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Participating Companies
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Advisory Committee
The advisory committee consists of a selected number of representatives from the corporate and audit firm members. The purpose of the advisory committee is to review company memberships and provide any general suggestions for continual improvement.
Advisory Committee Members
Britney Blackburn, VP Corporate Controller, Graphic Packaging
Jonathan Fowler, Partner, Deloitte
Azhar Qureshi, Sr. Director of Corporate Controllership, Smurfit Westrock
Andrew Thornburg, Director, Accounting Policy and Controls, Invesco
Kirk Willingham, Managing Director - Financial Reporting, Delta Air Lines
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Director
Mary Hill is an associate professor at Kennesaw State University. Prior to pursuing her PhD, she worked as an auditor for 11 years, primarily at Ernst & Young, LLP, and as a Director of Finance for five years at AFFLINK, LLC. Because of her work experience, her research interests are in financial accounting and reporting issues, particularly topics that are relevant to accounting standard setters. Her research includes examinations of supplier financing arrangements, stock options, R&D expense, intangible assets, and treasury stock in the capital markets. She has also recently engaged her students in the process of writing comment letters to the FASB, and she has co-authored an article with a current FASB board member on this endeavor. Her research has been published in Accounting Horizons, the Journal of Financial Reporting, and the Journal of Accounting, Auditing and Finance.
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Founding Director
Doyle Z. Williams received his B.S. in Business and Accounting from Northwestern State University in 1960. After working a year in New Orleans, he attended Louisiana State University, where he received his M.S. and Ph.D. in Accounting.
In 1965, he joined the faculty at Texas Tech University, where he was named Coordinator for the Area of Accounting in 1973. In 1978, he joined the University of Southern California, where he became the founding Dean of the School of Accounting. From 1986 to 1988, he served as Interim Dean of the USC School osf Business Administration and chaired the Accounting Education Change Commission from 1989 to 1993.
In 1993, he was named the Dean of the College of Business at the University of Arkansas. In 1998, the College received the largest gift ever to a US business school from the Walton Family Foundation, and it was renamed the Sam M. Walton College of Business. Upon his retirement from the University of Arkansas in 2005, he was named Dean Emeritus of the Walton College of Business, and the university endowed a $1.5 million chair in his and his wife鈥檚 name.
In 2006, he moved to Canton, GA to retire. The then Dean of Coles College prevailed upon him to join the KSU faculty in whatever capacity he wished. One of his projects was the creation of the KSU Financial Reporting Roundtable which he formed in 2007 along with KPMG (his former student was the Atlanta office managing partner at that time).
He believed strongly that members of any profession should give back to their profession through active service. His 192 professional offices and leadership service appointments include serving as President of the American Accounting Association, a member of the Council and the Board of Directors of the American Institute of CPAs, and Chair of the Board for the Assembly
to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB).During his career he made 288 program appearances and presentations. He visited more than 150 university campuses in the United States and served on accreditation teams or as lecturer at 16 universities outside the USA. His 42 awards and recognitions include the AICPA's Gold Medal Award, the American Accounting Association's Outstanding Accounting Educator Award and the Life-time Service Award, induction into Louisiana State University's College of Business Hall of Distinction, Texas Tech University's Life-time Achievement in Accounting Education Award, and the Hall of Distinction from Northwestern State University.
In 2012, he was named to the Journal of Accountancy 's "125 People of Impact in Accounting since 1887鈥. In October 2020, he was inducted into the Accounting Hall of Fame by the American Accounting Association.