Speakers

• Dr. David Altig
  SVP & Director of Research Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta
  
  

  Dr. David E. Altig is SVP and Director of Research at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. In addition to advising the bank president on monetary policy and related matters, Dr. Altig oversees the bank's regional executives, the bank's research department, and the district's community and economic development function. He also serves as a member of the bank's management and discount committees.

  Dr. Altig also serves as an Adjunct Professor of Economics in the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago, where he was the recipient of the 2010 Einhorn award for excellence in executive MBA teaching.

  Dr. Altig was an employee of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland prior to joining the Atlanta Fed in 2007. He joined the Cleveland Fed in 1991 as an economist and was promoted to Associate Director of Research in 1997. Before moving to Cleveland Dr. Altig was a faculty member in the department of business economics and public policy at Indiana University.

  Dr. Altig graduated from the University of Iowa with a Bachelor's degree in Business Administration. He earned his Master's and Doctoral degrees in Economics from Brown University.

• Kelly Barrett
  VP of Internal Audit and Corporate Compliance The Home Depot, Inc.
  
  

  Kelly Barrett joined The Home Depot in 2003 as VP, Corporate Controller. In this role, she was responsible for all of the company's internal and external financial reporting including its filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, as well as the company's financial controls and financial systems. In 2004, she led the world's largest finance SAP implementation, an $80 million project and co-led the company's successful first year compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley 404. In 2005, she was named VP, Internal Audit. In this role, she has the responsibility for one of the company's leadership programs that serves as a pipeline of talent for The Home Depot. She is also responsible for developing and executing an audit committee risk-based audit plan. Her team not only focuses on controllership activities, but also using Six Sigma drives operational excellence through their operational project improvement work. In 2007, she also assumed responsibility for corporate compliance.

  Prior to joining The Home Depot, she served as SVP and CFO for Cousins Properties Incorporated, where she enjoyed a very successful career for more than ten years. Cousins Properties Incorporated is a real estate investment trust based in Atlanta and traded on the NYSE. Before joining Cousins, she was an Audit Manager at Arthur Andersen in Atlanta where she worked for seven years.

  Kelly graduated from Georgia Tech in 1986 with highest honors and first in her class, earning a B.S. in Industrial Management. She is a Certified Public Accountant. In 2006, she was inducted into the Georgia Tech College of Management's Council of Outstanding Young Alumni which recognizes alumni for their career achievements and contributions to Georgia Tech and society.

• Dr. Rajeev Dhawan
  Director, Economic Forecasting Center Georgia State University
  
  

  Rajeev Dhawan wears a dual hat as a professor and as Director of the Economic Forecasting Center at the Robinson College of Business at Georgia State University in Atlanta. As director of one of the country's premier forecasting centers, Dr. Dhawan develops forecasts for the U.S., southeast regional and local metro Atlanta economies.

  Dr. Dhawan's academic research analyzes U.S. business cycles with a special emphasis on the impact of monetary policy changes on the growth and survival of small firms. His research has been published prolifically, and he is the author of Firm Size, Financial Intermediation and Business Cycles, which explores the effect of credit constraints on U.S. economic performance.

  Prior to joining Georgia State University in the fall of 2000, Dr. Dhawan served as Director of Econometric Forecasting at the Business Forecasting Project of the Anderson School of Business at UCLA. He has also taught economics, logistics and statistics courses at Pepperdine University and California State University at Long Beach.

• Jim Foreman
  Managing Director, North America Towers Watson
  
  

  Jim Foreman has overall responsibility for Towers Watson's North America region. He is also a member of the firm's executive committee. He is the former Managing Director of Towers Perrin's Human Capital Group, where he had overall responsibility for its global lines of business and geographic operations. Foreman worked for more than 20 years at Towers Perrin in a number of leadership positions, including Managing Director of Towers Perrin's Health and Welfare business. He then joined Aetna in 2005 as the EVP of national businesses and a member of the executive committee where he was responsible for national accounts, global benefits, Medicaid and group insurance. He rejoined Towers Perrin in 2007.

  Foreman has a B.S. in Business-Economics from the University of California, Los Angeles and studied international business at the University of Melbourne in Australia.

• Bob Gunkel
  SVP, Finance & CFO, The Americas InterContinental Hotels Group PLC
  
  

  Bob Gunkel is SVP and CFO for the Americas division of InterContinental Hotels Group PLC (IHG). Leading the Americas finance organization, he is responsible for the management of financial operations for all properties in North and South America.

  At IHG, he has held a number of senior positions leading Americas financial planning and analysis, hotel asset management, real estate transactions and project finance. Most recently, Gunkel served as VP, Global Finance Transformation. In this role, he increased efficiency in IHG's finance function by leveraging regional capabilities and global scale. He also spent four years working in the U.K., both in corporate finance in London and in financial operations in Staffordshire. Gunkel has been heavily involved in a number of M&A projects over the years, including the acquisitions of Bristol Hotels and Resorts and the InterContinental hotel chain.

  Gunkel joined IHG in 1995 from Marriott International in Washington, DC. Prior to working in the hospitality industry, Gunkel was an investment banker in New York City, specializing in the leisure, lodging and gaming sectors.

  Gunkel holds an M.B.A. in Finance from the Wharton School of Business, as well as an undergraduate degree with honors in Accounting from the University of Virginia.

• Kiko Harvey
  VP of Corporate Audit and ERM Delta Air Lines, Inc.
  
  

  Kiko Harvey currently leads the corporate audit function and enterprise risk management activities for Delta Air Lines. In this role, she is responsible for providing a broad range of internal audit services to the Delta organization world-wide through internal and co-sourced staffing arrangements, and coordinating Delta's enterprise risk management activities.

  Harvey joined Delta Air Lines in 2009 from Starbucks Coffee Company, where she was the VP of Internal Audit. Harvey assisted the CFO in the formation of Starbucks' internal audit function in 2001 and was responsible for Starbucks' Sarbanes-Oxley testing activities. Harvey joined Starbucks in 1998.

  Prior to Starbucks, Harvey was the Director of Franchise Revenue at Taco Bell Corp., a division of YUM! Brands (formerly PepsiCo Restaurants Group) from 1993 to 1998. She was also employed by Price Waterhouse for eight years and held a number of roles within the firm, from staff through senior manager.

  Harvey is a Certified Public Accountant and has her Master's and Bachelor's degrees in Accounting from the University of Southern California where she graduated with honors. She is a member of the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA), the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and recently completed two terms on the Board of Governors for the Puget Sound Chapter of the IIA. She also serves on the IIA's Professional Issues Committee and has recently been appointed to the PCAOB's Standing Advisory Group (SAG). She is a frequent speaker and instructor for the IIA.

• Conrad W. Hewitt
  Former Chief Accountant U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission
  
  

  Conrad W. Hewitt was the Chief Accountant of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) from 2006 - 2009. As Chief Accountant, he was the principal advisor to the Commission on Accounting and Auditing Matters. Also, Hewitt was responsible for formulating and administering the accounting and auditing programs of the commission. He was responsible for the oversight of Financial Accounting Standards Board and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board for the commission, as required by the Sarbane-Oxley legislation. In his more than 30 years of experience, Hewitt was a leader of one of the world's largest accounting firms, built a strong background as a financial institution regulator and was chairman of ten audit committees (four public companies). He was also a trustee of two pension plans and a private charitable foundation.

  Hewitt is a director at the Bank of the West, and a member of its Audit Committee and Investment and Loans Committee.

  Hewitt earned a B.S. in Finance at the University of Illinois. He performed graduate work at the University of Southern California - Executive MBA program and participated in executive programs at Stanford University, Kellogg School of Business, Northwestern University and the Aspen institute.

• Al Lindseth
  SVP Technology, Process & Risk Management Plains All American Pipeline
  
  

  Al Lindseth has primary responsibility for the design and functionality of Plains All American Pipeline's (PAA) information systems, risk management policies and procedures and certain critical business processes. Lindseth joined PAA in March 2000 from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) where he specialized in risk management and arbitrage analysis. He was with GSC Energy, an energy risk management brokerage and consulting firm as Director of Research and Trading prior to PwC.

• Mark McConville
  VP of Finance, CFO, IBM Global Business Services, North America IBM
  
  

  Mark McConville provides top-level guidance, decision-making, and profit and loss accountability to IBM's portfolio of businesses within IBM's Global Business Services in North America.

  For more than 20 years, McConville has tackled complex challenges in managing IBM's key strategic assets, including performance measurement, forecasting, planning, accounting, risk management, compliance and profitability management. In the past two years he has identified more than a billion dollars in cost savings and has worked to consistently drive growth and improve margins.

  McConville was a key contributor in IBM's transformation into a services powerhouse in the early nineties, being among the first to understand and implement services pricing and profitability models when the firm was entrenched in its traditional hardware business.

• John F. O'Neill, III
  Senior Director Cushman & Wakefield Inc.
  
  

  John O'Neill specializes in developing and implementing real estate strategies for a diverse client base that ranges from Fortune 500 corporations to emerging growth companies and non-profit institutions. O'Neill's expertise includes lease acquisition and disposition, market and site analysis, financial analysis, transaction structuring, and long-term strategic planning, all on a regional and national basis.

  The team that O'Neill co-leads has consistently been a top producing team in the Atlanta office and has regularly been awarded Cushman & Wakefield's Service Excellence Award for outstanding achievement in the pursuit of business performance excellence and total client satisfaction. John is a lifetime member of the Atlanta Commercial Board of Realtors' Million Dollar Club and recipient of its Phoenix Award and the prestigious President's Award.

  He is on the Board of Directors for the Atlanta Commercial Board of Realtors, the Atlanta Police Foundation, and serves as Chairman of the Board for the Chastain Park Conservancy. O'Neill is VP on the Executive Committee for the Ireland Chamber of Commerce. He is a member of the Atlanta Rotary Club and Leadership Atlanta Class of 2011.

  He earned his Psychology degree from the College of Charleston and his Masters in Business Administration from the Terry College of Business at the University of Georgia.

• Todd Perkins
  Director of ERM Southern Company
  
  

  Todd Perkins serves as Director of Enterprise Risk Management of Southern Company with responsibility for enterprise risk management, risk analysis services, and the risk control function for the Company's energy trading activities.

  Perkins joined Southern Company in 1997 as an analyst in the Treasury department and progressed through various areas of responsibility. In 2000, he became the Manager of Credit and Risk Oversight with responsibility for developing and executing strategies to manage the Company's interest rate exposure and wholesale credit exposure.

  In 2004, Perkins was named Manager of the Risk Control group responsible for risk and credit policy, derivative valuation and risk measurement, and derivative accounting for the Company energy trading activities.

  Perkins was promoted to Director of Enterprise Risk Management in 2007 when several risk groups were combined under his leadership. In his current role, Perkins has overall responsibility for the Company's enterprise risk management program, including the development and implementation of risk policies, governance structures, and coordination of firm-wide risk identification, assessment, monitoring, reporting and mitigation.

  Perkins holds a B.S. in Economics from Clemson University and a M.B.A. from the Goizueta Business School at Emory University.

• Michael J. Ryan
  Executive Director Cushman & Wakefield Inc.
  
  

  Mike Ryan is the Executive Director of Cushman & Wakefield Sonnenblick Goldman's Atlanta office. In 2008, he opened the firm's Atlanta office, where he is responsible for expanding the firm's southeast business platform. In this capacity, he is responsible for new business development, strategic initiatives, and arranging first-trust financing (including Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae executions), mezzanine debt, preferred equity, and joint venture equity for all types of commercial real estate assets. Prior to opening the Atlanta office, Ryan was in Cushman & Wakefield's Debt and Equity Group based in Washington, D.C. since 2004. During his tenure with Cushman & Wakefield, Ryan advised clients in the closing for over $4.0B in senior debt, equity, preferred equity, mezzanine, and construction finance.

  Prior to joining Cushman & Wakefield, Ryan worked at MONY Realty Capital, an institutional lender, where he was part of a loan origination team based in Atlanta that was responsible for placing first-trust mortgages, mezzanine loans, bridge loans, open-ended and construction-perm loans. In addition to loan origination and loan origination support, Ryan oversaw a $200M loan portfolio.

  Ryan received Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is a member of Urban Land Institute, National Multifamily Housing Council, and the Mortgage Bankers Association.

• Nick Shreiber
  Principal Partner Shreiber & Associates, LLC, Board Director, The Campbell Soup Company, Former President & CEO, Tetra Pak Group
  
  

  Nick Shreiber is an international executive with more than 30 years of leadership experience at senior levels in both line management and management consulting.

  Today, Shreiber advises leaders of international companies on issues of strategy, organization and operations. His consulting activities encompass the coaching of mid- and top-level executives to help them maximize their potential as leaders, team members and individuals. Shreiber serves on boards and advisory councils for a number of companies and universities in the U.S., Europe and Russia. Most recently, he was elected a Director of The Campbell Soup Company, an $8B international food corporation.

  Shreiber spent 18 years with the Tetra Pak Group, a $12B global corporation and a world leader in packaging and processing solutions for food. He was President and CEO for five years during which time Tetra Pak delivered record sales, profits and cash-flow.

  Prior to Tetra Pak, Shreiber was a partner with McKinsey & Co., where he spent eight years with engagement responsibility for major clients in Europe and Latin America, in diverse industrial and service sectors. Earlier in his career Shreiber worked in the footwear and textile industries.

  Shreiber combines an Industrial Engineering background with graduate studies in Business Administration.

• Gregg Sutherland
  Principal, Performance Management Practice Leader Ernst & Young LLP
  
  

  Gregg Sutherland leads Ernst & Young LLP's Performance Management practice, which includes planning and management analysis. Planning services include advising clients on strategic planning, capital budgeting, long-range planning, annual budgeting and forecasting. Management analysis services include advising clients on variance analysis, root cause analysis, management reporting, scorecards and dashboards.

  Sutherland has led projects for clients in media, entertainment, telecommunications, technology, manufacturing, consumer products and financial services. He has also spearheaded several thought leadership projects, utilizing interviews with more than 300 executives at the CEO, COO and CFO levels.

  Sutherland is a board member of the Colorado Audubon Society and Communication Technology Professionals. He is a graduate of the University of Denver and holds an M.B.A. from the Wharton School of Business with a dual major in Strategic Planning and Decision Sciences.