16th Annual Financial Reporting Conference

DATE:
Thursday, October 29, 2009

TIME:
8:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m.

LOCATION:
NYSSA
1177 Avenue of the Americas, 2nd Floor
(between 45th and 46th Streets), NYC (Directions)
Photo ID required for access to the building.

REGISTRATION/FEES:
Early Registration by October 15, 2009
Members $315 | Nonmembers $495
Regular Registration October 16–22, 2009
Members $385 | Nonmembers $565
After October 22, 2009
Register at the door: Additional $50 due (space permitting)

CREDIT: 6 CE/CPE

SPEAKERS:
Nicholas T. Cappiello III, CPA, Project Manager, FASB
Chris Cornett, Equity Research, Accounting & Tax, Credit Suisse
Michael L. Gullette, CPA, CFP, CISA, Vice President, Accounting and Financial Management
Trevor S. Harris, The Arthur J. Samberg Professor of Professional Practice, Columbia Business School
Robert Herz, Chairman, FASB
Daniel Mahoney, CFA, CPA, Co-Director of Research, CFRA, RiskMetrics Group Inc.
Patricia McConnell, Member, IASB
Thomas Omberg, Partner, Deloitte & Touche LLP
Jeremy Perler, CFA, CPA, CFRA, RiskMetrics Group Inc.
Thomas G. Rees, CPA, CFA, CFE, Managing Director, FTI Consulting, Inc.
Marc A. Siegel, Member, FASB
David Zion, Managing Director, Credit Suisse

MODERATORS:
Eric Linder, CFA, President, SavaNet; Vice Chairman, NYSSA’s Committee for Improved Corporate Reporting
Mark R. Newsome, CFA, Director, ING Capital LLC; Chairman, NYSSA’s Committee for Improved Corporate ReportingAndrew Spieler, PhD, CFA, FRM, Professor, Frank G. Zarb School of Business, Hofstra University; Chairman, NYSSA Derivatives Committee
David Reilly, Columnist, Bloomberg News

Media Partner

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Nicholas Cappiello, CPA, is a project manager at the FASB; he’s been a member of the FASB staff since July 2008. Cappiello is currently working on the FASB/IASB joint project on financial statement presentation. Prior to his work on the financial statement presentation project team, he was an XBRL team project manager, where he reviewed the U.S. XBRL taxonomy and evaluated references to source literature and the accounting standards codification. Prior to his role as at the FASB, Cappiello was a director of reporting at USI Holdings Corp. and prior to that, controller at Independence Holding Company. Prior to that, he was a business assurance senior at PricewaterhouseCoopers. Cappiello earned both a BBA and MBA from Pace University and he is a certified public accountant.

Chris Cornett, CPA, is a member of the Accounting & Tax team in the Equity Research division of Credit Suisse Group. In his role at Credit Suisse, Cornett focuses on accounting, disclosure and tax issues that affect the investment decision-making process, and helps the firm’s in-house analysts and buy-side clients understand and evaluate the impact of accounting standards and tax issues on fundamental analysis, valuation and company behavior. Cornett worked previously at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, and is a former staff member of both the Financial Accounting Standards Board and the Office of the Chief Accountant at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. He holds a master of professional accounting and a bachelor of business administration from the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin.

Michael L. Gullette, CPA, CFP, CISA, comes to the American Bankers Association with over 25 years of experience in the financial services industries. Gullette started his career as an auditor with Ernst & Young, where he concentrated on financial institutions, such as banks, savings and loans, and insurance companies. He has been controller of a life insurance company and chief financial and investment officer of an international charity. Most recently, however, Gullette was director of accounting policy implementation at Freddie Mac, where he dealt with issues such as securitizations, loan and guarantee accounting, derivatives, and structured transactions. A graduate of the University of Virginia, he is a certified public accountant, and holds various other designations, including certified financial planner and certified information systems auditor.

Trevor S. Harris’ research and practical experience has covered most areas of the use of accounting information for valuation, investment and management decisions, with a particular focus on global aspects. He originally joined the Columbia Business School faculty in 1983, and was the Jerome A. Chazen Professor of International Business, director of the Chazen Institute of International Business and chair of the Accounting Department, prior to joining Morgan Stanley as a managing director and head of the Global Valuation and Accounting Team in 2000. He rejoined the faculty of Columbia Business School in July 2008 and was appointed as The Arthur J. Samberg Professor of Professional Practice. He has served on the Standards Advisory Council to the International Accounting Standards Board (until November 2008), the Users' Advisory Council to the Financial Accounting Standards Board (current) and was a member of the International Capital Markets Advisory Committee at the New York Stock Exchange until its dissolution. Harris has provided advice on international accounting, controllership, valuation and investor relations issues to many large, international corporations.

Robert Herz, CPA, CA, was appointed chairman of the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), effective July 1, 2002. Prior to joining the FASB, Herz was PricewaterhouseCoopers North America theater leader of professional, technical, risk & quality and a member of the firm’s global and U.S. boards.  He was also president of the PricewaterhouseCoopers Foundation which supports college and university activities. Herz also served as a part-time member of the International Accounting Standards Board. He joined Price Waterhouse in 1974 upon graduating from the University of Manchester in England with a BA first class honors degree in economics graduating top of his class. He later joined Coopers & Lybrand becoming its senior technical partner in 1996 and assumed a similar position with the merged firm of PricewaterhouseCoopers in 1998. Herz has authored numerous publications on a variety of accounting, auditing and business subjects, including the book, The Value Reporting Revolution: Moving Beyond the Earnings Game, which he co-authored

Dan Mahoney, CFA, CPA, is co-director of CFRA accounting research at RiskMetrics Group. He led the industrials research team at the Center for Financial Research and Analysis (CFRA) until its acquisition by RiskMetrics in 2007. In addition to his role as co-director of research, Mahoney covers industrial companies for RiskMetrics’ CFRA Accounting Lens group. Prior to joining CFRA in 2003, Mahoney worked in the forensic accounting group at Deloitte & Touche. He is frequently featured at industry conferences and professional training seminars and has been cited in several leading business publications including BusinessWeek, CFO, Forbes, and the Wall Street Journal, among others.

Patricia McConnell is a former senior managing director in equity research and accounting, and tax policy analyst for Bear Stearns & Co. In a 32-year career in Bear Stearns’ Equity Research group, McConnell established herself as one of the leading analysts in the United States on issues related to accounting. Institutional Investor magazine ranked her the leading analyst in the United States on accounting and tax matters for 16 consecutive years from 1991 to 2006. Throughout her career, she has been an active participant in accounting standard-setting activities as a member of the IASB’s Standards Advisory Council, the International Accounting Standards Committee (the IASB’s predecessor body), the CFA Institute’s Corporate Disclosure Policy Council, and the New York Society of Security Analysts.

Dane Mott, CFA, CPA, is the senior equity analyst at J.P. Morgan covering U.S. accounting and valuation. His work focuses on accounting issues in financial analysis and valuation. Prior to joining J.P. Morgan in June 2008, Mott spent seven years as part of the Bear Stearns Accounting and Tax Team. He is a member of the U.S. Financial Accounting Standards Board’s Investors Technical Advisory Committee. He is also a member of the following International Accounting Standards Board advisory committees: Standards Advisory Council, Analyst Representative Group, and Employee Benefit Working Group. In addition, he is a member of the CFA Institute’s Corporate Disclosure Policy Council. Mott received both his BS and MBA from the Leonard N. Stern School of Business at New York University. Prior to receiving his MBA, Mott worked at D.E. Shaw & Co. L.P., a large hedge fund and technology firm.

Mark R. Newsome, CFA, is a director at ING Wholesale. Since joining ING in 1997, Newsome has advised ING’s clients on debt financing alternatives for acquisitions, structured lending and other corporate debt needs. His primary area of expertise is the insurance and financial services industries where he has worked with a wide range of domestic and international companies. Prior to joining ING, Newsome was a senior analyst at The Firemark Group. He is the chairman of the NYSSA’s Improved Corporate Reporting Committee and a member of the Financial Accounting Standards Board’s User Advisory Council. Newsome has spoken at numerous conferences on financial reporting.  He also actively volunteers for organizations such as the Berkeley Center for Financial Reporting & Management and the Holy Cross Church Finance Council, of which he is a member. He received an MBA from Columbia Business School and London Business School, and a BA from Moravian College.

Jeremy Perler, CFA, CPA, is co-director of CFRA accounting research at RiskMetrics Group and co-author of the upcoming publication, Financial Shenanigans: How to Detect Accounting Gimmicks and Fraud in Financial Reports (3rd edition). He led the technology and consumer/retail research teams at the Center for Financial Research and Analysis (CFRA) until its acquisition by RiskMetrics Group in 2007. Prior to joining CFRA in 2002, Perler worked in the New York office of PricewaterhouseCoopers, auditing public companies and studying the entwined accounting and behavioral mechanisms that shape financial reporting. He holds a Master of Accounting and a BBA from the University of Michigan, where he also taught undergraduate accounting. He is frequently featured at industry conferences and professional training seminars, as well as in media outlets such as Barron’s, BusinessWeek, the Wall Street Journal and CNBC.

Thomas Rees CPA, CFA, CFE, is a managing director in the FTI Forensic and Litigation Consulting segment. Rees is an accounting professional who provides clients with a variety of consulting and litigation related services, including determining the accounting for complex transactions, conducting forensic accounting investigations and preparing expert testimony. Rees has extensive experience researching and interpreting generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) and specific expertise in capital markets and financial instruments including derivatives and securitization. He specializes in banking and SEC matters, including preparation of SEC filings and accounting position papers, responding to SEC comment letters and understanding the accounting and disclosure issues in SEC enforcement actions. Rees previously served as the deputy chief accountant at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), a division of the U.S. Treasury Department responsible for regulating national banks. He holds an MBA from the University of Delaware and a BS in accounting from Arizona State University.

David Reilly is a columnist with Bloomberg News where he writes about banks, Wall Street, accounting and the financial system. Prior to Bloomberg, he was a reporter at the Wall Street Journal where he was a “Heard on the Street” writer, reporter and editor. While at the paper, Reilly shared with colleagues a Gerald Loeb award for coverage of the implosion of two Bear Stearns hedge funds and an Overseas Press Club award for coverage of the downfall of Italy’s Parmalat.

Marc A. Siegel was appointed to a five-year term with the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) on October 20, 2008. In this role, he brings an investor perspective to the five-member board that establishes U.S. generally accepted accounting standards for private-sector entities, including businesses and not-for-profit organizations. Siegel has 17 years of experience in diverse and global industries that include technology, media, telecommunications, healthcare, retail, and insurance. Prior to his appointment to the FASB, he led the Accounting Research and Analysis team at the RiskMetrics Group. Previously, he was the director of research at the Center for Financial Research & Analysis (CFRA), prior to the firm’s acquisition by RiskMetrics Group. In this capacity, he was responsible for CFRA’s proprietary research methodology for identifying hidden risks of business deterioration through forensic financial statement analysis. Siegel graduated magna cum laude from the Wharton School of Business with a BS in economics in 1991. His first term with the FASB extends until June 30, 2013.

Andrew Spieler, PhD, CFA, FRM, is associate professor of finance at the Frank G. Zarb School of Business at Hofstra University, where he was named Distinguished Teacher of the Year and Researcher of the Year. His teaching experience includes graduate and undergraduate courses in finance, economics, and statistics, and executive education programs and he serves as the director for the master’s program in quantitative finance. He has extensive derivative and risk management experience and regularly consults with hedge funds, quantitative mutual funds and law firms. He is the former research director at the Investors’ Rights Association of America, a shareholder advocacy group, and he currently serves as chair of NYSSA’s Derivatives Committee.

Fair Value and Financial Instruments
Patricia McConnell, Member, IASB
Marc Siegel, Member, FASB

Moderated by
Andrew Spieler, PhD, CFA, FRM, Professor, Frank G. Zarb School of Business, Hofstra University; Chairman, NYSSA Derivatives Committee

Hard to Value Assets
Trevor Harris, Arthur J. Samberg Professor of Professional Practice, Columbia Business School
Patricia McConnell, Member, IASB
Marc Siegel, Member, FASB
Thomas G. Rees, CPA, CFA, CFE, Managing Director, FTI Consulting, Inc.

Moderated by
Andrew Spieler, PhD, CFA, FRM, Professor, Frank G. Zarb School of Business, Hofstra University; Chairman, NYSSA Derivatives Committee

Implications of Off-Balance Sheet Consolidation
Chris Cornett, Equity Research, Accounting & Tax, Credit Suisse
Michael Gullette, Vice President, American Bankers Association
Thomas Omberg, Partner, Deloitte & Touche LLP
Marc Siegel, Member, FASB

Moderated by
David Reilly, Columnist, Bloomberg News

Financial Statement Presentation
Patricia McConnell, Member, IASB
Dane Mott, CFA, CPA, Senior Equity Analyst, J.P. Morgan
Nicholas T. Cappiello III, CPA, Project Manager, FASB

Moderated by
Eric Linder, CFA, President, SavaNet; Vice Chairman, NYSSA’s Committee for Improved Corporate Reporting