Nonprofit Conference (E2112420)

Kristin Anderson is a Senior Manager at PKF O’Connor Davies and a part of the Firm’s Not-for-Profit Tax practice. She has over 15 years of experience specializing in tax compliance and consulting, with a focus on exempt organizations and their taxable affiliates.

She serves clients throughout the Northeast in a variety of not-for-profit industries including higher education, healthcare, trade associations, arts and culture, and social service; leading both compliance and consulting engagements.

In addition to serving clients, Kristin also contributes to tax articles and alerts, and is a speaker at not-for-profit tax webinars, client educational presentations, and staff development training.

Alex is an audit partner in the Not-for-Profit and Health Care practices of PKF O’Connor Davies, LLP. He has eighteen years of experience in public accounting. His areas of specialty include audits of not-for-profit entities, health care entities and special needs clients, cost reporting as applicable to health care and not-for-profit entities, and single audits conducted in accordance with the Uniform Grant Guidance. Alex is also an adjunct professor of accounting at the City University of New York. He serves on a number of professional and academic affiliations and is a board member of the New York State Education Department State Board for Public Accountancy. He has authored articles on accounting, audit, tax and education and he has presented on both a professional and academic level.

Matthew Estersohn, CPA, is a Partner in the Nonprofit, Government & Healthcare Group at Marks Paneth with nearly 15 years of experience in providing accounting, auditing, tax and consulting services for the nonprofit industry. He has planned, coordinated and conducted audits for a wide range of nonprofits, including human service organizations, educational and cultural institutions, membership organizations and private foundations. He also specializes in Single Audits for organizations that receive federal funding.

Mr. Estersohn has additional expertise performing audits of cost reports, including the New York State CFR, compliance audits, and audits of multi-employer and single-employer pension plans (defined benefit and defined contribution). He has written reports for his clients on matters including operating efficiencies and best practices, internal controls, financial reporting, and governance and has assisted with due diligence on nonprofit mergers and acquisitions. In addition, Mr. Estersohn regularly publishes articles and leads training seminars on various accounting and auditing matters affecting the nonprofit industry.

Christopher Griffin, CPA, is a partner in CohnReznick’s Bethesda office and a member of the Firm’s Not-for-Profit and Education Industry Practice with more than 15 years of experience in providing assurance, tax, and advisory services to not-for-profit organizations. Chris has extensive experience planning and executing audits in compliance with OMB, FASAB, GAO, FASB, and GASB. His clients include social service and educational organizations, community development organizations, housing developers, and membership and trade associations. Chris is also a frequent contributor to various not-for-profit conferences and seminars.

As a member of the Firm’s Employee Benefit Plan Practice, Chris provides audit services for his clients who sponsor a wide variety of employee benefit plans, including defined contribution and defined benefit plans.

Chris is also responsible for developing and conducting training seminars for Firm staff on multiple topics including audit and accounting theory, government and other regulatory compliance, and technology applications and systems.

Garrett M. Higgins is a Partner of the Firm and a member of the Firm’s Executive Committee. He serves as Partner-in-Charge of the Exempt Organization Tax and Advisory Services Group and has over 20 years of experience providing tax compliance and advisory services to tax-exempt organizations.

Garrett’s current tax-exempt clients include private foundations, colleges and universities, museums, health care organizations, large public charities, pension and welfare benefit trusts, and a number of other non-profit organizations. His considerable expertise extends across a broad range of tax-exempt and other accounting and audit topics. He has significant experience with public charities and private foundations as well as experience with the tax compliance and consulting issues affecting educational institutions, welfare benefit trusts, health care and other types of exempt organizations. His specific areas of tax and business expertise encompass unrelated business income tax planning, state and local tax planning and reporting, executive compensation, operational and transaction structuring, use of taxable subsidiaries of tax-exempt organizations, intermediate sanctions planning and compliance and fundraising. He is viewed as a technical authority and is regularly asked to author articles and present at firm-sponsored and other tax-exempt industry events.

In recent years, Garrett has had the honor of receiving the New York Enterprise Award for the Best Accountants and Attorneys for Growing Business as well as the Westchester Business Council’s Rising Stars “Forty under Forty” award.

Hassan Khan is a Principal in Marks Paneth’s Technology Services Group. Mr. Khan works collaboratively with clients’ management, audit committees and boards, and provides independent, senior-level expertise that enables executives to drive value from technology and improve business performance. Over the course of his career, he has led and delivered advisory engagements including technology governance, risk and compliance assessments; organizational reviews; board governance; benchmarking and best practices reviews; enterprise risk management (ERM); internal audits; technology effectiveness assessments; IT strategy and planning; digital transformation; business continuity/disaster recovery; system selections and implementation; cybersecurity risk analysis; third-party risk management; and data analytics. He is a frequent panelist and lecturer on business and technology topics.

Phil Marciano, CPA, is a shareholder with Mayer Hoffman McCann CPAs (“MHM”) (the CPA firm associated with CBIZ). He specializes in audits of governments and nonprofit organizations, including federal single audits performed under the Uniform Guidance (formerly OMB A-133) audits, as well as employee benefit plan audits. Prior to joining MHM, Mr. Marciano gained several years’ experience with a mid-sized CPA firm on Long Island, providing accounting and auditing services to his clients within the government, education, and nonprofit arenas. He has led training seminars for his clients and staff, as well as for several professional organizations, on various subjects including governmental and nonprofit accounting/auditing. Mr. Marciano is a member of the AICPA and the New York State Society of CPAs and is a member of the Society’s Governmental Accounting and Auditing Committee and the Not for Profit Accounting and Auditing Committee. Mr. Marciano also holds a certification issued by the Association of Government Accountants (AGA), as a Certified Government Financial Manager.

Dr. Laura McGuire (they/them or she/her) is an internationally recognized consultant, survivor, researcher, seminarian, and author of the book Creating Cultures of Consent (Rowman & Littlefield, 2021). They are a member of the American Association of Sexuality Educators Counselors and Therapists (AASECT), Society of Professional Consultants. They are currently a fellow with the Institute for Social Innovation where they are researching sexual medicine competency in provider care, an adjunct professor at Widener University's Center for Human Sexuality studies, and a seminary student at Earlham School of Religion. Dr. McGuire lives in the United States, where they work as a full-time consultant at The National Center for Equity and Agency.

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.

Melissa Modelson is a senior manager in the Exempt Organization Tax and Advisory Service practice of PKF O’Connor Davies, LLP. She has over 10 years of experience advising not-for-profit organizations and provides tax compliance and consulting services to a variety of organizations exempt from income tax.

The clients she services include large public charities, college and universities, healthcare organizations and private foundations as well as low-income housing, and other not-for-profit entities.

Domenic is the Team Leader of Withum’s Healthcare Advisory Services Group. He is a Principal based out of the Firm’s New York office. With over 20 years of healthcare experience, Domenic has a broad spectrum of knowledge with his background of financial and operational executive level positions. Primarily, he has worked in large academic acute care hospitals but also has expertise in long-term care and physician practices. In addition to his comprehensive executive roles, Domenic has extensive experience in cost containment, integration and consolidation of facilities, Revenue Cycle, Strategic Planning, and “right sizing” the cost structure of facilities to correlate with their volumes.

Sean is an expert and sought-after speaker, focusing on the intersection of financial services, blockchain and cryptocurrencies. He is a regular contributor to IBM’s Blockchain Unleashed website, analyzing applications for blockchain technology on business at large, as well as being a regular expert guest on China Global TV Network discussing blockchain and related applications. Sean is a member of the Advisory Board for the Wall Street Blockchain Alliance, which coordinates with the AICPA in developing standards and reporting frameworks in this emerging area. Sean continuously works with, and consults for, the AICPA and several professional training organizations in the creation and delivery of blockchain and cryptocurrency related content. He is currently under contract to publish two books focusing on blockchain applications for financial services and other industry sectors. Sean is the host of the NJCPA TechTalk Podcast, a past leader of the NJCPA Emerging Technologies Interest Group and a member of the NJCPA Board of Trustees. He is a professor at the City University of New York - Lehman College.

Catherine Syslo is a Partner in CohnReznick’s national assurance practice, specializing in audits of not-for-profit organizations including Uniform Guidance. A licensed CPA in New York and New Jersey, she provides technical accounting and auditing expertise to engagement teams and clients and has more than 30 years of experience in public accounting and the private sector.

Catherine is a member of the firm’s Not-for-Profit Education and Thought Leadership Committee, serving as a national instructor. Outside of the firm, she is a frequent lecturer on not-for-profit accounting standards, Uniform Guidance, single audits, and other topics impacting the not-for-profit industry. She has recently spoken at the NYSSCPA, NJCPA, and GWSCPA nonprofit conferences.

Catherine received the 2021 NJCPA Woman to Watch Award which recognizes the success of women NJCPA members for both their leadership and commitment to fostering the success of their colleagues. She is a prior recipient of the NJCPA Volunteer Award based on her contributions to the NJCPA, her local community, and accounting students.