Nonprofit Conference (E2012410)

Frank is an emeritus partner of WithumSmith+Brown, PC (Withum) with over 35 years of accounting and auditing experience. He is a licensed CPA in New York and New Jersey and has significant experience working with SEC registrants, small and large private entities in various industries, including hedge funds, private equity funds and finance companies. Frank is a member of the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) and was a former member of the AICPA Peer Review Board. He is a past president of the NJCPA and currently chairs its Peer Review Executive Committee. Frank is a frequent lecturer on accounting and auditing and is a co-author of three accounting books.

Brad has been with Withum for over a decade, during which time he made partner and is a licensed certified public accountant and Certified Fraud Examiner in New Jersey and New York. Brad is a Team Leader for the Firm’s Not-for-Profit and Education Services Group and is integral in rolling out firm audit technology. Brad also co-hosts Withum's Civic Warriors podcast that features leaders in the nonprofit industry who are making an impact despite whatever adversity they encounter.

Brad is very active in his community and is the board chair of Coming Home of Middlesex County, which is an organization whose mission is to end homelessness. In addition, he serves as a volunteer firefighter in his home town.

Striving to provide world-class client service to all of his clients, Brad serves to be a trusted advisor to bring about mutual success.

Brad resides in Somerset County, New Jersey, with his wife, Ashley, and three children: Chase, Molly and Duke (Golden Retriever).

Nina is a partner in Withum’s East Brunswick, NJ, office. With more than 15 years of experience in the accounting and auditing field, Nina currently holds a strong role within the Firm’s real estate, consumer products and not-for-profit service areas. Additionally, Nina leads the firm's Outsourced Accounting Systems and Solutions (OASyS) practice. Her extensive experience has awarded her with accolades such as becoming the winner of Withum’s Inaugural Innovative Strength Award as well as the nominee for several of Withum’s Marketing and Entrepreneurship Strength Awards. Recently, Nina was named to the 2020 Edition of NJBIZ's Accounting Power 50 list.

Nina is licensed as a certified public accountant in the state of New Jersey. She is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and serves on its Women’s Initiative Executive Committee Task Force. Nina also is an active member of the New Jersey Society of Certified Public Accountants (NJCPA), Raritan Valley YMCA as a Finance Committee Member, and serves on the New Jersey Food Council as Tax Policy and Trade Relations Committee Members. In addition, she invests time as a dedicated Board Member with CoreNet Global as their Special Events Chair and also is an active member of the Wanamassa PTA.

Nina graduated with a BS in Business Administration with a concentration in accounting from Boston University. Presenting and speaking at conferences such as the AICPA E.D.G.E, Massachusetts Society of CPAs Emerging Leaders and the AICPA Controllers Conference, she is very much involved in being an industry thought leader and proponent of the internal developmental initiatives of the Firm. Nina currently resides in Monmouth County, NJ, with her husband, Jason Chmura, and their two children Michael and Dominic.

Magdalena M. Czerniawski, CPA, MBA, is a partner at Marks Paneth LLP and a member of the firm’s Nonprofit, Government & Healthcare Group. With nearly 17 years of nonprofit industry experience, she provides tax services to a wide array of nonprofits, including charitable organizations, social welfare organizations, professional associations and private foundations.

In addition to providing tax planning and advisory services, Ms. Czerniawski specializes in matters related to ASC 740-10 (FIN 48), the reporting requirements that govern contributions, compensation, unrelated business taxable income, lobbying costs, and public support testing. She also represents her clients as an authorized representative before the Internal Revenue Service and various state agencies. Furthermore, Ms. Czerniawski’s experience includes serving clients with matters related to employee benefit plans, healthcare organizations and hospitals, affordable housing entities, foreign tax filings and payroll tax returns.

Prior to joining Marks Paneth, Ms. Czerniawski was a Senior Tax Manager with a national accounting firm, where she focused on tax consulting and compliance for many of their highest profile clients. She has published various articles on industry-specific tax matters and has served as a speaker for internal and external seminars.

Allen L. Fetterman, CPA, MBA lectures extensively on not-for-profit accounting, auditing, federal single audits, tax-exempt issues and governance. He speaks at conferences, seminars and webcasts throughout the country. Allen was an assistant professor of accounting at a local college and has been a guest lecturer at Yale University and New York University. He has been a member of the Faculty Bank of the Foundation for Accounting Education (FAE). He is a past recipient of both the AICPA's and the FAE's Outstanding Discussion Leader Award. He has written articles published in national accounting periodicals in the United States and Israel on accounting and taxes for not-for-profit entities.

Allen has served on the American Institute of CPAs Not-for-Profit Organizations Committee, Not-for-Profit Audit and Accounting Guide Task Force and Joint Trial Board. He has chaired the New York State Society of CPAs Not-for-Profit Organizations, Professional Ethics, Audit, and Quality Controls Committees and the AICPA Joint Trial Board. He has also served as Vice-President of the New York State Society of CPAs and as a Trustee of the Foundation for Accounting Education.

Allen retired in 2003 from Loeb & Troper, where he spent thirty-six years serving not-for-profit entities as an auditor and consultant, the last twenty-five years as a partner. In addition to his client responsibilities, he was the partner in charge of the firm’s quality controls and technical resources.

Allen received his BBA in Accounting from The City College of New York in 1968 and his MBA in Accounting from the Bernard M. Baruch College in 1972. He was elected to Beta Gamma Sigma, the national honorary society in business. He received his CPA certificate in 1973 and is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the New York State Society of Certified Public Accountants.

Allen has served on the governing boards of not-for-profit organizations, including positions as President, Treasurer and Chair of the Audit Committee and the Finance Committee.

Allen and Mimi, his wife of 51 years, live in West Nyack, New York. They have two sons and four grandchildren.

Julie is a supervisor in the Regulatory Compliance and Investigations Group. Prior to Anchin, she gained experience at Baker Tilly Virchow Krause, LLP where she specialized in fraud and investigative services related to construction, healthcare, and not-for-profit organizations.

Brett R. Harris is a shareholder in the Corporate group at Wilentz, Goldman & Spitzer, P.A. Her broad-based general corporate practice consists of both transactional matters and day-to-day client counseling on everyday business matters. She has extensive transactional experience in stock and asset acquisitions representing both buyers and sellers. She has many years of experience in document drafting and negotiation, regulatory compliance matters and policy development for a full range of clients, including publicly-traded companies, closely-held businesses, health care practices, charitable organizations, governmental entities and individual business executives.

Ms. Harris has a particular focus on counseling non-profit organizations including entity formation, establishing and maintaining tax exempt status and complying with fundraising regulations. She counsels Boards on policy matters, mission statement development and strategic planning. In addition, she advises clients on structuring and operating family foundations, including grantmaking due diligence and administration of grant agreements.

Her intellectual property practice consists of trademark screening, trademark and copyright registrations, IP licensing matters, trade secret protections, issuing and responding to cease and desist letters and interfacing with the firm’s commercial litigation team on infringement matters.

Ms. Harris has developed a practice with an emphasis on technology issues. She represents software developers, online businesses and consulting firms. Ms. Harris also advises general business clients and non-profits in addressing technology concerns, including privacy, licensing, e-discovery, development of online policies and website disclaimers, e-commerce, domain name management, establishment of employee e-mail, Internet usage and BYOD policies and addressing legal issues related to social media.

Daniel has more than 20 years of professional tax experience as well as experience in federal, international and financial products taxation. He is experienced in mergers and acquisitions, capital markets transactions, and cross-border transactions. He is also a recognized expert in the employee retention credit and frequently represents clients in tax controversy matters before the IRS. Daniel is a frequent author and speaker on U.S. Federal income tax topics. He is an adjunct faculty member with Georgetown University Law Center and an approved arbitrator for FINRA. Daniel is a member of the New York and New Jersey Bars, the American Bar Association, previously the chair of the Banking & Savings Institutions Tax Committee, and the New York Bar Association.

Jeff Mechanick is Assistant Director for Nonpublic Entities at the FASB. In that role, he provides strategic and technical oversight of all activities involving not-for-profit (NFP) organizations and private companies, chairs the FASB’s Not-for-Profit Advisory Committee, oversees support of the Private Company Council, and participates in some of the FASB’s broader outreach activities. He is also a member of the Technical Advisory Group of the International Financial Reporting for Nonprofit Organizations initiative (#IFR4NPO).

Jeff has also been the overall lead staff member for the Blue-Ribbon Panel on Standard Setting for Private Companies and the FASB/IASB Financial Crisis Advisory Group.

Prior to joining the FASB staff in 2006, Jeff spent 20 years working in and with the not-for-profit sector, as the CFO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc., and before that, as a Senior Manager with KPMG, LLP, in the firm’s New York office. From 1992 to 1994, he served as the National Technical Senior Manager for the firm’s Higher Education, Research, and Other Not-for-Profit Organizations (HERON) practice. He is also a past member of the AICPA’s NFP Expert Panel. Jeff received his MBA from Rutgers University and his AB from the University of Chicago, and he is a member of the AICPA and the New York State Society of CPAs. He is also an adjunct instructor in Columbia University’s MS program in Nonprofit Management.

Brian is the leader of the firm’s Regulatory Compliance and Investigations Group. He has been with Anchin Block & Anchin since 2019. As a Certified Inspector General in New York, he has more than 25 years of experience working with businesses on labor investigations, fraud investigations, disaster recovery, and business continuity. He has lectured nationally on labor law, business fraud, white- collar crime, and tax fraud, and has worked on regulatory compliance and government investigations for groups including the New York State Surrogate Bench as well as several bar associations. In 2013, Brian was honored to be included among the Who’s Who of Forensic Accountants by the Long Island Business News.

Pete Ugo is an audit partner at Crowe LLP, which is the 9th largest CPA firm in the county. He has 23 years of audit and consulting experience with Crowe, and is the leader of the firm’s national not-for-profit and higher education audit practice. He has spent his entire career working in the not-for-profit and higher education industries. His client base includes higher education institutions, foundations, cultural arts, trade and membership and other not-for-profit organizations. Pete is actively involved as a presenter at various national and state conferences related to the not-for-profit industry, chairs the steering committee for the AICPA’s Government and Not-for-Profit Conference and is a member of the AICPA's Not-for-Profit Expert Panel.

Amy West is currently the Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of AHRC New York City (“AHRC”). AHRC is an organization that provides critical services to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their families. In her role Amy oversees the wide array of financial and administrative functions, strategic financial initiatives, real property, information technology and special projects that enable AHRC to fulfill its mission. Amy has direct responsibility for AHRC's operating budget of over $300 Million and manages a staff of ninety.  

Prior to joining AHRC, Amy served for eight years as the Director of Finance of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. Amy also held the position of Vice President of Finance and Budget at the United States Fund for UNICEF and worked as an auditor for Ernst & Young LLP specializing in the healthcare and not-for-profit industries. She began her career as the Coordinator of Fiscal Operations for the New York Public Library.

Amy graduated Summa Cum Laude from Hunter College with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Accounting. She is actively involved in Hunter College’s Mentoring Program, the Secretary of the Financial Managers Association, a member of the New York State Society of CPAs Nonprofit Committee and a member of the NPCC’s Nonprofit Excellence Awards Selection Committee. In addition, she serves on the AICPA Not-For-Profit Industry Conference Steering Committee.