UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The Penn State Smeal College of Business has announced the addition of five new members to its Accounting External Advisory Board.
The five new members, who will attend their first meeting on Thursday, Oct. 21, include:
- Mike Denove, partner, Ernst & Young, assurance
- Chad Gazzillo, partner, KPMG, asset management
- Betsy Johnson, assurance partner, PwC, asset and wealth management
- Chad Levant, managing director, Goldman Sachs
- Jon Raphael, national managing partner, Deloitte
The Accounting External Advisory Board advises and otherwise works with the department in a number of different ways. The board is made up of accounting, business, government and education professionals who have an interest in promoting accounting education at Penn State.
The board meets twice a year with the department chair, accounting faculty and other Smeal professionals. In addition to these meetings, the board also supports the department’s strategic priorities throughout the year through committee assignments, course curriculum and classroom engagement, and student mentoring activities.
A brief professional biography of each of the new External Advisory Board members follows:
Denove, who graduated from Smeal with a degree in accounting in 2002, has 18 years of experience serving public and multinational clients in steel manufacturing and fabrication, diversified industrial products, mining, professional services, financial services, asset management, and commercial real estate. He serves as the director of EY’s Entrepreneur of the Year Program and operations deputy for western Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio. Denove is a certified public accountant (CPA) and a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Pennsylvania Institute of Certified Public Accountants.
Gazzillo, who earned a degree in accounting from Smeal in 1999, has more than 20 years of experience providing professional services to the complete spectrum of asset management clients. He also provides regulatory and accounting updates into current developments impacting investment companies and investment advisers, including fair value processes and procedures, revenue recognition, consolidation matters impacting investment managers and investment companies and regulatory compliance matters. Gazzillo spent nearly three years as a professional accounting fellow in the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. He is a CPA and a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.
Johnson, who graduated from Smeal with a degree in accounting in 1991, possesses more than 29 years of experience working with mutual funds and alternative investment products. Her background includes various structured investment products, mutual funds, hedge funds, venture capital funds, private equity investments, trust companies and internal controls reviews of transfer agencies and recordkeeping providers. She sits on various PwC asset and wealth management committees related to people development and serves on the board of trustees for PwC’s qualified retirement plans. Johnson is licensed as a CPA in Maryland and Pennsylvania.
Levant, who earned a degree in finance with a minor in business law from Smeal in 1995, is deputy global audit director for the Consumer and Wealth Management Division and chief operating officer for internal audit. He also has responsibility for the data analytics, audit committee reporting and engineering functions within internal audit. He serves as an observer on several firmwide steering committees and groups. He held a series of ascending positions at Goldman Sachs after joining as a vice president in 2003. He was named managing partner in 2011. Prior to Goldman Sachs, Levant worked at Price Waterhouse and Deloitte Consulting as a management consultant specializing in technology implementations.
Raphael, who graduated from Smeal magna cum laude with a degree in accounting in 1993, has more than 25 years of financial services, assurance and controls experience, serving many of Deloitte’s largest multinational public clients in a variety of roles. He also has diverse experience in training and quality. Raphael is a member of the Audit & Assurance Executive Committee. In his role as the national managing partner for audit transformation, he leads a large multifunctional team that is reimagining the end-to-end audit experience — from audit process transformation to innovation and analytics, fully enabled by Deloitte’s global technology organization. In his role as the national managing partner for assurance, he leads strategy and client service delivery of assurance services, with focus on environmental, social and governance related offerings. He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and New York State Society of Certified Public Accountants. He is licensed as a CPA in New York and New Jersey.