As finance executives face a range of challenges in the currentenvironment, they must avoid becoming defensive and instead serveas leaders in the search for solutions, says Ann Marie Petach, CFOand senior managing director at asset management firmBlackRock.

The hurdles currently confronting finance executives include thesustained volatility in financial markets, historically lowinterest rates, demographic changes, uncertainty about the outcomeof the debt crisis in Europe, regulatory changes in response to thefinancial crisis and risk management challenges, Petach toldfinance executives attending the Alexander Hamilton Best PracticesSummit in New York City.

Investors and the public at large, including the Occupy WallStreet protestors only blocks away from the conference site inlower Manhattan, are justifiably upset about the impact of thefinancial crisis on their retirement savings and other investments.“The public is not happy,” Petach says. “They expect change.”Finance executives must accept the inevitability of change ratherthan trying to prevent it, she adds