President, The Hackett Group (accepting, Wayne Mincey)
• Barbara Melby, Partner & Akiba Stern, Partner, Morgan Lewis
• Ben Trowbridge, CEO and President, Alsbridge
• Atul Vashistha, CEO, neoIT

2008 FAO Influencer of the Year
• Ravi Aron, Assistant Professor, Information and Operations Management, University of Southern California
• WINNER: Mark Dzialga, Managing Director, General Atlantic Partners (accepting, Brett Rochkind, principal, GAP)
• Rachel Stormonth, Research Director, Nelson-Hall
• Jane Siegel, Director Carnegie Mellon IT Services Center, Carnegie Mellon University

2008 FAO Provider of the Year / Large Enterprise
• WINNER: Michel de Zeeuw, Vice President, Ritesh Idnani VP and Global Sales Head, Amitabh Chaudry, CEO, Infosys (accepting, Ritesh Idnani)
• Gary Budzinski, EVP, HP
• David Kaminski, Vice President Finance & Accounting, Capgemini
• Tiger Tyagarajan, Executive Vice President, Genpact
• Donniel Schulman, General Manager, Global Finance & Administration Solutions, & Chris Gattenio, Vice President, MBPS Asset Strategy & F&A Program Management, IBM

2008 FAO Provider of the Year / Middle Market
• WINNER: Clarence Schmitz, CEO, OPI Global (accepting, Kishore Mirchandani, president, OPI)
• Ashok BIldikar, President, Caliber Point Business Solutions
• Jeff Bizzack, former President, Mid-Market Services, Accenture

2008 FAO Provider of the Year / Selective Process
• WINNER: Leon Busch, President & CEO & Robert Stasik, EVP, Head of Payments Solutions & Investor Services Sector, SourceNet Solutions (accepting, Robert Arthur, chief of staff, SourceNet Solutions)
• Gregg Mylett, President, Corporate United
• Carl Guarino, CEO, ICG Commerce
• Chris Stone, CEO, Northgate/Arinso
• David Andrews, CEO, Xchanging

2008 FAO Thought Leader of the Year
• Wayne Mincey, President, The Hackett Group
• Akiba Stern, Partner, Morgan Lewis
• Clarence Schmitz, CEO, OPI Global
• Dr. Christian Baader, VP BPO Strategy & Market Development, SAP
• WINNER: Tiger Tyagarajan, President, Genpact
• Amitabh Chaudry, CEO, Infosys