Modeling Fraud: Models Behaving Nefariously
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Date: 02-06-2012
Start Time:
6:00pm
End Time: 8:00pm
Speaker: Francine McKenna
Location: 412 Schapiro CEPSR, Davis Auditorium
ABSTRACT
"Modeling Fraud: Models Behaving Nefariously" is a presentation about the use of financial models to perpetrate frauds and how the watchdogs - internal and external auditors, regulators, and active investors- become complacent and are sometimes duped when judging management's estimates, calculations, valuations, and forecasts. We'll look at some recent cases where models were material to financial results and where those we counted on to "kick the tires" and "trust but verify" failed us. We'll also look at how those that build and maintain essential models can support audit, validation, and due diligence that increases trust in the numbers, trust in organizations, and trust in the financial system as a whole.
BIO
Francine McKenna (@retheauditors on Twitter) is a freelance writer with credits in the Financial Times, Forbes.com, American Banker, Accountancy Age, Accountancy Magazine, The Columbia Journalism Review, Boston Review, the FEI Blog, and various financial, media, and technology blogs. She has a column at Forbes.com under the heading "Accounting Watchdog"and at American Banker as "Accountable". McKenna had a weekly column at GoingConcern.com from July 2009 to July 2010. re: The Auditors is her specialized news site about the business of the Big 4 audit firms. Stories explore the role, responsibility and regulation of the audit/accounting industry in the global capital markets in an independent, objective, and usually critical way.
Ms. McKenna was recently named a finalist for the Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Financial and Business Journalism in the online commentary and blogging category. McKenna has been quoted in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, Financial Times, Forbes, BusinessWeek, The Deal, The Times of London, the Guardian, and the Financial Chronicle (India) amongst many others. She has been profiled by accounting and social marketing/media sites. Her public speaking credits include private training, university teaching, and speeches for the New York County Lawyers Association, the New York State Society of CPAS, the American Accounting Association, the Institute of Internal Auditors, the Information Systems Audit and Control Association, and the Maryland Association of CPAs.
Ms. McKenna has more than twenty-five years of experience in a range of industries in the consulting and professional services environment. McKenna directed the Y2K PMO for JP Morgan in Latin America and was the first female Managing Director for BearingPoint in Latin America, responsible for the Industrial, Automotive and Transportation practice. She was a RVP for Jefferson Wells/Manpower and a Director for PricewaterhouseCoopers LLC, auditing the PwC the firm itself. She held various positions in accounting and financial management prior to her career in professional services and began her career as an internal auditor at Continental Illinois National Bank and Trust in Chicago.