Amanda “Jo” Erven, CPA, CIA, and CFE, is the President and Founder of Audit. Consulting. Education. LLC – a firm that provides progressive internal audit and risk strategies, culture and ethics consulting, and NASBA sponsored CPE trainings (like the Fraud Retreat)!

In 2023, Jo joined MSU Denver as a Full-Time Accounting Faculty and as the Director of Internal Audit Education. Her passion is ensuring students know what an amazing profession internal audit is and to give them the skills, tools, and resources needed to achieve greatness in the profession.

Jo’s graduate students are the internal auditors for MSU Denver! She is literally teaching and training new staff to perform high-risk audits every semester. After graduation, she is looking forward to placing them in YOUR internal audit departments full-time!

Jo’s trademarked approach to Internal Audit, Total Quality Auditing, was published in both book and workbook format early in 2019. Her second book, entitled Your Road. Your Choices. was published in the fall of 2019 and the associated trainings have been called an “epic experience!” (If you know, you know.)

Her third book, Becoming The Everyday Ethicist, shows Jo’s ultimate passion: helping indiviuals live an ethical life. The book provides the keys to personal ethics, shows leaders how to display integrity and earn trust, and demonstrates the importance of ethics (and ethics monitoring by Internal Auditors) in all organizations. So… are you ready to learn how to AUDIT ETHICS & CULTURE at this year’s fraud retreat? Jo is ready to help you!

Read more about Jo on LinkedIn here.

Cynthia Cooper is an internationally recognized speaker (ethics, leadership, overcoming adversity), a best-selling author, a consultant, and an all-around amazing human!!

Cynthia and her team unraveled the fraud at WorldCom, to date one of the largest corporate frauds in history. Cynthia served as Vice President for MCI where she and her team helped the company move forward and successfully emerge from bankruptcy.

For this, Cynthia was named one of Time Magazine’s Persons of the Year in 2002. By the way… Time Magazine has been naming its Persons of the Year since 1927… and in addition to Cynthia, the designation has only been given to seven women including Madame Chiang Kai-Shek, Elizabeth II and Corazon Aquino. Cynthia was also the first woman to be inducted into the AICPA Hall of Fame and to receive the American Accounting Association’s Accounting Exemplar Award.

Prior to joining MCI, Cynthia worked in Atlanta, Georgia for PwC and Deloitte. She received her masters degree from the University of Alabama.  Cynthia previously served as a member of the Standing Advisory Group of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB). She was the 2011 Chairman of Board of Regents for the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners and currently serves on the advisory boards for Louisiana State University and Mississippi State University.

Cynthia’s presentation style has been described as riveting and inspiring. (And you are going to see this on Friday morning August 9th – as Cynthia is doing TWO sessions for us at the Fraud Retreat!) Cynthia speaks for and consults with organizations around the world. Her clients include large cap public companies such as Dell, Bell South, France Telecom, PepsiCo, Raytheon, Walmart, and AT&T; associations such as the Washington D.C. Trial Lawyers Association; and public sector entities such as the FBI, the U.S. Department of Interior, the U.S. Department of Labor; international organizations such as the United Nations. 

Read more about Cynthia on LinkedIn here.

Tom Hardin previously spent much of his career as a financial analyst in the U.S. In 2008, as part of a cooperation agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice, Tom assisted the U.S. government in understanding how insider trading occurred in the financial services industry.

Known as “Tipper X,” Tom became one of the most prolific informants in securities fraud history, helping to build over 20 of the 80+ individual criminal cases in “Operation Perfect Hedge,” a Wall Street house cleaning campaign that morphed into the largest insider trading investigation of a generation. As the youngest professional implicated in the sting, Tom was tasked with wearing a covert body wire on over 40 occasions to help the FBI bring down some of its biggest targets in the industry.

In a reunion of sorts, Tom was invited by the FBI-NYC’s office to speak to their rookie agents in 2016 and is now a global keynote speaker, corporate trainer and board advisor on behavioral ethics, compliance and organizational conduct and culture risk. Through rigorous self-examination, Tom took responsibility for his actions as a young professional, used the experience to transform his life and is now on an on-going journey into human behavior and why we sometimes make the wrong decision.

Tom will be the opening keynote for our 2024 Fraud Retreat! “From Fraud to Redemption: Insights and Lessons from Tom Hardin and Craig Stanland”

Read more about Tom on LinkedIn here.

Read more about Craig on LinkedIn here.

Read more about Nora on LinkedIn here.

Juliette Gust, CFE, is the co-founder of Ethics Suite, a company that provides a modern anonymous “hotline” reporting and case management system. 

As a former Director of Internal Audit for a Fortune 500 organization, Juliette developed and led the Global Fraud & Investigations team for the company, which employed over 180,000 employees in more than 100 countries at the time. Juliette also served as the Project Manager and a core member of the company’s Anti-Corruption Compliance Program, leading the development of a best-in-class global anti-corruption risk assessment, third-party due diligence, and anti-corruption audit program. 

Throughout her career, Juliette has personally conducted or managed more than 2,000 investigations spanning 75 countries and advised on more than 10,000 employee ethics line reports.

At the 2024 Fraud Retreat, Juliette will be sharing a program called: “Auditing Your Ethics Program from Report Intake to Board Reporting: You Can and You Should.” She will explain why an Ethics program should not be a “set it and forget it” effort or merely a paper program. She  will provide options for designing and implementing an audit program customized to fit your organization’s ethical environment, ethics-related controls, and the policies and processes that support the program’s objectives. It will also highlight the importance of continuous monitoring, independent testing, and periodic reporting to the Board of Directors.

Read more about Juliette on LinkedIn here.

Mark Nicholas, who has so many letters behind his name we probably forgot some (CPA, CFE, CVA, CFF, MAFF)! By the way, MAFF is Master Analyst in Financial Forensics. Who wants to hear more about THAT designation – I know I do!

Mark is the owner of Financial Litigation Consultants LLC, a 30 person CPA practices with offices in St. Louis, MO, Kissimmee, FL, and Bloomington, IL. His team, which is comprised of CPAs, CFEs, Certified Valuation Analysts (CVAs), Certified Financial Forensics (CFF), and MAFFs, works with high net worth clients, business valuation, forensic investigation, expert witness, and estate/trust work.

Mark founded his company in 2010, and prior to that worked as a Managing Member at several other CPA firms. Many years ago, Mark was the Chief Executive Officer of a cardiopulmonary physician group in Central Illinois.

At the 2024 Fraud Retreat, Mark will be sharing: “Litigation Secrets and Case Studies from the Courtroom.” Mark will take us through the litigation process for both civil and criminal cases and explore the role of being an expert witness. You won’t want to miss the case stories that will be shared during Mark’s presentation!

Read more about Mark on LinkedIn here.

Hailey Windham, CFCS, is a Fraud Ops Leader for Mission Omega – a mission-driven fraud services company for financial institutions. Hailey is a leader in the Anti-Fraud Community and a tenacious professional advocating for fraud awareness. As a 2023 CU Rockstar Recipient, Hailey demonstrated unbounding passion for educating her community, organization, and credit union membership on scams in the market and best practices to avoid them.

Hailey has implemented several programs within her previous organizations that aim at holistically learning about how to prevent and detect fraud targeted at its membership and employees. Hailey’s initiatives to build strong relationships and partnerships throughout the industry and community have led to countless success stories from helping members identify scams before they’re victimized, empowering frontline staff to report suspicious activity and collaborating with industry experts on prevention tactics. 

In 2022, Hailey was named one of the “Top 20 Professionals Under 40”, by the Chamber of Commerce in Sumter, SC. Hailey also recently had a HUGE win in SC where she is working with Congress on a “Cyrpto Coalition,” recovering victim funds lost to scams. She will be sharing more about this at the Retreat!

Read more about Hailey on LinkedIn here.

Steve Lenderman has been working in the financial crimes sector for over 25 years and is currently the Head of Fraud Solutions North America at Quantexa. 

At Quantexa he is the fraud subject matter expert and assists future and current clients with their fraud prevention needs using artificial intelligence to fight fraud, financial crimes, and regulatory compliance by uncovering the relationships and entities behind the activity. 

In prior roles, Steve has been the SVP of Fraud Prevention and Investigations at Bank Mobile Technology (BMTX), was the Director of Strategic Fraud Prevention at ADP, and the Fraud Operations Lead for PayPal Business Loans. Early in his career, Steve spent time with Barclaycard US where he oversaw major investigations, internal investigations, bust outs / credit abuse, and synthetics identities. 

Steve has been heavily involved in investigating and identifying synthetic identities and entities. He is considered an industry expert and serves as the Co-Chair of the Bust Out Synthetic Identity (BOSI) working group. 

Steve is also is the President of the IAFCI Delaware Valley Chapter, the ACFE Delaware Chapter and is a regular speaker at numerous fraud conferences, law enforcement trainings and community outreach programs. 

At the 2024 Fraud Retreat, Steve will be presenting “Fintech and Fraud: Fact, Fiction, and Folklore” and we can’t wait to have him!

Read more about Steve on LinkedIn here.

Lacey Keller is the co-owner of MK Analytics, Inc. with over a decade of research and analytics experience. MK Analytics assists non-profits and law firms in using traditional and alternative data for a range of initiatives and investigations.

Previously, Lacey founded and directed the Data Mining and Analytics Division of Gryphon Strategies and prior to that founded and directed the Research and Analytics Department for the New York State Office of the Attorney General. During her tenure, Lacey developed a formidable team, including the first data scientist hired by a state attorney general’s office, that leveraged cutting-edge technologies and analytical techniques to support investigations.

Her team was instrumental in many of the most notable cases brought by the Office of the Attorney General, including the case brought against Spectrum (Time Warner Cable) for allegedly defrauding customers over internet speeds and performance as well as successful litigation brought against the landlord Steven Croman for harassing tenants. That team also helped author reports on Airbnb, gun trafficking, and ticket pricing that national media outlets widely covered.

Previously, Lacey worked in the Research Department of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU 32BJ), the largest property services union in the country. Lacey was named part of City and State’s 40 Under 40 and received both the New York State Office of the Attorney General’s Innovation in Law Enforcement Award and the Superior Service Award. Lacey holds a Master of Economics from the New School and a Bachelor of Business Administration from Washburn University.

Lacey and Erik Halvorson will be doing a joint-presentation on Fraud Data and Analytics at the Fraud Retreat!

Read more about Lacey on LinkedIn here.

Erik Halvorson is the Chief Data Scientist for Tracklight.ai, starting in Octover 2023. Tracklight AI is reimagining Government Fraud Protection using Generative AI and Open-Source Intellligence.

Prior to that, Erik was a Special Agent with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Inspector General for almost 9 years. Erik served as an Operations Officer focused on anti-fraud programs for DOE’s new funding. As an agent, he specialized in financial fraud and public corruption investigations.

Erik has 17 years of federal law enforcement experience including both domestic and international work. Erik enjoys using advanced analysis techniques to proactively detect and investigate fraud. A Columbia University graduate, he holds degrees in criminal justice, accounting, and applied analytics.

He is currently enrolled in a PhD program, at University of Denver, where his dissertation will focus on text mining and sentiment analysis as a method to help inform emergency responses.

Finally, Erik started a small consulting business (Archimedes Evaluation Services) to help other businesses and non-profits with psychometrics, analytics, statistical analyses, program evaluations, research, and anti-fraud consulting.

Erik and Lacey Keller will be doing a joint-presentation on Fraud Data and Analytics at the Fraud Retreat!

Read more about Erik on LinkedIn here.

Kelly Paxton, CFE, PI, is the Principal and Founder of K Paxton LLC and a nationally recognized expert in fraud, specifically, in Pink Collar Crime. Her book, Embezzlement: How to Detect, Prevent, and Investigate Pink Collar Crime was published in 2020!

Kelly didn’t start out in law enforcement but that’s where she spent most of her career. While she was working at a financial services firm, a client was arrested on wire fraud charges. This ended up leading her to a new, much more exciting career as a special agent for US Customs. She was able to work all types of cases including white collar fraud, money laundering and narcotics cases. She got used to investigating “bad guys!”

Kelly has worked in both the public and private sector. Her cases have included embezzlement, conflict of interest, intellectual property, Open Source Intelligence and fraud. Her most recent position was at Nike where she was recruited for her expertise in Open Source Intelligence.

Kelly was also a contract investigator for the Department of Homeland Security doing background investigations. She has performed hundreds of top secret clearance background investigations for the federal government. (Not Edward Snowden’s though!)

Kelly will be at the Fraud Retreat for networking with you all and will be sponsoring/hosting our Happy Hour on Day 1 of the event!

Read more about Kelly on LinkedIn here.

Trent Russell is the Founder of Greenskies Analytics, a firm providing expert data analysis, continuous monitoring, and RPA for forward-thinking Internal Audit teams.

Prior to founding Greenskies Analytics, Trent joined Ernst & Youngs’ (EY) IT Risk Assurance practice where he served multiple industries. He later joined the Financial Service Office at EY and facilitated the development of data analytics procedures. Trent has led the audit analytics function for a Higher Education and Healthcare provider.

At Greenskies Analytics, Trent develops audit analytics strategies, helps Internal Audit teams launch their data analytics initiatives, makes the analytics initiatives actually work, and moves Internal Audit teams up the analytics maturity model.

Trent also prides himself on helping auditors create meaningful data visuals for management and our boards – which he will some us at the Fraud Retreat. His program: “How to use ChatGPT for Audit Analytics” is going to literally WOW you. And you will leave with new skills to show your team, no matter your industry!

By the way, in addition to serving his clients, Trent also hosts The Audit Podcast and facilitates quarterly audit analytics roundtables.

Read more about Trent on LinkedIn here.

Elizabeth McDowell, CPA, CIA, is the founder of Audit Forward, an innovative internal audit consulting business designed with credit unions in mind. Her tagline is: “Audit Smarter, Not Harder!”

Elizabth can transform, digitize, and modernize your credit union internal audit department, retail branch audit program, and executive reporting. ​She is passionate about advancing and advocating for the internal audit profession and credit union industry. She makes auditing fun (no, really!) and efficient, resulting in time and money savings. 

Christine Murray is the VP of Audit and Compliance for Kohler Credit Union. She has over 20+ years experience in the financial sector. She started her career at Ascend Credit Union for almost 9 years before becoming a Financial Examiner for the State of Wisconsin. After that, she spent time at Thrivent Federal Credit Union and Verve Credit Union, where she lept from Internal Audit to the Assistant Vice President of Accounting for almost a year. Christine was the Internal Audit Manager at Cardinal Financial Company before taking on her new VP role.

Christine’s expertise and background includes consumer and mortgage lending, compliance, accounting issues, internal controls, and operations. She has both her Bachelors and Masters of Science degree in Accounting from the University of Phoenix.

Christine enjoys working with diverse teams and stakeholders, sharing her knowledge and insights, and learning from others. She is a frequent guest of Robert Berry’s Friday Fraudster Podcast – and she will be joining Rob, Jo, and Kelly in a special Friday Fraudster Live event at the 2024 Fraud Retreat!

Christine is also passionate about volunteering and currently serves as the Treasurer for middle and high schools’ Youth Band Organizations.