Ideagen External Audit Summit 2023

Dennis J. McGowan, CPA is the Vice President, Professional Practice and Anti-Fraud Initiatives at the Center for Audit Quality. In this role he leads regulatory and policy strategies that foster high-quality performance by public company auditors.

His duties include leading a team of audit executives to advance technical and policy-oriented projects to identify, develop, and seek consensus on issues affecting the public company auditing profession. McGowan is also responsible for overseeing the CAQ’s anti-fraud initiatives. This includes engaging with senior leaders across the financial reporting ecosystem, drafting comment letter responses to regulators, developing thought leadership publications, and responding to technical inquiries.

Dennis serves as a Board Member of Annapolis Pride, an organization dedicated to celebrating the LGBTQ+ community in Annapolis. Before joining the CAQ, he spent a decade at PwC, where he specialized in auditing clients in the financial services industry.

Dennis is a Certified Public Accountant licensed in Pennsylvania, and he holds a BS in Business Administration from La Salle University.

Jason Carter is an Enterprise Sale Director within the Audit, Risk and Compliance business of Ideagen. His focus is on serving the Top 8 Global Accounting Firms. Jason has spent the last 25 years in various roles within the accounting and audit industry. His experience in both the public and private sectors give him valuable insights into how our products are used on a daily basis by our customers to drive value for their clients.

Debra brings over 20 years of expertise in business software systems to her role as the Sales Director of Ideagen Audit Analytics. She has experience managing both the sales and user side of business software for professionals across the globe, giving her a complete understanding of the user journey and needs.

Michael currently serves as VP of Ideagen’s Audit and Risk business line. Prior to joining Ideagen he was a founding member of Audit Analytics and served as its Chief Operating Officer until 2018 and then as CEO until Audit Analytics’ acquisition by Ideagen in 2021. Michael spent most of his career designing data products and solutions used by all of the top ten global accounting firms. He holds an MBA from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management.

A seasoned finance professional and CPA, Marie brings thirty years of extensive experience in accounting and auditing to her role as Senior Accounting Research Analyst at Ideagen. At ideagen, Marie leads the research team, develops content and is a subject matter expert for the Audit Analytics and Disclose product lines.

Marie specialized in transforming acquisitions of private companies into public company entities. She developed accounting teams, financial reporting, controls, financial modeling, Lean based process optimization and led ERP implementations after acquisition. As a member of divisional management teams, she was integral in strategic and operational decision making for the business lines. Having led not only the accounting teams, but diverse areas such as Information Technology, Actuarial Risk Management and Human Resources, Marie has a unique perspective. Notably, early in her career she spent ten years in the audit practice of PwC, where she managed audits of SEC registrants, international subsidiaries and closely held private entities in manufacturing, software, consumer products and services.

Tina Whitington is a Chartered Accountant and has worked as an external auditor for some of the UK’s top ten audit firms. She has also applied her expertise to teaching post-graduate accountancy qualifications. After 10 years focusing on audit and accounting rules from GAAP to auditing standards, Tina joined Ideagen as the product manager for Disclose (financial statement checklist tool). She uses her technical expertise to write detailed content for the disclosure compliance checklists.