Professionals
Cynthia Cooper
Today Ms. Cooper is a consultant, internationally recognized speaker and the author of Extraordinary Circumstances (February 2008, John Wiley & Sons), a book that discusses her experiences as a corporate executive and lessons learned at WorldCom. Ms. Cooper presents to professionals and students across the globe to share the lessons she has learned and to emphasize the importance of strong ethical leadership. She has donated profits from her book to further ethics education for high school and college students. Ms. Cooper currently serves on advisory boards for Louisiana State University, Lehigh University and Mississippi State University.
Prior to joining MCI, Ms. Cooper worked in public accounting in Atlanta, Georgia, for Deloitte & Touche and PricewaterhouseCoopers, and she holds a number of professional designations including Certified Public Accountant in Georgia, Certified Fraud Examiner and Certified Information Systems Auditor. The CooperGroup not a CPA firm but a management consulting firm and does not provide attest services, audits, or other engagements in accordance with the AICPA's Statements on Auditing Standards. Ms. Cooper serves on the Board of Regents for the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners. She has previously served as a member of the Standing Advisory Group of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB).
Ms. Cooper has served on panels with notables such as Brian Williams, Anderson Cooper, Donna Brazile, and Grover Norquist; and has appeared on programs including Fox Business’ America’s Nightly Scoreboard, PBS’s Tavis Smiley, NBC’s The Today Show, ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos, CSPAN’s BookTV, and CNBC’s The Big Idea with Donnie Deutsch and Squawk Box.
Ms. Cooper has served large cap public company clients such as Dell, PepsiCo, Raytheon and Walmart; international and public sector entities such as the United Nations, the FBI’s Office of Integrity and Compliance, the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division, the U.S. Department of Interior, the U.S. Department of Labor, and the California State Auditors; and public accounting firms such as Deloitte and PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Ms. Cooper was named one of Time Magazine’s Persons of the Year for her role in uncovering the WorldCom fraud. She was the first woman inducted to the AICPA Hall of Fame and was featured as one of twenty-five influential working mothers in Working Mother. Ms. Cooper is also the recipient of the American Accounting Association’s Accounting Exemplar Award, which is awarded annually to an individual who has made notable contributions to professionalism and ethics in accounting practice or education. Along with Senator Sarbanes and Representative Oxley, Ms. Cooper received the Maria and Sidney E. Rolfe Award from the Women’s Economic Round Table for contributions to educating the public about economics, business and finance.
Nicholas DiMola
Mr. DiMola has over 35 years of diverse management and board-level experience. He served six years as Vice President and CFO for a major commuter railroad, and over 20 years as the CAE for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), the largest public transportation company in North America. As CFO, Mr. DiMola was responsible for directing the Controller, Budget, Treasury, Pension, Process Re-engineering departments. He was also the company’s Internal Control Officers and was responsible for assessing corporate-wide risk and the effectiveness the systems of internal controls including its program of control self assessments and for directing the employee internal control education and awareness training program. Mr. DiMola also implemented and chaired the company’s IT governance process which was responsible for selecting major IT system initiatives to ensure that the initiative was strategically aligned with corporate objectives and the user department needs.
Mr. DiMola served as a member the Audit Committee of the Board of Directors of the Bon Secours New York Health Systems and was Chairman of the American Public Transit Associations (APTA) Internal Audit Committee. As CAE, Mr. DiMola consolidated the multi-agency internal audit departments and directed the 100-person internal audit function. He was responsible for financial, operational, construction, contract and technology audits and also for the investigative audit group responsible for fraud detection. Mr. DiMola reported to the Audit Committee of the Board and worked with the Committee’s Chair to develop the Committee’s Charter, Statement of Responsibilities, the Annual Committee Work Plan, and the annual “Year in Review” report to the Board of Directors.
Mr. DiMola holds the professional designation of Certified Public Accountant and is a member of the A.I.C.P.A and the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA). He is a member of the IIA NY Chapter Board of Governors and was a past President of the Chapter. Mr. DiMola co-developed and teaches a construction audit course and is a frequent speaker at conferences. He is also a member of Baruch College’s Curriculum Advisory Committee.
Emil Moschella
Mr. Moschella has extensive experience in both the government and private sectors. He worked for over 28 years with the FBI where he investigated primarily white-collar crimes. Mr. Moschella worked at FBI Headquarters in Washington D.C. for more than ten years where he served in various high-level executive positions including Legislative Counsel and Chief of the FBI’s Freedom and Information Privacy Acts Section.
Most recently, Mr. Moschella played a key role in implementing a corporate-style compliance program at the FBI – the first of its kind for the federal government. For its efforts, the FBI was recognized by the Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics (SCCE) with its prestigious Annual Compliance and Ethics Award in September 2009, for pioneering leadership in the compliance and ethics profession. In addition, Mr. Moschella headed the Ethics and Compliance function for Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield in New Jersey, advising the corporation on best practices in ethics and compliance. Mr. Moschella took the company’s compliance initiative from a fledgling activity to a robust program that was fully integrated into the business.
Mr. Moschella is a graduate of Fordham College and Brooklyn Law School and a member of the Bar of Commonwealth of Virginia. His vast expertise in law, compliance program development, white-collar criminal investigations, and public policy make him a sought after advisor in the forensic investigation and corporate governance arenas. Mr. Moschella is a regular featured speaker on ethics and compliance matters. He has published several articles on best practices and current industry trends in organizational compliance. His most recent article, “Federal Agency Compliance; Applying Corporate Lessons in a Government Setting”, recently appeared in the June 2008 edition Compliance and Ethics Magazine.
Paul J. Flora
Mr. Flora has over 35 years of professional experience including 23 years between two major international banks, and 14 years with a major life insurance company in New York. Most recently, he was the Chief Audit Executive at AXA Equitable Life Insurance Company in New York, a major subsidiary of the global AXA Group. In addition to the internal audit staff, he had a team of 10 fraud investigators which was charged with the responsibility to investigate and report on all fraud activity against the company. Under Mr. Flora’s guidance, the internal audit department developed and delivered across the organization anti-fraud and internal control training courses, which have now become part of the company’s annual ethics program.
Mr. Flora serves as a member of the Audit Committee of the Board of Directors of the American Nurses Association. He has had extensive experience in dealing with corporate executive management and the Board of Directors, specifically the Audit Committee. He holds the professional designations of Certified Financial Services Auditor and Certified Fraud Examiner. Mr. Flora has been a past president of the NY Chapter of the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) and has also been a Board of Governor for the past ten years. He co-developed and teaches a construction audit course and has been a frequent speaker and moderator of Chief Audit Executive Roundtable sessions for the IIA both at the local chapter level and at national conferences.
Mr. Flora is a retired Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve and spent 7 years in the National Security Agency’s (NSA) contracting office as a contract technician dealing with contracts for the purchase of military intelligence equipment and services. He has completed several specific courses from the U.S. Army Logistics Management Center and received a certificate for the completion of the Management of Defense Acquisitions Contracts course.
John Schaedel
Mr. Schaedel has over 30 years of corporate experience in accounting and auditing including over 20 years experience at his most recent position of Chief Audit Executive for Tiffany & Co. At Tiffany, he worked with management to establish Tiffany’s worldwide business conduct program. As Vice President of Internal Audit and Financial Controls he helped develop a self-assessment culture at Tiffany long before the requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley act of 2002. This self-assessment culture allowed the company to significantly contain internal audit resources using its risk-based approach. It also strengthened the effectiveness of Tiffany & Co.’s white-collar crime investigations program, of which Mr. Schaedel was an integral part.
Mr. Schaedel formerly worked in various financial management positions for Avon Products before joining Tiffany. Prior to that, he worked for KPMG in New York.
Mr. Schaedel holds the professional designation of Certified Public Accountant. He is a member of the Institute of Internal Auditors and currently serves on the Board of Directors of its New York Chapter. Mr. Schaedel is also a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the New York and New Jersey State Societies of Certified Public Accountants. Mr. Schaedel is a graduate of the University of Scranton and received an M.B.A. from New York University.
Elaine Saxton
Ms. Saxton has over twenty years diversified experience in external and internal audit as well as corporate accounting. She previously served as Director of MCI Internal Audit where she helped with project management and oversight, Sarbanes Oxley control assessments, ethics and compliance, and operations streamlining. For her role in helping MCI successfully move forward after the WorldCom fraud as well as her contributions in areas including best practices benchmarking, internal controls, internal audit, and ethics, she was recognized with the MCI Circle of Excellence Award.
Ms. Saxton shares her insights, lessons learned and first-hand experiences to help companies build strong ethical foundations. She holds professional designations including Certified Internal Auditor and Certified Information Systems Auditor.
Glyn Smith
Mr. Smith has twenty years of diversified experience working in public accounting and with public and private sector entities including large-cap and fast growth public companies as well as government entities. Until 2009, he was responsible for the global financial and operational audit function at a major retailer. Prior to 2005, Mr. Smith served as Director of Internal Audit for MCI where he played a role in helping the company successfully move forward and emerge from bankruptcy after the WorldCom fraud.
Because Mr. Smith played a key role in helping to uncover the fraud at WorldCom, he has unique insights that can help organizations lay strong ethical foundations and better prevent scandal in this new era of responsibility. Mr. Smith has been featured in media such as CNBC’s American Greed, the Wall Street Journal and CFO.com. He helps thousands of corporate executives and professionals across the globe by consulting on, training and speaking to the most timely topics and concerns of the 21st century, including enterprise risk, the current crises and recent scandals - lessons learned and the way forward; questions every board member should ask; what companies can do to prevent and detect fraud; and ethical leadership. In addition, Mr. Smith speaks to high school and college students to share lessons learned from the recent frauds and the importance of building a strong ethical foundation.
Mr. Smith previously served on the Accounting Advisory Board for the University of Alabama and is the past president of the Central Mississippi Chapter of Internal Auditors. He holds a number of professional designations including Certified Public Accountant, Certified Internal Auditor and Control Self-Assessment.
Andi Davis
Ms. Davis has over twelve years internal audit experience including eight years with Fortune 500 companies in the retail and telecommunications industries. She has over four years private sector internal audit and compliance audit experience in the financial services industry.
Ms. Davis’ diverse experience has included a range of assignments including Sarbanes-Oxley controls assessments, internal fraud investigations, and Anti-Money Laundering program compliance reviews.
Ms. Davis holds professional designations including Certified Internal Auditor, Certified Fraud Examiner, Certified Information Systems Auditor and Certification in Control Self Assessment.
Mark Rowe
Mr. Rowe is an accomplished consultant in ethics, compliance, and corporate responsibility. For more than 10 years he has advised major corporations, including those among the Fortune 500, FTSE 100, and Forbes Global 50, on optimizing their ethical performance and culture to enhance business performance, manage risk and reputation, and build stakeholder trust. Mr. Rowe applies his expertise and experience across all aspects of developing, enhancing and evaluating ethics and compliance programs, to ensure they are aligned with organizational mission, strategy and values, embedded in governance and culture, and truly effective across the entire enterprise.
From 2007 to 2009 Mr. Rowe led SAI Global’s Compliance and Ethics Advisory Services practice for the Americas. Prior roles include partnering with world-renowned business ethics pioneer Dr. W. Michael Hoffman, both in the Hoffman Rowe consulting practice and at Bentley University’s Center for Business Ethics, where he remains a Research Fellow. He previously worked for GoodBrand & Company, a sustainable business consultancy with offices in the UK, Germany, Poland and China. Prior to this, Mr. Rowe practiced as a commercial litigation lawyer for more than 10 years. He has a law degree from the University of Exeter, a graduate certificate in Business Ethics from Bentley University, and is a Certified Compliance and Ethics Professional (CCEP).
Mr. Rowe has published 14 articles in leading academic and practitioner journals, and authored entries in two business ethics encyclopedias. He has provided business ethics commentary and analysis for the press and broadcast media, having been interviewed on various TV news stations, including CNN, CNBC, and NECN. Mr. Rowe has also appeared on National Public Radio’s “Marketplace” and “The Connection” shows.