After 30 years of continuously advancing roles in the accounting profession, I’ve seen a bit of everything. My experience started with Arthur Andersen in the early 90s, continued through bringing the last of the dot-coms public in 2000, followed by a decade leading the accounting and reporting teams at Microsoft and Delta Air Lines and finally advanced to the top roles at mid-market public companies. I decided to start my own venture to bring my experience to others.
These experiences have ranged in size from the startup stage to some of the largest companies in the world across multiple industries. Because of this varied industry experience, I’m not niche in terms of areas of knowledge. I have significant experience in actually doing it not just advising but feet on the ground, leading the climb:
- Restructuring: bankruptcy, complex litigation, court testimony, restructuring, cost-saving and emergence
- M&A: divestitures, diligence, spin-offs, acquisitions and integration
- 100s of SEC filings of all types (S-1, S-3, S-4, S-8, 34-Act, etc.), including pre-clearances, comment letter responses and consultations as well as recalibrating the preparation process to significantly reduce the time to file
- Technical accounting: ASU adoptions, research and documentation of difficult positions across nearly every
- Financing transactions: pipe raises, complex debt instruments and numerous financings, both domestic and cross-currency
- Multiple initial public offerings
- Transformation and process improvement
Throughout my career as a practitioner my experience in having dealt with most large consultancies made it clear to me that there is a real need for someone with broad and deep technical accounting acumen with practical application experience from the preparer perspective.
- Arthur Andersen – Audit Manager
- Loudeye Technologies Director
- Microsoft Corp. Sr. Director Accounting
- Delta Air Lines Director Financial Reporting
- Caesars Entertainment Corporate Controller
- Scientific Games Chief Accounting Officer
- Two terms AICPA FinREC
- Gaming Industry Rev Rec Task Force
Sometimes a question is just a question
One of my mentors once told me this and it was a great lesson to learn, so I’ll share it here. It is often said by SEC staff when they issue comment letters that they are simply asking questions….
Be the Man in the Arena
I come from a preparer background. I’ve been there and actually had to “do it”. Uphill is here to help you do the difficult tasks. We’re not going to produce a bunch of slideware….
Everything is Easy
“No ‘how do you eat an elephant’ analogies here.” Seriously, there are definitely hard tasks and tough issues to solve. But everything can be broken down into its lower level components….
Keep adding to your toolkit
Who was more valuable to the “Show time” Lakers – Magic Johnson or Kareem Abdul Jabbar? Kareem is the all-time leading scorer in NBA history….