17th Annual Conference on Financial Reporting
Friday, October 27, 2006
San Francisco Marriott Hotel
- Introduction
- Program Schedule
- Speaker Biographies
- Organizations Represented
- Registration
- Hotel Location, Directions and Accommodations
Speaker Biographies
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of all the speaker biographies.
Board Member, IASB
Joan E. Horngren Professor of Accounting, Stanford University
Mary E. Barth is the Joan E. Horngren Professor of Accounting and Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the Stanford University, Graduate School of Business (GSB). She also is a member of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB).
Professor Barth's research focuses on financial accounting and reporting issues, particularly topics of interest to accounting standard setters. Her research is published in a variety of journals and has won several awards, including the Wildman Medal Award, the Competitive Manuscript Award and, on two occasions, the Best Paper Award of the Financial Accounting and Reporting Section of the American Accounting Association (AAA).
She has been the Associate Editor of The Accounting Review and is on the Editorial Boards of several other academic journals. Profesor Barth is active in the AAA, having served as Vice President and as Chair of several committess. Prior to joining the IASB, Professor Barth's accounting standard setting activities included serving as a member of the Accounting Standards Executive Committee of the American Institute of CPAs and the Financial Accounting Standards Advisory Council of the Financial Accounting Standards Board. Prior to joining the faculty at Stanford in 1995, she was an Associate Professor at Harvard Business School and an audit partner in Arthur Andersen & Co.
Professor Barth holds an AB from Cornell University, an MBA from Boston University, and a PhD from Stanford University.
MARK BIELSTEIN
Member, Emerging Issues Task Force, FASB
Partner, KPMG LLP
Mr. Bielstein is the partner-in-charge of the Accounting Group of KPMG's Department of Professional Practice - Audit & Advisory Services in New York, New York.
Mr. Bielstein is a member of the Emerging Issues Task Force of the Financial Accounting Standards Board and a former member and Chairman of the Accounting Standards Executive Committee of the AICPA.
Prior to joining the Department of Professional Practice in 1997, Mr. Bielstein served as an audit engagement partner in KPMG's San Antonio, Texas office for clients in the hospitality, real estate, construction, oil and gas, and investment services industries. Mr. Bielstein also served as the Professional Practice Partner for the San Antonio office.
Mr. Bielstein joined KPMG's San Antonio office in 1978 following graduation from Baylor University with a BBA degree in economics.
TOBY BISHOP
Forensic & Dispute Services Partner,
Deloitte Financial Advisory Services LLP
Immediate Past President & CEO, ACFE
Toby J.F. Bishop is a partner in the Forensic & Dispute Services practice of Deloitte Financial Advisory Services LLP in Chicago. He is a global thought leader in the area of fraud prevention and detection with a special focus on the issue of financial statement fraud. Mr. Bishop is a member of the national leadership team for our Antifraud Programs & Controls services.
Mr. Bishop is the former president and chief executive officer of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, a global professional association of 37,000 anti-fraud professionals in 125 countries. He is a contributing author and a member of the Board of Editors of Business Crimes Bulletin.
A member of the Antifraud Programs & Controls Task Force of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, Mr. Bishop co-authored Management Antifraud Programs and Controls: Guidance to Help Prevent, Deter, and Detect Fraud and Management Override: The Achilles' Heel of Fraud Prevention - The Audit Committee and Oversight of Financial Reporting.
A global commentator on fraud trends, Mr. Bishop has been quoted in major international publications such as The New York Times, London's Daily Telegraph and India Today. His material has also appeared in Fraud Magazine, CFO magazine, The American Banker, Director's Alert, Bottom Line/Business, Computerworld, Corporate Crime Reporter, White-Collar Crime Fighter, Accounting Today, The Auditor's Report, Journal of Accountancy, The CPA Journal, INSIGHT and Internal Auditing.
Mr. Bishop has appeared on television and radio in several countries. He has brought his thought provoking insights on fraud to events for organizations such as the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, state CPA societies, the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, accounting fraternity Beta Alpha Psi, the Institute of Internal Auditors, the Institute for International Research, and the Institute of Management Accountants. He also provides executive education on fraud for organizations internationally.
Dedicated to using education to empower others to fight fraud effectively, Mr. Bishop has given presentations to more than one thousand professors to help them equip the next generation of accounting and finance professionals to fight fraud effectively. A popular invited speaker, he has given interactive presentations to thousands of undergraduate and graduate students at universities around the world.
A native of England, Mr. Bishop is a graduate of Oxford University. He is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA), a Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE) and a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales (FCA).
JOHN CLIFTON BOGLE
Founder of the Vanguard Group, Inc.
President of the Bogle Financial Markets Research Center
John C. Bogle is Founder of The Vanguard Group, Inc., and President of the Bogle Financial Markets Research Center. He created Vanguard in 1974 and served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer until 1996 and Senior Chairman until 2000. He had been associated with a predecessor company since 1951, immediately following his graduation from Princeton University, magna cum laude in Economics. He is a graduate of Blair Academy, Class of 1947.
The Vanguard Group is one of the two largest mutual fund organizations in the world. Headquartered in Malvern, Pennsylvania, Vanguard comprises more than 120 mutual funds with current assets totaling $1 trillion. Vanguard 500 Index Fund, the largest fund in the group, was founded by Mr. Bogle in 1975. It was the first index mutual fund. The story of his life and career is told in John Bogle and the Vanguard Experiment: One Man's Quest to Transform the Mutual Fund Industry, by Robert Slater (1996).
In 2004, TIME magazine named Mr. Bogle as one of the world's 100 most powerful and influential people, and Institutional Investor presented him with its Lifetime Achievement Award. In 1999, Fortune designated him as one of the investment industry's four "Giants of the 20th Century." In the same year, he received the Woodrow Wilson Award from Princeton University for "distinguished achievement in the Nation's service." In 1997, he was named one of the "Financial Leaders of the 20th Century" in Leadership in Financial Services (Macmillan Press Ltd., 1997). In 1998, Mr. Bogle was presented the Award for Professional Excellence from the Association for Investment Management and Research, and in 1999 he was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the Fixed Income Analysts Society, Inc.
Mr. Bogle is a best-selling author. More than 500,000 copies of his four books have been purchased, beginning with Bogle on Mutual funds: New Perspectives for the Intelligent Investor (1993), Common Sense on Mutual Funds: New Imperatives for the Intelligent Investor (1999), John Bogle on Investing: The First 50 Years (2000), and Character Counts: The Creation and Building of The Vanguard Group (2002). His fifth book, Battle for the Soul of Capitalism, was published by Yale University Press in September 2005.
Mr. Bogle served as Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Investment Company Institute in 1969-1970, and as a member of the Board in 1969-1974. In 1997, he was appointed by then-U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Arthur Levitt to serve on the Independence Standards Board. In 2000, he was named by the Commonwealth's Chamber of Commerce as Pennsylvania's Business Leader of the Year.
He has served as Chairman of the Board of the National Constitution Center since September 1999, and was a Director of Instinet Corporation until December 2005. He is a member of The Conference Board's Commission on Public Trust and Private Enterprise, the American Philosophical Society, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. A Trustee of Blair Academy, he served as Chairman in 1986-2001. He also serves on the Investment Committee of the Phi Beta Kappa Society. He has received honorary doctorate degrees from the University of Delaware, University of Rochester, New School University, Susquehanna University, Eastern University, Widener University, Albright College, Pennsylvania State University, Drexel University, Immaculata University and Princeton University.
Mr. Bogle was born in Montclair, New Jersey, on May 8, 1929. He now resides in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, with his wife, Eve. They are the parents of six children and the grandparents of twelve.
TOM CAMPBELL
Bank of America Dean & Professor,
Haas School of Business
Tom Campbell is the thirteenth dean of the Haas School of Business, a position he has held since August 2002. He formerly held positions of US Congressman, California State Senator, Stanford University law professor, and, recently, California's Director of Finance.
At UC Berkeley, Dean Campbell has focused his efforts on moving the Haas School forward to be among the very top business schools in the world by achieving financial self sufficiency and by building on its excellence in teaching, research, and public service. He is leading efforts to expand the school's faculty from 60 to 90 full time, tenure track positions to achieve parity with other top schools. Haas is about one-third of the way toward this hiring goal. The school now pays market rate salaries to attract and retain the best professors.
In December 2004, Dean Campbell took a one-year leave of absence from the school after being appointed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to be director of the California Department of Finance. He returned as dean of the Haas School in November 2005.
Prior to joining the Haas School in 2002, Dean Campbell was a law professor at Stanford University Law School for 19 years, beginning in 1983. He was elected five times to represent the Silicon Valley area of California in the United States Congress. Among his legislative achievements were authorship of the 1998 Food Bank Relief Act and the 2000 Peace Corps Reauthorization Act.
Campbell also was elected as a California state senator in 1993. During a two-year term, he earned ratings by the Sacramento-based "California Journal" as the most ethical state senator, the best overall senator and the state Senate's best problem solver.
A native of Chicago, Campbell earned his bachelor's and master's degrees in economics at the University of Chicago, and a law degree from Harvard in 1976. He returned to the University of Chicago, earning a Ph.D. in economics there in 1980. His dissertation was the first quantitative measurement of discrimination against women in federal civil service employment.
He served as a clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Byron White from 1977 to 1978 and, the year before that, for U.S. Court of Appeals Judge George E. MacKinnon. He practiced law at Winston & Strawn in Chicago until 1980, when he became a White House fellow in the Office of the Chief of Staff. He then served as executive assistant to the U.S. Deputy Attorney General and became the youngest person ever to be appointed director of the Bureau of Competition in the Federal Trade Commission, where he served from 1981 to 1983, when he joined the faculty of Stanford Law School.
BRIAN T. CROTEAU
Associate Chief Accountant
Office of the Chief Accountant, SEC
Brian T. Croteau is an Associate Chief Accountant in the Office of the Chief Accountant of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. He specializes in auditing matters relating to public companies and leads many of the Commission's activities with respect to its oversight role over the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board. Mr. Croteau monitors the development of auditing standards; consults with registrants, audit committee members, and auditors on independence matters; and participates in the development of staff guidance and rule proposals.
Prior to joining the Commission in 2004, Mr. Croteau worked as a senior manager with PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. During his ten-year career at PwC, he performed audits of public and private companies of varying size primarily specializing in the consumer and industrial products industry.
Mr. Croteau is a Certified Public Accountant and he is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. He is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst where he earned his B.B.A. in accounting.
SOLOMON DARWIN
Executive Director, CFRM
Haas School of Business,
University of California, Berkeley
Solomon Darwin teaches in the MBA and Executive Development programs at Haas. He was formerly Associate Professor of clinical accounting at the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California. Darwin brings more than ten years of national and international teaching experience in financial and managerial accounting, along with 14 years of senior management experience as corporate officer at Bank of America, First Interstate Bank, Glendale Federal Bank and Motorola Inc.
He also serves as chairman of the board from Project India, a nonprofit humanitarian organization, and spearheaded the establishment of a charity hospital and an international school in Mori, India.
Darwin holds a BA from San Francisco State University and an MBA from Golden Gate University. He completed an executive management program at Harvard University's Graduate School of Business.
THOMAS F. FLANNERY
Partner & Americas Director of Audit Committee Communications
Ernst & Young LLP
Tom has over 25 years of experience with Ernst and Young, and he currently serves as coordinating partner for TDBanknorth, Inc. and Texttron Financial Corporation. He joined Ernst & Young's Boston office after graduating from Boston College in 1981. He became a partner in 1995, after serving 14 years in the audit practice. Tom was appointed managing partner of the New England Assurance and Advisory Business Services practice in 1999. In that role, Tom oversaw the area's core assurance audit practice as well as the mergers and acquisitions, due diligence, business risk, and security and technology practice units. From 1999 to 2003, Tom served in the National office as Director of Quality for the Assurance and Advisory Business service practice for the Americas.
Tom has an extensive client service background. He has served organizations in various industries, including banking, manufacturing, retail and distribution. His past clients include State Street Corporation Staples, Reebock, and the Boston Red Sox Foundation.
Tom is a member of the board of trustees of St. Sebastian's School, the New England Council and the National Alumni Board of Boston College. Tom, and his wife Gina, and their four children live in Hingham, MA.
JON E. FLAXMAN
Senior Vice President & Controller
Hewlett-Packard
Jon Flaxman is senior vice president and controller of HP, with worldwide responsibility for all of the company's accounting and financial reporting activities.
Reporting to HP's chief financial officer, Flaxman also oversees and manages the companywide financial planning processes and HP's Indirect Procurement and Trade Credit and Collections organizations.
Named to his current role in 2001, Flaxman has worked in a variety of increasingly responsible controller and finance assignments within HP's computer business as well as the former test and measurement business, since spun off as Agilent Technologies.
Currently based in Palo Alto, Calif., Flaxman joined HP as a cost accountant in 1981.
Flaxman holds a bachelor's degree in finance from the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana and a master's degree in business administration from Washington University in St. Louis.
BILL GRADISON
Immediate Past Acting Chairman & Founding Member, PCAOB
In October, 2002, Bill Gradison was appointed by the Securities and Exchange Commission as a founding Member of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), which was created by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. In August, 2004, he was unanimously reappointed to a full five-year term. In December, 2005, he was appointed Acting Chairman of PCAOB and served in this capacity until July, 2006.
Mr. Gradison held elective office for over 30 years and later was president of the Health Insurance Association of America for six years. From 1999 until the end of 2002, he was senior public policy counselor with Patton Boggs. During his 18 years in Congress (1975-1993), Mr. Gradison was ranking member of the House Budget Committee and the Health Subcommittee of the Committee on Ways and Means. He served as Vice Chairman of the U.S. Bipartisan Commission on Comprehensive Health Care (the Pepper Commission), and was a member of the Pew Health Professions Commission, as well as the Commonwealth Fund's Commission on Women's Health. He also served as vice chair of the Commonwealth Fund's Task Force on Academic Health Centers.
Mr. Gradison began his career in public service in Washington, D.C., in 1953 as Assistant to the Under Secretary of the Treasury, having previously served on the finance faculty of the Harvard Business School. Before returning to his hometown of Cincinnati to launch his career as a general partner of a New York Stock Exchange firm, he served as Assistant to the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare.
He served as Chairman of the Board of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Cincinnati and was a member of Cincinnati City Council for 13 years, serving as Vice Mayor and Mayor.
Mr. Gradison received a B.A. from Yale and an M.B.A. and D.C.S. from Harvard.
GRACE L. HINCHMAN
Senior Vice President, Public Affairs & Technical Activities
FEI
In January 1999 Grace Hinchman joined Financial Executives International as the Vice President for Government Relations, responsible for the association's advocacy activities and management of FEI's Washington office. In July 2000, she was promoted to Senior Vice President, Public Affairs and assumed the responsibilities for the Strategic Partnership Program. Financial Executives International (FEI) is a professional association representing the interests of approximately 15,000 CFO's, Treasurers, Controllers, and other senior financial executives from over 8,000 corporations throughout the United States and Canada, representing both providers and users of financial information.
Prior to FEI, from 1987 to 1998, Grace was the Manager of Public Affairs for Digital Equipment Corporation where she was directly responsible for Digital's Washington D.C. office, managing the staff and developing corporate positions on legislation and regulatory issues in telecommunications, technology policy, tax, health care and other areas of corporate interest.
From 1981 to 1987, Ms. Hinchman was the Managing Director at Telocator Network of America, the national trade association for the paging and cellular communications industry. Prior to joining Telocator, Ms. Hinchman worked for eight years on Capitol Hill serving on the staff of House and Senate members including Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York and Former Congressman David Emery of Maine.
Ms. Hinchman holds an M.B.A. from George Washington University and a B.S. from the University of Maryland. She writes a regularly featured column for FE Magazine, has appeared on NPR Radio, presented testimony before Congress, and served on the U.S. State Department International Communications & Information Policy Advisory Committee. She is an active member of Women in Government Relations and The Tax Coalition
STEVEN W. HOBBS
Senior Advisor
Protiviti
Steve began his career in 1983 with Andersen after obtaining a graduate degree from the Brigham Young University Marriott School of Management. He was promoted to Partner in 1995 and served as Audit Division Head of the Salt Lake City (SLC) Andersen practice from 1998 to 2002.
Steve currently is a board member at Silent Whistle/Allegiance (Chairman) and Berkshire Hathaway Bank (Audit Committee Chair). He served as a management consultant to Evans & Sutherland Computer Corporation during Jan-Apr 2006 to assist with a significant divestiture, acquisition and a restatement of financial statements. Steve is currently an adjunct faculty member at the University of Utah. Steve recently entered into a consulting agreement to serve as a Senior Advisor to Protiviti, Inc. In this role, Steve provides valuable oversight and advice to Protiviti clients, particular Board of Directors and senior management. He has recently consulted with several company board and management teams in dealing with stock option backdating issues.
Steve has 24 years experience providing professional financial audit and business consulting services to clients in various industries, primarily consumer products entities. He has significant experience in financial and operational consulting and extensive knowledge in high-tech, software, manufacturing, retail and distribution industries. He has assisted numerous clients with internal control enhancements and provisions of the Sarbanes Oxley Act and has extensive SEC practice experience (>40 clients). Steve has worked with many large multi-location and international enterprises and has made numerous visits to Europe and Asia to assist clients with international expansion and operational issues. He has been directly involved in numerous public & private financings totaling over $2 billion. The range of services Steve has offered and provided to the market includes:
Public Companies , SOX Compliance , Merger and Acquisitions , Quality Assurance , Finance Processes , and Audit Committees.
JEFFREY L. JOHANNS
Technical Consulting Partner
National Accounting Consulting Services
PWC, LLP
Jeff is currently a partner in the National Accounting Consulting Services (ACS) group of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. His areas of specialization include revenue recognition, stock based compensation and accounting for income taxes. Prior to joining the National ACS group, Jeff was an assurance partner in PwC's technology industry group. He has over 25 years of experience with companies ranging from pre IPO start-up entities to Fortune 500 public registrants in the technology, consumer products and outsourcing industries. Jeff is a certified public accountant in California and Texas and is a member of the AICPA. He holds a bachelor of science degree in accountancy from the University of Illinois.
BOB LAUX
Director of Technical Accounting & Reporting
Microsoft Corporation
Bob Laux is the Director of Technical Accounting and Reporting at Microsoft Corporation. Mr. Laux is responsible for Microsoft's technical accounting, including interacting with and responding to accounting standard setters on numerous issues. Technical accounting responsibilities include responding to GAAP questions and issues within Microsoft. He is also responsible for Microsoft's comment letters on new accounting pronouncements and representing Microsoft at standard setters' public roundtables.
Prior to joining Microsoft in 2000, Bob was an Industry Fellow at the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) where he was responsible for coordinating the activities of the Emerging Issues Task Force. Prior to joining the FASB, Bob spent eight years at General Motors managing their external financial reporting and interacting with and responding to accounting standard setters.
THOMAS J. LINSMEIER
Board Member, FASB
Thomas J. Linsmeier was appointed as a member of the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) in July, 2006. An award-winning teacher and researcher with particular expertise in financial reporting for derivatives and risk management activities, Dr. Linsmeier was formerly Russell E. Palmer Endowed Professor and Chairperson of the Department of Accounting and Information Systems at Michigan State University.
He also has served as Academic Fellow and Special Consultant to the Office of the Chief Accountant at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), where he was responsible for developing U.S. financial reporting disclosure rules relating the market risk inherent in derivatives and other financial instruments. In addition, he has held professorial appointments at the University of Iowa and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Throughout his academic career, Dr. Linsmeier’s research has explored the role of accounting information in securities markets, including the usefulness to investors of fair value and market risk management disclosures, the valuation-relevance of bank earnings component information, and the economic effects of changes in accounting regulation. His work has been published in The Accounting Review; Journal of Accounting Research; Accounting Horizons; Management Science; Journal of Accounting, Auditing, and Finance; Journal of Business, Finance and Accounting; and Financial Analysts Journal.
Dr. Linsmeier has served as chairman of the Financial Accounting Standards Committee and president of the Financial Accounting and Reporting section of the American Accounting Association. He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and received his Ph.D. and MBA from the University of Wisconsin – Madison and his BBA from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Dr. Linsmeier’s current FASB term ends on June 30, 2011.
LESLIE A. MURPHY, CPA
Chair, AICPA
Group Managing Partner, Plante & Moran, LLC
Leslie A. Murphy is currently serving as Chair of the Board of Directors of the AICPA, the professional organization serving 340,000 members throughout the United States. She is also a Group Managing Partner at Plante & Moran, the nation's 14th largest public accounting and management consulting firm. She leads several service groups at the firm, as well as the strategic planning and marketing/practice development functions of the firm.
Leslie has consistently used her leadership skills to effect positive change at the firm, within the accounting profession, and in the realm of community service. She co-founded the firm's Personal Tightrope Action Committee, whose groundbreaking policy recommendations helped to gain Plante & Moran a place on FORTUNE magazine's "100 Best Companies to Work For" list for the past eight years.
She has also been recognized by the media and numerous professional organizations for her contributions. The Michigan Association awarded her their "Outstanding Visionary" award in September, 2005. CPA Magazine named Ms. Murphy one of the "Top 100 Most Influential Practitioners for 2005," and Accounting Today declared her one of the "Top 100 Most Influential People for 2005." Recently she was also named one of Business Finance's "2006 Influencers: 60 Authoritative Voices."
BENJAMIN S. NEUHAUSEN
Chairman, AcSEC
Partner & National Director of Accounting, BDO Seidman, LLP
Ben Neuhausen is the National Director of Accounting for BDO Seidman, LLP. He is a specialist on financial reporting, with particular expertise in accounting for compensation arrangements (both executive compensation and qualified retirement plans), financial instruments including derivatives, consolidation and equity method, leasing, insurance, real estate, motion pictures, oil and gas, and health care. At BDO his responsibilities include: advising clients on financial reporting for complex or unusual transactions, assisting public companies respond to comments from the staff of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and representing BDO before accounting standards-setting organizations.
Prior to joining BDO, Ben was a partner in the Professional Standards Group of Arthur Andersen LLP. From 1979 to 1981, Ben was an FASB Fellow.
Ben has been a member of numerous professional committees, task forces, and working groups. He is currently chairman of the AICPA Accounting Standards Executive Committee (AcSEC) and a member of the Financial Reporting Committee of the Institute of Management Accountants. He also chaired the AICPA Task Force on Real Estate Time-Share Transactions.
Ben holds an MBA in Accounting from New York University and a BA in Economics from Michigan State University. He is a member of the AICPA, the Illinois CPA Society, and the Institute of Management Accountants.
MARIA NONDORF
Assistant Professor of Accounting
Haas School of Business,
University of California, Berkeley
Professor Nondorf came to Berkeley upon completion of her PhD at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2003. She currently researches the effects of accounting on the structure of firms corporate financing activities, in particular, mergers and acquisitions. Her dissertation examines how the inability to repurchase shares affected high technologies firms that used the pooling-of-interests method to account for acquisitions. She is also studying the changes in both target and buyer stock option plans surrounding acquisitions to assess the incentive effects of such changes and to evaluate the association between accounting for stock options and alterations to stock option plans prior to such acquisitions. In addition to her research responsibilities, Professor Nondorf teaches intermediate and advanced financial accounting topics to Haas MBA students.
Prior to obtaining her PhD, Professor Nondorf was a senior manager in the Corporate Finance Transaction Services Group of PricewaterhouseCoopers in New York, NY. She is a CPA in the state of Georgia where she received her BBA in accounting from Mercer University.
BETSY RAFAEL
Vice President, Corporate Controller & Principal Accounting Officer
CISCO
Betsy Rafael, vice president, corporate controller and principal accounting officer of finance, brings to Cisco 18 years of finance and operations experience at both small and large high-tech companies in the Silicon Valley. Most recently, Betsy served as executive vice president of Finance and CFO at Aspect Communications, overseeing the company's entire financial, legal, manufacturing, IT and facilities activities. Prior to her position with Aspect, she served as senior vice president and CFO at Escalate, a private e-commerce applications service provider.
Previously, Betsy had a long and successful tenure with SGI, where she last served as senior vice president and CFO responsible for global finance, facilities, information systems, and investor relations. Prior to her post as CFO, Betsy held a number of senior finance positions with SGI. Betsy has also held management positions at Sun, Apple, and Ernst & Young.
Betsy has a bachelor's degree in accounting from Santa Clara University and is a Certified Public Accountant.
PAUL SHARMAN
President & CEO
Institute of Management Accountants
Paul Sharman is President and CEO of The Institute of Management Accountants (IMAŽ). Since January 2004, when he was asked by IMA's Executive Committee to manage the association's operations, he has established an entirely new direction for the association, its members and staff. His mission is to advance the management accounting and finance profession through certification, superior professional ethical standards and competence based continuing education. This will reposition management accountants at the forefront of the accountancy profession.
Paul is an ACMA (Associate Chartered Management Accountant) and has held controllership positions for Northern Telecom Canada Ltd. He is also Founder and President of Focused Management Inc. As one of North America's better known independent cost and performance management consultants, Paul has facilitated implementation with many organizations, including: Volkswagen Canada, Dupont, Toyota Motor Credit Corp, Kellogg, L.A. Gear, AT&T, US Army, Canadian Navy, Bell Canada, Ontario Hydro, Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, Canadian Pacific Railways, Citibank, Hewlett Packard, MCI WorldCom, Express Scripts (ESI), Clarica, Sun Life, Canada Life, Garmco, CitiBank, Inco, and others around the world. Paul has trained thousands of people around the world through seminars in association with the Institute for International Research, York University, and the Institute of Management Accountants, as well as through numerous in-house sessions for his clients.
He has been involved with activity studies and productivity engagements with Introspect Inc., a licensee of the G.E. Company, in a jet engine manufacturer, an insurance company, a Bell Operating Company, and others. Paul is a trained process reengineering facilitator with the Rummler Brache Group and has been involved with benchmarked performance measurement with the American Productivity and Quality Center.
During the past few years Paul has worked with the CAM-I, CMS project and Robin Cooper (Harvard University) and most recently on the RCA interest group. Past consulting engagements involved Paul with Peter Turney (Portland State University) on several projects, KPMG Peat Marwick in the U.S. and Canada, as well as Ernst &Young. He is well known as a conference speaker on Strategic Cost Management and Activity Based Management/Costing in the U.S. and Canada.
Paul has written many articles for CMA, The Canadian Management Accounting Magazine, Strategic Finance Magazine and for other publications in the United States. He was editor of CMA Magazine for eight years (1990 - 1998). Paul is the author of the chapter "How to Implement ABC" in the 1995 edition of The Handbook of Cost Management, published by Warren Gorham & Lamont, New York, as well as the chapter "Enterprise Wide Cost Management Systems" in The Handbook of Cost Management for Service Industries. A number of his articles received awards for Distinguished Contribution to Management Accounting from the Financial and Management Committee of the International Federation of Accountants. He is a member of the editorial advisory board of the Journal of Cost Management
CAROL A. STACEY
Chief Accountant, Division of Corporation Finance, SEC
Carol Stacey was appointed Chief Accountant of the Division of Corporation Finance at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in February 2002. Ms. Stacey's previous roles in the Division include Deputy Chief Accountant, Associate Chief Accountant, and Assistant Chief Accountant. She started as a Staff Accountant in the Division in 1996.
Before joining the Commission, Ms. Stacey worked for an SEC registrant in various roles, including Director of Financial Reporting, Assistant Corporate Controller, and Divisional Controller. Prior to that, Ms. Stacey was an auditor in the Boston office of Coopers & Lybrand.
Ms. Stacey has a Bachelor of Science degree in Accountancy from Bentley College and a Master of Science degree in Accountancy from Virginia Tech.
HANS PLOOS van AMSTEL
Chief Financial Officer,
Levi Strauss & Co.
Hans Ploos van Amstel is the Chief Financial Officer of Levi Strauss & Co. (LS&CO.). In this role, he is responsible for managing the company's financial functions, including treasury, accounting, tax management, strategic and annual planning, internal audit, and financial systems.
Ploos van Amstel joined LS&CO. in 2003 as the company's vice president and CFO for the European division. Prior to joining LS&CO., he spent 14 years in increasingly responsible finance positions at Procter & Gamble. In 2001, he became the CFO of P&G's European region, at the time the company's largest division, where he built the business to deliver strong financial performance.
Ploos van Amstel has an undergraduate degree in economics, accounting and taxes from Economische Hogeschool in Holland, and graduated with honors in 1989 with an MBA from the University of Tilburg in Holland.
SUNEEL UDPA
Lecturer, Haas School of Business
Professor, St. Mary's College of California
Suneel Udpa is a Visiting Lecturer at the Haas School of Business. He received his M.S. in Business and his Ph.D. in Accounting from Washington University, St. Louis, MO. From 1997-99, Professor Udpa was the Chair of the Department of Accounting at St. Mary's College of California. From 1990-93, he was an Assistant Professor of Accounting at Emory University in Atlanta. His consulting interests are in the areas of cost systems, incentive contracts, and valuation for mergers & acquisitions
Professor Udpa's research interests include: activity-based cost systems, information content of earnings announcements, and valuation. His selected papers and publications include: "Activity-Based Costing for Hospitals," Health Care Management Review, Vol. 21, No. 3 (Summer 1996); "Go Online for Company Information," CPA Journal, Vol. 66, Issue 5 (May 1996); "Accounting Firm Policies and Procedures to Prevent Insider Trading Abuses," The Ohio CPA Journal (Nov/Dec 1996); "Insider Trading and the Information Content of Earnings," Journal of Business, Finance, and Accounting, Vol 23, No. 8 (Oct. 1996); "Accounting Education in a Liberal Arts College," Educational Perspectives, Vol. XIII, No. 2 (Spring 1996); "The Balanced Scorecard," by Robert Kaplan and David Norton - book review, The Accounting Review (January 1997); "Costing the Episode of Care Using Activity-Based Costing," Global Fees for Episodes of Care: New Approaches to Healthcare Financing, Douglas Emery, Editor (McGraw Hill Healthcare Education Group, 1998); and "Activity Cost Analysis: A Tool to Cost Medical Services and Improve Quality of Care," Journal of Managed Care Quarterly (2005).
BOB WALKER
Immediate Past Chairman
Financial Executives International
Robert R. (Bob) Walker was the CFO of Agilent Technologies from its creation in 1999 until December 2001. Walker created and managed Agilent's financial functions as the company was spun out from Hewlett Packard and completed its IPO. Since leaving Agilent, he has joined the boards of several publicly traded companies. He currently serves on the Board and chairs the Audit Committee of Electro Scientific Industries, based in Portland, OR and Brocade Communications Systems headquartered in San Jose, CA. He served as the chair of Financial Executives International (FEI) and is currently the first past chair of the organization. Before joining Agilent, Walker served as vice president and general manager of Hewlett Packard's Professional Services Business unit responsible for consulting, outsourcing and customer education. He joined HP in 1975 and held a variety of financial and administrative positions including the controller for the company's computer business. He spent four years leading HP's Information Technology function. Walker was named HP's first CIO and elected as vice president in 1995.


