To ensure your nominated candidate qualifies for consideration, you are encouraged to review the CFE Membership Guidelines below.

General Objectives and Guidelines

• Attract the highest-ranking women in significant organizations in the Chicago metropolitan area who are in finance-related functions. Endeavor to consider the highest-ranking women in the organization.
• Complimenting the specific qualifications outlined below, the overall breadth, scope and accomplishments of an individual’s career and current responsibilities may be considered.
•  Maintain an appropriate balance between industry groups and organizations for optimal personal and professional development for members.
• Be sufficiently selective, in order to support and enhance the stature of the Chicago Finance Exchange.

Industry Group Guidelines

• Accounting/Consulting Firms: Ranking women partners or persons with equivalent responsibilities in the largest accounting firms, ranking partner with additional management responsibilities in smaller CPA firms. In consulting firms, other than consulting divisions of accounting firms, Partner/Vice President and/or practice/division leader, either with broad financial management responsibilities, or consulting in finance-related fields.
  
• Board Director  (Added June 2014)
  Candidate must have held senior leadership position(s) during her professional career that would meet CFE’s current membership guidelines and currently serve on at least one of the following:
  
   - A public company board
   - A mutual fund board
   - A private company board (includes private equity portfolio company)with a minimum of $1B in annual revenue
   
• Corporations: (Revised June 2013)
• President, CEO, CFO, VP Finance (or equivalent), Chief Accounting Officer/Corporate Controller/Treasurer, for public or privately held companies with revenues exceeding $1 billion. Directors of Finance or equivalent (non-Board) may also be considered for membership, subject to the CFE Board's review and discretion, and dependent on overall scope of current and past roles.
  
• CFO in public or privately held corporations $200 million to $1 billion in revenue; Direct report of CFO (Vice President or equivalent) may also be considered for membership, subject to the CFE Board's review and discretion, and dependent on overall scope of current and past roles.
  
• CFO in public or privately held corporations below $200 million in revenue may also be considered for membership, subject to the CFE Board's review and discretion, and dependent on overall scope of current and past roles.
  
• Directors who serve on public company boards, and are considered financial experts as defined by the SEC - whether they hold other executive finance positions within a corporation, or serve on the board(s) as their primary occupation.
  
• Directors who serve a similar function on for-profit privately held company boards may also be considered for membership, subject to the CFE Board's review and discretion.
• Entrepreneurs: Owner of finance-related business or senior ranking financial women in business where the viability and industry position of the business is established and/or prior experience and track record of the nominee otherwise meet requirements.
   
  
• Financial Institutions: (Revised June 2013)
  • Senior Vice President, Director or above (or comparable responsibility) at commercial banks, S&Ls, or similar institutions.
    
  • For investment banks, Managing Director for firms (or investment banking divisions of larger entities) with 50 or more people based in Chicago, or Senior Vice President for smaller firms.    
• Venture Capital, Private Equity and Hedge Funds (NEW June 2013)
  • Candidate should be the highest ranking woman within a fund that is actively investing (Partner/Principal/Managing Director level).
    
  • If there are no female candidates at the Partner/Principal/Managing Director level, then the candidate should be the highest ranking woman within a fund that is actively investing (Director/Vice President).
    
  • Active involvement and demonstrated success in making and monitoring investments should be substantiated through both investment track record and board level participation/observation.
    
  • For a candidate to be considered, her fund should be sizable and have committed institutional capital. Recommended guidelines for minimum committed capital are $50mm VC; $150mm PE and $500mm Hedge Fund/Alternative Investments/Fund of Funds. Funds at the end of their life cycle should be actively raising their next fund (not in wind-down mode).  
• Law: Ranking women partners with financially related practices in the top law firms.
  
• Public/Not-For-Profit:
  • Colleges, Universities: CFO or President in colleges or universities with enrollment over 5,000.
    
  • Academic Professionals: Tenure Track Associate or Full Professor, or funded Research Fellow of Business, Finance or financially related discipline at fully accredited graduate program, or at a fully accredited four year college or university with enrollment of more than 5,000; or an individual with significant business or financially related academic credentials.
    
  • Hospitals: CFO, President, or Senior Financial Executive Officer at a hospital with over 500 beds, or patient revenues over $100M.
    
  • Charitable Organizations, Voluntary Health and Welfare, Cultural/Arts: CFO, Executive Director, Non-elected President, or Senior Financial Executive Officer at an organization with revenues over $10M.
    
  • Trade and Professional Organizations: CFO, Executive Director, Non-elected President, Senior Financial Executive Officer at an organization with revenues over $10M.
    
  • Government or Related Agency: CFO, Senior Financial Executive Officer or equivalent position with budgetary responsibility or, if the organization is finance-related, Executive Director or non-elected President, at an organization of appropriate stature.      
• Securities/Commodities:  
  
• Senior money manager, investment advisor and/or trader who designs the investment strategies and originates the trading decisions. The candidate should be at a Managing Director level or equivalent. Assets under management by the individual's team should be a minimum of $1 billion. If the assets under management are below that level, an individual's career accomplishments in the aggregate may be taken into consideration. (Revised June 2012)
  
• Senior corporate officer with substantial management responsibilities in a company with more than 50 employees.     
  
• Owner of company involved in trading, investing or executing orders in securities or commodities. The company must have or have access to net capital of more than $1,000,000.