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Auditor Independence : What You Need to Know
Vassilios Karapanos
Associate Chief Accountant
US Securities and Exchange Commission
Vassilios Karapanos is an Associate Chief Accountant in the Professional Practice Group of the Office of the Chief Accountant of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In this capacity he is involved with auditor independence issues, and reviews of PCAOB and International Ethics and Auditing standards. Before joining the Commission he was an audit manager at the Boston office of Arthur Andersen LLP and then joined the SEC’s division of Corporation Finance as a Staff Accountant. He is a CPA in the state of Massachusetts and a member of the AICPA. He holds a Masters in Business Administration with concentration in finance from Clark University and a Bachelor with concentration in Mathematics from Worcester State College, both in Worcester, Massachusetts.
Bella Rivshin, CPA
Associate Chief Auditor
Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB)
Bella Rivshin, CPA, is currently an Associate Chief Auditor for the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) in Washington, DC. Her principal responsibility is assisting in the development of auditing and related professional practice standards applicable to audits of public companies in the United States.
Prior to joining the PCAOB in November 2003, Ms. Rivshin was with PricewaterhouseCoopers where she specialized in auditing and consulting. From 1999 to 2003, Ms. Rivshin was a resident in the firm's Independence Policy and Consulting Group at the national office in New York where she developed and implemented firm independence policies and provided technical policy assistance to engagement teams.
Ms. Rivshin holds a B.A. degree from Indiana University and a Masters of Accountancy degree from George Washington University. She is a certified public accountant in California.
Karen M. Golz
Americas Vice Chair, Independence/Americas Independence
Ernst & Young LLP
Karen serves as Ernst & Young's Global and Americas Vice Chair, Independence, having assumed the global vice chair role in January 2009 and the Americas role in April 2004. In her role, she has responsibility for regulatory interaction and relationships with the Securities and Exchange Commission Office of the Chief Accountant (SEC OCA), the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) and the AICPA for independence matters, Ernst & Young independence policies, consultation and operational implementation of independence matters across the EY network. Prior to assuming the responsibilities for independence, she was the professional Practice Director (PPD) in the New England Area from 2001 to 2004 and a client serving audit partner from 1987. Karen has served numerous clients as lead audit partner or independent review partner and has extensive SEC accounting, auditing, reporting and independence experience.
She has served on EY's Accounting and Auditing Committee, its Gender Equity Task Force and many other task forces and committees within EY. She has also served on numerous charitable boards and committees.
Karen joined EY in 1976 upon graduation form the University of Illinois, Champaign where she graduated Summa Cum Laude. She is a bronze Tablet Scholar which is the highest academic distinction the University of Illinois bestows.
Karen is married and she and her husband reside in New Hampshire.
Russell G Ryan
Partner
King & Spalding
Russ Ryan is a law partner in the Washington, DC office of King & Spalding LLP, where his practice focuses on SEC investigations, audit committee internal investigations, and related corporate governance matters. He previously served for 10 years in the SEC's Division of Enforcement, including three years as Assistant Director of the Division. His work at the SEC included investigating and supervising several of the SEC's most prominent auditor independence cases against Big Four accounting firms. He is a frequent writer, speaker, and commentator on legal issues involving the SEC enforcement process and corporate internal investigations.
An article he wrote about SEC enforcement of auditor independence violations can be found on the King & Spalding website at
http://apps.kslaw.com/library/pdf/SRLJarticle.pdf.
Auditor Independence : What You Need to Know
Speaker Firms, Agency/s and Organization/s:
US Securities and Exchange Commission
Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB)
King & Spalding
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