Deadlines
School of Accountancy Conference 2021
Presenters
W. Steve Albrecht, a certified public accountant (CPA), certified internal auditor (CIA), and certified fraud examiner (CFE), received a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Brigham Young University and his MBA and PhD degrees from the University of Wisconsin.
Steve taught accounting, auditing and corporate governance/boards of directors at the University of Illinois, Stanford and BYU. He served as associate dean of the Marriott School of Business and director of the School of Accountancy at BYU for 20 years. He was president of the American Accounting Association, the organization of accounting professors in the U.S. and Canada, as well as president of several other academic organizations. He is the author or co-author of over 25 books and 125 academic articles on fraud, integrity, accounting, auditing and corporate governance/boards of directors. Dr. Albrecht has been selected as the winner of multiple awards and honors. In August 2015, Professor Albrecht received the Lifetime Service Award from the American Accounting Association.
He has consulted with numerous organizations, including Fortune 500 companies, major financial institutions, the United Nations, and FBI, and has been retained as an expert witness in 39 major fraud cases, including many of the largest financial statement fraud cases in the U.S. (Enron, Adelphia, Cendant, Tyco, Lincoln Savings & Loan, etc.) He has been on the AICPA Governing Counsel, the board of Regents of the Institute of Internal Auditors, president of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (a 90,000 member organization), the Financial Accounting Standards Advisory Committee (FASAC), the Financial Accounting Foundation (FAF). He received the Cressey Award from the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, the highest award given for a lifetime of achievement in fraud detection and deterrence. In honor of his contributions to fighting fraud, the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners named one of its headquarter buildings in Austin, Texas after Dr. Albrecht.
Dr. Albrecht has served on the boards of directors of five public companies (SkyWest Airlines, Cypress SemiConductor, Red Hat, Inc., SunPower Corporation and CoreLogic) and six large private companies (ICON Health & Fitness, Bonneville International, Sallie Mae Bank, Larry H. Miller Corporation, OYO, and Deseret Mutual Benefit Administrators (DMBA) along with several smaller companies). He is currently the lead independent director at Larry H. Miller and chairs the audit committees of every board he is on except CoreLogic. As a director at Red Hat and as chair of the board of Cypress SemiConductor, Dr. Albrecht was instrumental in negotiating the sale of Red Hat to IBM at a 65% premium and Cypress SemiConductor to Infineon Technologies for a 62% premium. As a board member, he has also been involved in the acquisition of numerous companies.
Eric is married to his best friend Lyn, and they are the parents of seven children and a growing number of grandchildren (13 so far). He loves to hike, ski, garden, take long walks and sing with Lyn, do woodwork, remodel homes, work with children on their projects, be with family, and serve in his church.
Currently, Eric is Senior Vice President, professional services at HealthCatalyst, a leader in healthcare improvement and analytics. In this role he is responsible for Health Catalyst University, a wide range of client leadership responsibilities, and international business development. He is also on the board of directors of a variety of companies including OC Tanner, Protocol Now, and many others. Prior to his current roles he was the Vice President of Information Technology and Chief Information Officer (CIO) for the University of Maryland and as the CIO for the University of Utah and the Utah System of Higher Education and was co-chair of the Utah Education Network board of directors. He also served on the board of directors of Educause.
In the private sector, Eric has worked as Chief Operating Officer of The RBL Group and Senior Vice President, Global Operations at Ascent Media. Before that, he served as CIO for Times Mirror Corporation (book division), for Brigham Young University (BYU), and for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Eric was CIO in Residence at The Research Board. He has also worked for Ernst & Whinney, Price Waterhouse, and Coopers & Lybrand as a consultant/researcher. Eric has also consulted with a variety of state and local governments and large firms such as IBM, Sears, State of Washington, Geneva Steel, Scott Paper, Cengage, The Research Board, and many others. He is an active investor and advisor with a variety of entrepreneurial efforts. Early in his career he was the Warnick/Deloitte & Touche Faculty Fellow and associate professor of accounting and information systems at BYU’s Marriott School of Management.
He is an experienced presenter at conferences, seminars, and symposia around the world. Eric has written books and scholarly and professional articles on the strategic use of information technology and has spoken or taught at conferences and universities throughout the world.
Eric has a bachelor’s degree in accounting from BYU, a master’s degree in information systems from BYU, and a doctorate in information systems from Michigan State University, where he was the Coopers & Lybrand Doctoral Scholar.
Dan Gunther graduated from BYU in 1997 with a Master of Accountancy. As the current SVP of Finance Transformation at Warner Music Group, Dan is designing the future digital roadmap to transform the Finance organization. He is defining a new operating model, process design and enabling technology, taking advantage of advances in SaaS, cloud, RPA, automation and AI. All this will support a transformed business to grow and deliver value for the artists. He is an implementer of organization design, process change and associated digital solutions for primary functions of the business. Dan leads coordination of functional and technical teams in Latin America, Asia, Europe and North America.
Melissa LarsonMelissa Larson graduated from BYU with her Master's in Tax in 1998. After graduation she worked for Larson & Company, a local CPA firm in Sandy, Utah where she obtained her CPA license. After two years of working for the firm (and 2 children later), Melissa returned to teach Accounting at BYU. For the past 20 years Melissa has taughtundergraduate and graduate courses at Utah Valley State College, BYU Provo, University of Utah, UC Berkeley and BYU Hawaii. In addition, from 2009-2011 Melissa worked at Grant Thornton, Salt Lake City as a Senior Tax Manager.
Melissa has a passion for teaching and helping the students develop their intellect, character and testimonies. Melissa has been awarded departmental, college and university teaching awards. Melissa is currently pursuing a PhD here at BYU in instructional psychology and technology.
Melissa is married to Greg Larson (also an alumni of the BYU accounting program) and has 4 children—Cameron (21), Connor (19) Hayden (17) and Ava (15) Melissa enjoys spending time with her family, traveling and learning about new cultures, being outdoors, reading, skiing and does not enjoy running, but does it anyway.
Troy Lewis is an Associate Teaching Professor of Accounting at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. He is also a past Chair of the Tax Executive Committee of the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) in Washington, DC. In this role, he has testified six times before the United States Senate Finance Committee and the House Committee on Small Business. He has also testified before the Financial Accounting Standards Board, the Internal Revenue Service, and the IRS National Taxpayer Advocate Public Forums.
Mr. Lewis has been active with the AICPA and the Utah Association of CPAs (UACPA), for well over two decades serving in key leadership positions including the President of the UACPA. He has published several professional articles and teaches and consults frequently for multiple large and regional accounting firms as well as at national and regional tax conferences. He has extensive expertise and experience in property transactions, pass-thru taxation, investment funds, real estate, and high-wealth individual taxation issues.
He is the author of eight full day continuing educations seminars presented by the CalCPA Education Foundation, a co-author on McGraw Hill’s Taxation of Individuals and Business Entities (12thEdition) and a co-author on Tax Research Techniques (11thEdition) published by the AICPA.
He is in practice as a licensed certified public accountant as the Manager/Member at Lewis & Associates, CPAs, LLC in Draper, Utah. He also has worked in public accounting at Arthur Andersen and for a community bank in St. George, Utah. He obtained his Masters of Accountancyand Bachelors of Science in Accountancy from Brigham Young University. He is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and a Chartered Global Management Accountant (CGMA).
Shawn is an experienced, results-oriented, values-based global executive who has been working with growth companies, particularly in the technology space, for nearly 25 years. He played a leadership and collaborative role in Vivint's $4.2B IPO in 2020 on the NYSE via a merger with Mosaic Acquisition Corp. in one of the largest U.S. SPAC transactions in history.
Jay Smith was born in Denver, Colorado in 1932, but grew up in Denver, Salt Lake City, and Boise, Idaho. He attended school and earned degrees at Boise Jr. College, BYU, and Stanford University. In 1965, he received a Ph. D. in Business with an emphasis in Accounting. He married JenaVee Cordon in the Idaho Falls Temple in 1952. After earning his CPA certificate, Jay worked for Arthur Andersen and Co. for two years in Los Angeles and as an auditor for two years with the Army Audit Agency in Philadelphia while an enlisted man. After these four years, he returned in 1957 to teach at BYU. In addition to teaching at BYU, he taught at Stanford University, the University of Minnesota, and the University of Hawaii. He retired as Professor of Accounting from BYU in 1995 after 28 years of teaching at BYU. He was the principal author of an Intermediate Accounting textbook that was used in over 200 Colleges and Universities from 1972-1995. He served on many committees of the American Accounting Association and co-authored several articles describing the innovative integrated accounting core developed at BYU in the 1990s.
Jay and JenaVee have 11 children, 50 grandchildren and at present (May 2021) 63 great grandchildren. They currently live in the Oak Hills 4th Ward where he was recently released from serving in the ward’s Elder’s Quorum Presidency. He has served the Church in many capacities including Bishop, Stake President and High Councilor. He also served as Mission President to the Maryland Baltimore Mission from 1997-2000 and as the Provo Temple President from 2001-2004. Jay and his wife also served as Asia Area Welfare missionaries in Hong Kong, China from 2009-2010. During their mission, they traveled to eight southeast Asia countries working with humanitarian missionary couples. Upon his return, he served as the Assistant Area Auditor for the 18 Provo Stakes from 2011-2013. Jay has been a Life Member of the Sons of Utah Pioneers since 1985 and served as National President in 2007. Jay has been actively involved throughout his life in family history research and since his retirement, has published two 325-page histories of his great grandfathers and their families.
Professor Monte Swain is the Deloitte Professor in the School of Accountancy. Since graduating from Michigan State University in 1991, Professor Swain has researched and taught management accounting at Brigham Young University. Professor Swain has been the recipient of a number of teaching awards at both BYU and MSU. Professor Swain is a licensed CPA and a Certified Management Accountant. He took an academic leave from BYU from July 1999 to July 2000 to serve as the Chief Financial Officer for Authorize.Net (payment-processing service for e-commerce).
Bill Tayler joined the Marriott School of Business in 2012. Bill teaches in BYU’s School of Accountancy as well as in BYU’s Executive MBA program. Bill has also taught at Cornell University and Emory University and has received multiple teaching awards. Bill is a Certified Management Accountant specializing in healthcare research and consulting, professional judgment and decision making, performance measurement, the assignmentof decision rights, incentive compensation, and cost accounting. Bill has presented his research as an invited speaker at universities and conferences across the globe. His work has been published in top journals, including Accounting Horizons, Accounting, Organizations and Society, The Accounting Review, Contemporary Accounting Research, Diabetes Spectrum, Harvard Business Review, IMA Educational Case Journal, Journal of the American Medical Association-Internal Medicine, Journal of Accounting Research, Journal of Behavioral Finance, Journal of Finance, Journal of General Internal Medicine, Review of Financial Studies, and Strategic Finance. Bill currently serves as the chair of the BYU Healthcare Leadership Collaborative, as an editor at Behavioral Accounting Research, on the editorial boards of The Accounting Review, Management Accounting Research, and Accounting, Organizations, and Society, and as a director of the Institute of Management Accountants Research Foundation. Bill earned a Ph.D. and a master’s degree at Cornell University, and a master’s and an undergraduate degree at Brigham Young University, graduating with honors. Bill and his wife Sarah have eight children.
David is passionate about understanding new technologies and implementing them into the curriculum of Brigham Young University, where he works as a full professor and as the Andersen Fellow. David received his Ph.D. at Indiana University and his BS and MAcc degrees at Brigham Young University. At BYU, David teaches accounting data analytics and accounting information systems. David has published over 100 articles in a combination of respected academic and practitioner journals, monographs, books, and cases. His research has won multiple best paper awards. David is the editor at four journals and on the editorial board for six journals. He also works with the EY ARC to develop curriculum that is provided for free to academics throughout the world. He is married to the former Cindy Lunt, and they have four children. In his spare time, David enjoys spending time with family, being outdoors, and woodworking.
Sandy Wight is a People Advisory Services Partner at Ernst & Young LLP (EY) in Seattle, Washington. EY PAS helps organizations move their talent to areas where there are the greatest growth opportunities, providing a seamless journey for mobile employees. PAS helps clients manage people-related risk, align their talent strategy to their business strategy; and adapt to the new work environment and changing expectations of the workforce.
Sandy graduated with a MAcc from BYU in 1990. She started her tax career at Arthur Andersen (AA) in Seattle and remained with AA until a friend from high school convinced her to make a pivotal career change and move to EY. Sandy will be forever grateful for the move to EY where she found her niche in PAS providing global companies with services supporting one of their greatest assets–their people. She’s worked with a large variety of clients over her career. She’s currently focused on Fortune 500 clients in the technology and consumer products industries. She recently helped a client implement an end-to-end solution to track their mobile employees, mitigate their tax risk and meet their reporting and compliance requirements.
BYU holds a special place within Sandy’s heart. She met her husband at BYU in a film studies class, her two oldest children graduated from BYU, she frequently helps EY with recruiting from BYU and recently, she was the BYU Alumni Seattle area chapter chairman. Sandy enjoys spending time with her family (3 children and 2 grandchildren), traveling to beautiful beaches around the world and watching movies with her husband.
Mark F. Zimbelman is the Mary and Ellis Professor of Accounting at Brigham Young University where he has enjoyed working for almost 22 years. Before coming to BYU, he also taught at the University of Oklahoma and earned his Ph.D. from the University of Arizona. He also worked professionally for over five years as an auditor and certified public accountant and one year as a controller.
Mark’s teaching and research are in auditing and fraud prevention and detection. In 2019, he received the Marriott School of Business Ethics Teaching Award selected by the students. His research focuses on preventing and detecting financial statement fraud. He has published in the top academic journals and is a coauthor of several monographs on fraud topics and on a textbook titled: Fraud Examination.
Mark loves spending time with his wife, Karen, and their five children and twelve grandchildren. He is also an avid bicyclist and loves being outdoors—especially with family.