Newswise — Wesley Bricker, chief accountant for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), along with Jeanette M. Franzel, a member of the SEC’s Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), are the featured keynote speakers for the fourth annual UCI Audit Committee Summit to be held Friday, October 6, at the Pacific Club in Newport Beach, California. 

Hosted by the UC Irvine Paul Merage School of Business in partnership with Corporate Directors Roundtable of Orange County and the Forum for Corporate Directors, the half-day conference will address a number of timely and important topics, including:

• Latest PCAOB Initiative on the New External Auditor Reporting Model and SEC Initiatives, including Revenue Recognition and non-GAAP Reporting by Publicly Traded Companies

• Latest on the SEC Audit Committee Proposal on Disclosures Regarding the External Auditor Relationship 

• The Audit Committee Role in Cyber-Security and Enterprise Risk Management

• Washington’s Tax Reform Proposals and Potential Impact on Companies

Remarks by keynote speakers will be followed by two interactive panel discussions.   

• Panel 1 will be led by Stephen Cooke, a partner in the Securities and Capital Markets Group of Paul Hastings LLP. Cooke will address “Audit Committee Hot Topics” with panelists including:  Wes Bricker, chief accountant, SEC; Jeanette Franzel, board member, PCAOB; Eric Brandt, Audit Committee chair, Yahoo!; and, Neil Dimick, Audit Committee chair, Mylan Inc.

• Panel 2 will be led by Terry Shevlin, Professor of Accounting, Paul Merage Chair in Business Growth, and associate dean of Research and Doctoral Programs at UCI’s Paul Merage School of Business. Shevlin will discuss “Tax Reform Proposals and Other Developments” with panelists including: Roberta Swanson, vice president of tax for Western Digital; Peter Merrill, a principal at PwC National Economics and Statistics Group; Craig Weaver, partner-in-charge of Tax Services at SquarMilner; and, Kris Sennesael, CFO and senior VP at SkyWorks Solutions, Inc.

The Annual UCI Audit Committee Summit founding sponsors include Squar Milner LLP, Paul Hastings LLP, and PondelWilkinson Inc.  Gold sponsors for the 2017 event include Deloitte, Ernst & Young, and KPMG, and silver sponsors are Aon plc (NYSE:AON) and PwC. 

The UCI Audit Committee Summit 2017 is an interactive conference designed for audit committee members, CEOs and CFOs.  Four hours of CPE credit will be offered to Summit attendees. Seating is limited.  For more information, visit https://merage.uci.edu/events/2017/10/Summit2017.html.  To register, visit https://register.merage.uci.edu/RegisterEvent.aspx?name=2017Audit.

About the Keynote Speakers

Wesley Bricker is the chief accountant for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission where he serves as the principal advisor to the SEC on accounting and auditing matters.  Bricker consults with registrants, auditors and other industry representatives, and is responsible for the oversight of the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), among other duties.

Bricker is trained as an accountant and lawyer with degrees from Elizabethtown College and the American University Washington College of Law.  He is licensed to practice as a certified public accountant in Virginia, Maryland, the District of Columbia, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey and as an attorney in New York. 

Jeanette M. Franzel was appointed by the Securities and Exchange Commission as a member of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board in February 2012.

Prior to joining the PCAOB, Franzel served for almost 23 years at the Government Accountability Office, spending a decade in the Senior Executive Service.  She ended her tenure at the GAO as a managing director overseeing all aspects of the organization’s financial audit oversight of the U.S. federal government.  In this capacity, she supervised audits of large, complex agencies with annual budgets in the hundreds of billions of dollars, as well as small programs and agencies with limited resources.

Franzel has a Bachelor of Arts degree in accounting and Spanish from the College of St. Teresa and an MBA from George Mason University.  She also completed the Senior Executive Fellows program at Harvard University.  She is a certified public accountant, a certified internal auditor, a  certified management accountant, and a certified government financial manager.

About the Financial Accounting Standards Board

Established in 1973, the FASB is the independent, private-sector, not-for-profit organization based in Norwalk, Connecticut, that establishes financial accounting and reporting standards for public and private companies and not-for-profit organizations that follow Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). The FASB is recognized by the Securities and Exchange Commission as the designated accounting standard setter for public companies. FASB standards are recognized as authoritative by many other organizations, including state Boards of Accountancy and the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA). The FASB develops and issues financial accounting standards through a transparent and inclusive process intended to promote financial reporting that provides useful information to investors and others who use financial reports. The Financial Accounting Foundation (FAF) supports and oversees the FASB. For more information, visit www.fasb.org.

About The Paul Merage School of Business at UC Irvine

The Paul Merage School of Business at UC Irvine offers four dynamic MBA programs, plus a Master of Professional Accountancy, Master of Science in Biotechnology Management, Master of Science in Engineering Management, and PhD and undergraduate business degrees that graduate world-ready business leaders with the exceptional ability to help grow their organizations through strategic innovation, analytical decision-making, information technology and collaborative execution. While the Merage School is relatively young, it has quickly grown to rank consistently among the top five percent of all business programs worldwide through exceptional student recruitment, world-class faculty, a strong alumni network and close relationships with both individual business executives and global corporations. Additional information is available at merage.uci.edu.

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