David Parmenter’s popularity and pulling power as an international speaker and presenter are directly attributable to his deep knowledge, compelling delivery and empathy with his audiences. Consequently, his thought provoking and stimulating sessions have galvanised many organizations and the executives who lead them, to completely rethink and restructure their enterprises.

David has spoken in 31 countries. He’s a visionary keynote speaker who has addressed major events including the ICAEW CFO Conference 2016, ICAEW Financial Controller’s Conference 2017, IBM Finance Forums (Europe, Africa, Australia and Asia), The World Capability Congress, TEC Malaysia, UBT Australia, CPA Fiji, and Profiles International Romania. He also delivers in-depth and highly practical extension workshops at conferences.

David is a global expert in performance management practices that help organisations move from good to great. His global reputation as King of the KPIs is built on his development of winning KPIs. He is at the forefront of helping finance teams, around the world, adopt lean practices such as rapid -end month reporting, one-page reports, replacing annual planning with quarterly rolling planning process and 21st century agile practices. He has also a new insight into the eight behavioural traits that you need to become an effective leader.

Key Note Addresses
David Parmenter inspires audience to achieve more by revitalising their KPIs
Speaking at ICAEW’s CFO Conference, David showed why he is an audience favourite. In just an hour he successfully demystified performance measurements and summarised how to devise truly effective KPIs using his seven key characteristics. On a day that was praised for the quality of its speaker presentations, David came out top in the feedback from delegates.
Mr. David Parmenter held a keynote speech and an in-depth session at our two main events of 2013 (Copenhagen & Tampa, USA). He is a very inspiring speaker with some interesting topics on his agenda. He delivers his messages in a very controversial and humoristic way and uses anecdotes from his own life to stress his opinions. He was very popular among our attendants and his keynote and session rated as number 1 among all speakers. We recommend him warmly as a speaker!
We asked David Parmenter to deliver a key note address on KPIs at our KPI conference held in April 2015 in Estonia. The conference was a great success and attendees were very happy with his remarkable professionalism. I have hosted hundreds of speakers and I have very seldom seen such an attention to detail. Delegates received very useful templates to move them forward
David Parmenter was the Key Note address at our one day “2014 Management Accounting Conference ”It was a great success and we couldn’t have pulled it off without his contribution both before and during the conference. The audience gave him the highest ratings with comments such as:
“David is an entertaining and knowledgeable speaker who injects humour into his speech. He also offers further materials which is helpful. “
“Great presenter to open with and got to the core of KPIs. “
“Best speaker ever, thoroughly enjoyed it.”
“Awesome presentation, different dynamic.”
“Excellent presentation and great examples. Best session!”
“Clear message and entertaining style.”
Thank you for delivering three excellent session at the Financial Controller’s Conference – and for helping to maintain the energy levels of the audience over the course of the day. From the feedback I have had so far, the audience really enjoyed your slots.
We now have had David as a key note presenter to two of our annual conferences for the Finance teams in the Australian General Practice Network. He delivered two sessions each day. The presentations were superb with a high degree of satisfaction from the attendees. Not only were the sessions entertaining they contained profound messages. The electronic templates that David provided attendees have been worth the attendee’s conference fee!

David was the keynote speaker at our 2011 National Accountants Conference. His presentations were delivered in an engaging and thought provoking manner. One of our objectives of the conference was to have the Financial Controllers reporting earlier each month and we owe our new very positive results to the work by David.

Thank you again most sincerely for providing the Fiji Branch of CPA Australia Congress with 2 magnificent presentations, as were the two that you provided to us last year.
I have received an overwhelming positive feedback from delegates, who not only enjoyed the content of your presentations, but also the manner in which they were presented. Our delegates loved the use of the pen on the tablet, this method really engaged them.
The Prime Minister chuckled when you fell to your knees to make a point,
telling me he wished he had staff like you!
So thank you once again David for coming to Fiji for us again.
I can’t tell you how refreshing it was to sit through that presentation yesterday David. Thank you. A like minded champion to the cause. I had an old colleague in the audience yesterday who was my right hand accountant when I was a CFO. She said ‘my gosh, it was like I was back in the boardroom listening to you from 10 years ago almost word for word’

I’d have to say ‘goose bumps’ is the appropriate phrase that summed up your session. I did a paper for my company’s management team in 2006 named ‘the death of the budget process and the misconceptions of false conscience’ it’s where I coined the phrases ‘noise’ which by the way seems to be the only difference between you and I as you call that politics – same thing.
Bravo David, bravo

Testimonial imageJohnnie Walker, TheBMA Group Australia
About David’s workshops general feedback

‘Very practical and informative’

“Useful & practical that can be used immediately”

“Displayed knowledge and skills at level expected of a top presenter in a field of expertise“

 “Amongst the top level of presenters in over 30 years attendance.  Animated, involving, focused, knowledgeable, passionate”

 “Course material very comprehensive”

 “Great course paper, which was presented with an interesting style/anecdotes, stories”

 “David is very knowledgeable and an expert in this field. He is very helpful and gives answers immediately. The handouts were very comprehensive”

KPI workshop

‘Helpful tools for re-implementing KPIs at current organisation’‘Gave an impetus to re-launch KPI reporting in the organisation and link performance to these KPIs.’ 

‘Easy to understand and gave practical ideas of how to put it into practice.’

 It will allow me to develop relevant KPIs and monitor them at the right frequency’

 ‘This gave me an understanding of how my team’s and the business’s performance indicators can work and how to identify these’

Winning Finance teamsworkshop
The course was a very valuable exercise. In particular,I enjoyed mixing in a smallish group with others who have similar issues. The informal nature of the course enabled one to pick up lots of ideas. All of David’s anecdotes added to the entertainment.

The three main highlights for me from attending David Parmenter’s “winning CFO” were; David’s tight and punchy delivery style, access to soft copy templates to customise and implement in my organisation, and breakout sessions at the end of each section where you can discuss your thoughts with someone in a similar industry.

Thank you again for the excellent course. The three main highlights for us were having a dynamic and engaging speaker, a speaker who had an in-depth understanding of the challenges and solutions for Finance functions and how the content/delivery during the day was customized to maximise the benefit to the attendees.
Rapid month-end –by  day three or less
We attended David’s course on “winning Finance teams” and we have had instant success with our Flash report. My Accounting team managed to get the flash report for November completed by 4.00pm on the second day. They even reconciled most of the Balance Sheet Accounts and didn’t work any overtime. The workshop gave us the tools and the mindset to achieve this result.
Rolling Planningworkshop
The general consensus was that this was one of the most worthwhile professional development seminars that any of us had attended for quite a while. David’s passion for the subject came across throughout the day and was backed up by the substance of his subject matter expertise and practical experience. The friendly, interactive nature of the seminar was a big plus.

“Thank you very much for your inspiring teachings on Quarterly Rolling Planning and Forecasting on Monday. I came home from the sessions and was feeling quite exhausted. I think it must have been due to the absorbing nature of the material and your delivery that had me totally engaged.

I am quite excited about the prospect of leading meaningful change in the planning processes where I work. I shall study the selling tips you gave and put these into action to give it a real shake.”

Lean accounting function workshop
Many thanks David

I must say your course was has motivated me to streamline our board reporting and our Directors are very happy with the outline already discussed. Additionally we are now working on streamlining our accounts payable process including implementing the “P” card as discussed at the Christchurch course

Testimonial image Derek Billcliff , Chief Financial Officer
I attended David’s course on “A journey to a lean accounting function”. While receiving an entertaining and thought provoking overview into lean accounting function practices we also learnt about some quick wins including use of the one page report. We were able to bring our month-end down to four working days through using the post-it re-engineering process. I recommend this course.
I attended David’s thought provoking course on “A journey to a lean accounting function”. We took away and used the one A3 page CEO financial report and the “post-it” re-engineering. The benefits derived from these two implementations were worth more than the course fee alone. I would recommend this course to all corporate accountants.
I have been able to totally revolutionize one of my clients’ board meetings by implementing the A3 board report from the NZICA workshop you ran in Tauranga! They got caught on details during the board meetings and never got into the real issues and use that time to strategize. The 8 pages of various charts now fit on the same page as the financials avoiding time wasting during the meeting as people used to lose track of which page others were talking about. It still gives me a buzz when I prepare this page every month.
I attended your June course…it was by far and away the best course I have been on for a while
I would like to take this opportunity to say a big “Thank you” for the Lean accounting course you presented this week.

I thoroughly enjoyed the day and cannot wait to become leaner and more efficient.

Will definitely be on the lookout for any other training you might be giving again in Sydney.

Regards

I thoroughly enjoyed your one-day presentation on Lean Accounting (Chch Clearwater last month). I have made some good changes to our processes here and it’s going to benefit us as a group home builder with the growth we are experiencing in Chch and Auckland.

We will be using some of the offering from your web site over the next few days. We have started the journey it’s all Kaizen!

Thanks for such a great presentation and process you put us through.

Between my staff and I we have attended a number of your workshops over the years. Following one of your workshops a couple of my staff returned fired up agreeing with me that reporting month-end by day two could be done. We ran a post-it note session (as demonstrated in your workshop) and identified some month-end tasks that could be done earlier and some tasks that shouldn’t be done and were abandoned. We dropped back and from 12 days close-off to a day 5 close off (a couple of times we actually closed on day 3). We are now running another post-it workshop and staff are keen to introduce the new staff to the process and bring the close off back further to day 3. An important point here was that my staff ran the sessions which led to greater ownership.

We have also gone live with the Board A3 sheet, which summarises progress on one page and was featured in your workshop. The sheet is now a key document in the Board pack.
Thanks for your guidance and teaching.

One of our team members attended your lean finance team processes one day workshop in Sydney and from that we have:

– Reduced our monthly management report to a one page management report which has been based on the A3 report template from the course (was approximately 30 pages)
– Shortened our month end process – we now complete it by working day 5 (was by working day 10. This is due to our system requiring invoicing on 8th of each month)
– Run daily scrum meetings from working day -1 to working day 6 (stand up meetings lasting only 5 minutes (max) for those still involved in the month-end process)

These changes have:

– Given us a more focused approach to month end preparation
– Allowed us to tailor our management report to the users (not the finance team)
– Stressed the importance of timeliness vs accuracy which has encouraged our finance team to make better decisions
– Improved decision making, particularly if corrective action is required, as there is more time to make changes before next month is finished
– Freed up time to focus on looking forward rather than back

In-house workshop on rapid month-end –by day three or less

We have successfully moved to a three day reporting regime which has resulted in positive comments being received from the senior management team. This would not have been achievable without the assistance from David. Our team enjoyed the workshop that David facilitated to discuss and review our existing processes. It provided the team with an opportunity to look at the end of month process in its entirety and, with some guidance from David, we were able to eliminate some steps and improve alignment with others. The result, a full CFO report, ready by COB day three. An awesome result.
We asked David Parmenter to run his one day in-house re-engineering of month end reporting on 13 November. Subsequently we moved the November month-end from a 7 working day close to 2 working days. This change has been a direct result from David’s session. Our team embraced the re-engineering and abandoning processes that were no longer purposeful. We adopted the day one flash report, the daily scrums and noticed much more cohesive teamwork. There is now a much better awareness of what is important and on materiality. I would recommend this workshop to finance teams.

Thankyou for an excellent presentation.

All of the teams gained some invaluable insight (including our economists) to the various topics.

The troops are primed, share the vision and we are planning our changes.

An outstanding success.

Regards,

We now have had David as a key note presenter to two of our annual conferences for the Finance teams in the Australian General Practice Network. He delivered two sessions each day. The presentations were superb with a high degree of satisfaction from the attendees. Not only were the sessions entertaining they contained profound messages. The electronic templates that David provided attendees have been more than worth the attendee’s conference fee!
Carolyn Campbell-Wood, CFO, AGPN