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Faculty Biographies

 Dennis Faurote

Denny Faurote, CPA is President of The Faurote Group. He is a professional trainer, keynote speaker, and consultant. Denny's creed is to help others succeed in the challenges of life.

Denny provides a unique perspective combining the business savvy of an Accounting Career and CPA with the human touch. He draws on a rich background of experience. For fourteen years he worked for the international public accounting firm of Deloitte & Touche; consistently recognized as one of Americas' top organizations for which to work by Fortune magazine. He contributed to the client service side of the Indianapolis practice office for eight years and directed their human resources and recruiting efforts for six years. During his tenure as Human Resources, Professional Development, and Recruiting Director, the Indianapolis office was recognized as having the # 1 HR operation in the worldwide firm. Denny also played a significant role at the national and regional levels of the firm. He assisted with the development and rollout of a firm-wide performance management system. In addition, he was one of the pioneers of an extremely successful leadership training and development program that was implemented firm wide.

Today, Denny travels around the country consulting with and delivering leadership development programs and keynotes to all types of organizations including Fortune 500 companies, privately-held entities, colleges and universities, etc. He has successfully developed and delivered hundreds of programs to thousands of people including business professionals, educators, and students from around the world.

Denny relies on his practical experience and commitment to continual self-improvement to adapt and adjust to any situation. His extensive and diverse experiences give him an up-close and personal look at the issues, challenges, and opportunities that organizations and individuals face day-to-day. Denny's high energy and upbeat message educates while it entertains.

Denny is also an adjunct professor at Indiana University Kelley School of Business. He has designed and delivered leadership programs at the undergraduate and graduate level. He also works closely with several other universities, such as Purdue, Notre Dame, Ball State, Kansas, University of Illinois, Miami, etc. in developing and delivering leadership programs.

 Mark Frigo

Mark L. Frigo, PhD, CPA, CMA is the Director of The Center for Strategy, Execution and Valuation in the Kellstadt Graduate School of Business and Ledger & Quill Foundation Distinguished Professor of Strategy and Leadership in the School of Accountancy at DePaul University. Dr. Frigo has extensive experience as a management consultant with KPMG and in the corporate sector where he was responsible for strategic planning. He has helped many organizations to design and execute strategy for maximum value creation. Dr. Frigo is a leading expert in strategy design and execution, including Balanced Scorecard initiatives and has helped participants from CCFL seminars to lead successful strategic planning and Balanced Scorecard initiatives. Recognized as a dynamic speaker, Dr. Frigo was presented the Economos Award for Outstanding Teaching in the Kellstadt Graduate School of Business at DePaul and the Illinois CPA Society Outstanding Educator of the Year Award, and was recently profiled as one of the top business school professors in the Chicago area by Crain’s Chicago Business. The author of five books and over 60 articles, his work is published in leading business journals including Harvard Business Review. He is a consultant to executive teams and boards of directors. Dr. Frigo is co-creator of the Return Driven Strategy™ Framework with Joel Litman.

 John W. Hill

John W. Hill, PhD, JD is the Arthur M. Weimer Chair in Business and the former Associate Dean for Research and Operations at the Kelley School of Business, Indiana University, and a member of the Georgia Bar Association. Prior to assuming his current duties, Professor Hill was Chairman, Systems and Accounting Graduate Programs, at the Kelley School. He holds doctor of philosophy in business, doctor of jurisprudence, master of business administration, bachelor of science (business/accounting) and bachelor of arts (history) degrees.

Professor Hill has taught business at every collegiate level and received numerous teaching awards and recognitions including the President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching at Indiana University. Professor Hill’s teaching interests lie in the areas of business valuation, financial analysis, strategic cost management and leadership. He has taught at the Borsa Italiano (Italian stock exchange) and consulted with European mutual fund and telecom companies. He also has taught in various overseas executive programs in Russia, Slovenia, Hungary and Vietnam. He is the co-author of two textbooks on financial and managerial accounting that have been adopted by over fifty schools.

Prior to entering academe, Professor Hill spent ten years in banking, the last four as a chief financial and administrative officer of a Georgia bank. In addition to his academic and business activities, Professor hill served as Major General, U.S. Marine Corps in July 2000, he was Vice Commander, Marine Forces Atlantic, Europe and South.

 Debra Hopkins

Debra R. Hopkins, CPA, CIA is a frequently requested speaker and professional consultant. She is known for her lively and animated teaching style. Technical issues are presented using real-life examples. Her areas of expertise include auditing, corporate governance, financial accounting, and the International Accounting and Auditing Standards. Her international teaching experience spans four continents. She conducts audit staff training for public accounting firms; and CEO/CFO Sarbanes-Oxley seminars throughout the country.

Debra’s enthusiastic teaching style has helped give Northern Illinois University (NIU) the fifth highest auditing pass rate in the nation on the May 2003 (latest statistics available) and the ninth overall highest passing rate on the uniform Certified Public Accountant’s (CPA) examination. The NIU CPA Review serves over 1,000 CPA candidates each year. The university is the 10th best accounting program in the United States according to the 2004 Public Accounting Report ranking and 25th according to the U. S. News and World Report 2005 ratings.

Debra is a full-time faculty member at NIU and has directed the CPA review since July 1991. She teaches auditing, financial accounting, and governmental accounting in the review courses and has achieved top five national passing rates in auditing for 16 out of the last 30 CPA exams, more than any other university in the nation. Her latest accomplishments include:

• American Institute of Certified Public Accountants/Illinois CPA Society, “Women to Watch” award for her notable contributions to the accounting profession, organizations, and to the development of women as leaders, 2005

• Author of Get Motivated, You Can Pass the CPA Exam, by John Wiley, 2nd edition 2005

• Author of Impact Audios: Auditing, Financial Accounting, and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, by John Wiley & Sons, 2005

• Author of CPA Connection, a supplement to accompany Intermediate Accounting, 11th edition by Kieso, Weygandt, and Warfield, John Wiley & Sons, 2004

• Illinois CPA Society Outstanding Accounting Educator 1997

Some of Debra’s affiliations include:

• Illinois CPA Society, Board of Directors 2001 - 2006; Officer 2003 - 2006; Audit Committee Chair, 2004, 2005

• AICPA Council Representative, 2000 - 2001

• Illinois CPA Society, Audit and Assurances Services Committee, Chair 1999 – 2001; Audit Committee, 2001 – 2006

• American Professional Accounting Certification Providers’ Association (APACPA), 1999 -2005; President, 2004 – 2005; 2005 - 2006

• National Bank and Trust, Sycamore, Director; Audit Committee member

• American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA)

• Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA)

• American Accounting Association (AAA)

Debra holds a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh and a Master in Accounting Science degree from Northern Illinois University. She is a poor golfer, a mediocre skier, an avid Packer fan, and a world champion snowmobile racer.

 Sreenivas Kamma

Sreenivas Kamma, PhD, MBA is Associate Professor of Finance at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business. He joined the business school in 1986 after completing his Ph.D. In finance at the State University of New York at Buffalo. His current work focuses on the value implications of capital structure choices and cash disbursement policies. Professor Kamma has taught extensively in the M.B.A. and Ph.D. programs. He is the recent recipient of several MBA teaching excellence awards.

Professor Kamma has taught at the Wharton School of Business and at the London School of Business where he received a teaching excellence prize from the Masters in Finance program. He also has taught short programs in Helsinki, Slovenia, Hungary, and for such corporations as Elementis, MOL, Rolls Royce, John Deere and Whirlpool. He is currently the program manager for the MBA in Finance program for John Deere Finance Professionals.

 Marian Powers

Marian Powers, PhD is an adjunct associate professor in the Kellogg School of Management and the Allen Center of Executive Education at Northwestern University. In addition to teaching graduate accounting courses, Marian develops and conducts custom training programs in financial reporting and analysis for corporations, general executive education programs and for a broad range of special groups such as technology managers, broadcasting and newspaper executives, human resource managers, senior sales personnel, management consultants, and non-profits. Her almost 20 years training and consulting experience includes working with both small and large, public and private corporations in both the US and internationally.

Dr. Powers is co-author of several accounting texts and in-depth cases on financial analysis. The Text and Academic Authors Association chose Financial Accounting as recipient of the 1998 Textbook Excellence Award. Professor Powers has co-authored three accounting and finance interactive multimedia software products including Introduction to Financial Accounting, a goal-based simulation that uses the Financial Consequences® Model to introduce financial accounting and the financial statements to those unfamiliar with accounting. Her research has been published in numerous accounting and business periodicals.

Marian has received recognition and awards for her teaching and is a part of a team that developed and delivers The Conference on Accounting Education, an annual conference now in its twenty-third year.

She has been active in several professional organizations including the Illinois CPA Society, American Accounting Association, European Accounting Association, International Association of Accounting Education and Research and The Education Foundation for Women in Accounting.

 Mark Sellner

Mark Sellner, CPA, JD, LLM (Taxation) is on the faculty at the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management, where he teaches graduate level courses and seminars on corporate tax, mergers and acquisitions, and accounting for income taxes in the Master of Business Taxation Program.

Mark consults in the areas of business and executive taxation and mergers and acquisitions. He has both Fortune 500 and Big Four corporate tax and mergers and acquisitions experience. Mark was tax counsel and director of U.S. taxes for four years at Ecolab Inc. in St. Paul, Minnesota and completed a three-year Ernst & Young National Tax Department corporate tax and consolidated returns assignment in Washington, D.C. He has served as a partner at KPMG’s metro New York headquarters, and was most recently a tax partner at LarsonAllen in Minneapolis.

Mark received his accounting degree with high distinction at the University of Illinois, law degree at the University of Minnesota and masters of law in taxation degree at Georgetown University Law Center.

 Thomas L. Zeller

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