Events

Please join us for a fireside chat with three distinguished CFOs who have successfully transitioned to paid Board positions.  We will hear about the career paths and experiences of these accomplished professionals: Kelly Bodnar Battles, Prat Bhatt, and Ken Goldman, who will be sharing their insights and stories, what to do, what to avoid, together with tips on how to secure your first board seat. Jan Robertson from SiVal Advisors and host of the Strategic CFO Podcast will be moderating.  These distinguished panelists will share their experiences and reveal some secret tactics/strategies they’ve used to get to that paid Board Seat. 

Learning Objectives:

You will walk away with these insightful perspectives of the panelists and the moderator:

Speakers:

Event Details:

Tuesday, January 27, 2026
4:30 PM Networking & Registration
5:00 PM Presentation
6:00 - 7:30 PM Happy hour with heavy appetizers

Registration closes at 6:00 pm the day before the event.

Speaker Bios:

Kelly Bodnar Battles
Board Member 
Former CFO
 
With over three decades of strategy and finance leadership as well as extensive board experience, Kelly assists companies as they rapidly scale to help deliver better performance and more predictable growth.
Battles has over 30 years of finance and strategy leadership experience, including serving as CFO at Alpha Medical, Quora, Bracket Computing, and Host Analytics, as well as Vice President of Finance at IronPort Systems (bought by Cisco Systems) and Director of Strategy and Corporate Development at Hewlett-Packard. She also held strategic roles at both McKinsey and J.P. Morgan earlier in her career. Battles currently serves on the boards of Arista Networks (NYSE: ANET), Genesys, Qumulo and Alpha Medical, and previously served on the board and as Audit Committee Chair of the Wikimedia Foundation (owner of Wikipedia.org). Kelly holds a Bachelor of Science in Engineering from Princeton University and an MBA from Harvard Business School, both with honors.

Prat Bhatt
Former CAO at Cisco | Board Member Seagate Technology, RingCentral, Financial Accounting Foundation, and Center for Audit Quality
Prat is a seasoned Fortune 100 senior technology executive, public company board member, and a financial expert with deep experience in large, complex multinational organizations, global operations, strategy, enterprise risk management, and investor relations. He is the former SVP, Chief Accounting Officer at Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) and led a global team of over 1,000 finance professionals across all of Cisco’s businesses.

In his 23-year career with Cisco he led key finance initiatives including development of operational strategies, processes and systems in support of Cisco’s digital and growth imperatives; capital allocation; public debt offerings; tax strategy; deal structuring for complex sales arrangements & investment/M&A transactions; along with pre and post M&A strategy and integration. As a strategist, he led the development of Cisco’s Finance Transformation Strategy driving operational design and execution for new product and service offerings for the global markets.

Prat led the strategy and implementation of Cisco’s Integrated Risk and Compliance program and the Compliance Committee. He led the strategy and governance over financial systems in concert with the CIO and CISO addressing cyber security and data protection issues. Prat led discussions with Cisco’s Audit Committee on quarterly results, financial reporting, regulation, governance, and risk management.
Investor relations is a key component of Prat’s expertise. He met quarterly for post-earnings callbacks with sell-side analysts and buy-side investors. He was fully responsible for strategy, messaging, and oversight of Cisco’s quarterly earnings release process. Operationally, Prat led the development of the Cisco Virtual Close as well as forecast, budget, shared services, and performance management processes and has been well recognized for best-in-class financial practices. He built high performing teams operating across the Americas, EMEA and Asia-Pacific and is highly proficient in addressing complex U.S. and international financial and tax matters.

Prat serves on the Board of Directors of Seagate Technology (NASDAQ: STX) and is the Chair of the Audit & Finance Committee and member of the Nominating and Governance Committee. Prat serves on the Board of Directors of RingCentral (NYSE: RNG) and is the Lead Independent Director, Chair of the Audit Committee, and a member of the Compensation Committee. Prat serves on the Board of Trustees of the Financial Accounting Foundation (FAF) which is responsible for the governance and oversight of the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). Prat also serves on the Governing Board of the Center for Audit Quality (CAQ) which plays a critical and influential role in maintaining investor trust in our capital markets. He also is a member of Deloitte’s Audit Quality Advisory Council (AQAC). 
Prat is a highly respected and longstanding leader in the finance profession and influential in financial standard setting having served on advisory committees to the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), chair roles including the Financial Executives International’s Committee on Corporate Reporting (CCR), and is a regular speaker on financial reporting & accounting topics at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business and other forums.

Prior to Cisco, Prat was a financial executive at Kaiser Permanente responsible for FP&A, resource allocation, and performance improvement. He was also with EY in the assurance practice. He holds a graduate degree in accounting from the University of Southern California, an undergraduate degree in economics from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and is a CPA.

Ken Goldman

Mr. Goldman is the former President of Hillspire, a family office management company responsible for financial and administrative functions and real estate, aviation, and maritime activities. Prior to that, Mr. Goldman was the former chief financial officer of Yahoo!, Inc., responsible for Yahoo! 's global finance functions, including financial planning and analysis, controllership, tax, treasury, and investor relations, since October 2012. Mr. Goldman served as

senior vice president of finance and administration and chief financial officer of Fortinet, Inc., a provider of unified threat management solutions, from September 2007 to September 2012. From August 2000 until March 2006, Mr. Goldman served as senior vice president of finance and administration and chief financial officer of Siebel Systems, Inc. During a professional career spanning over forty years, Mr. Goldman has served as CFO of multiple public and private companies and as CFO has helped take three companies public including VLSI, Excite@Home, and Fortinet.

In addition, Mr. Goldman's experience includes board director, audit committee chairman, and financial advisory roles at over 40 corporate boards, of which over ten have gone public while he was a board member. Mr. Goldman also currently serves on the board of directors of public companies, including Fortinet, RingCentral, and C3.ai, private boards including Wealthfront, Kodiak Robotics, Pattern Computer, AppOnmi, and Otto Aviation, and other non-profit boards such as the RFK Human Rights Board and formerly Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Foundation Board. Mr. Goldman was a member of the Board of Trustees of Cornell University from 2005 to 2013 and was subsequently designated as Emeritus Trustee, and is also a member of Cornell University Bowers CIS Advisory Council. Mr. Goldman is currently on the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board's (PCAOB's) Investor Advisor Group (IAG) Committee. He was appointed in January 2015 to a three-year term to the PCAOB's Standing Advisory Group (SAG), and was a member of the Treasury Advisory Committee on the Auditing Profession over the years 2007-2008. He also served on the Financial Accounting Standards Advisory Council (FASAC) and Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), VRF and IFRS. Mr. Goldman is currently on the Harvard Business School California Research Center Advisory Board, Mr. Goldman is currently on the Harvard Business School California Research Center Advisory Board and a Member of the Hoover Institution Board of Overseers, effective 2021.

Mr. Goldman holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. Ken enjoys skiing, windsurfing, kiteboarding, and golf in his spare time.

Moderator: 
Jan Robertson
Managing Partner & CFO
SiVial Advisors, LLC

Managing Partner, CFO and Co-Founder of SiVal Advisors, a technology-focused mergers & acquisitions advisory firm located in Silicon Valley, California. Ms. Robertson, a frequent speaker and author on topics related to M&A, has advised numerous clients and boards of directors on a wide variety of transactions over her thirty-year career. Prior to SiVal Advisors, Jan was Managing Director in Needham & Company's Menlo Park, CA office, where she built the M&A practice from 1997 to 2002, and prior to that was a Managing Director, M&A at RBC Capital Markets in Toronto. She is a frequent speaker on M&A related topics in the U.S. and internationally. In 2012 Jan was honored as one of Silicon Valley’s “Top 100 Women of Influence”. Earlier this year, Jan was honored to received the Financial Executives Distinguished Service Award for 2025 at the annual FEI National Leadership Summit in Las Vegas on May 19th. This prestigious award acknowledges exceptional accomplishments and dedication from members representing FEI chapters nationwide.

SiVal Advisors’ professionals have completed over 500 transactions worth $12 billion in deal value. Based in Silicon Valley with connections around the globe, we serve clients in a range of technology industries including: software, business services, e-commerce, healthcare, and manufacturing, with valuations, growth funding, acquisitions, mergers and sales of businesses.

Registration Policy

CPE Credits

One (1.0) CPE credit available. Field of Study: TBA

FEI is registered with the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA) as a sponsor of continuing professional education on the National Registry of CPE Sponsors. State boards of accountancy have final authority on the acceptance of individual courses for CPE credit. Questions regarding registered sponsors may be submitted to the National Registry of CPE Sponsors through its website, www.NASBARegistry.org.