Expanding Responsibilities, Emerging Skills, and Leadership Excellence
This another course in our series on the controllership function. The controller’s role encompasses many traditional responsibilities. The breadth and depth of the controller skill set has expanded and will continue to expand as the business world evolves.
Within this segment we will review the typical responsibilities and tasks required of the controller as well as delve into new and emerging skill requirements that will enhance the controller role.
The controller position will typically lead teams of financial and accounting experts.Recognizing that leadership and team management skills are must-haves; they need to be able to command their team's respect, inspire them to act, and ensure that such actions are aligned with your organization's overall vision.These skills, along with tactical knowledge will ensure the controller’s success.
Lynn Fountain has over 45 years of experience spanning public accounting, corporate accounting and consulting. 24 years of her experience has been working in the areas of internal and external auditing. She is a subject matter expert in multiple fields including internal audit, ethics, fraud evaluations, Sarbanes-Oxley, enterprise risk management, governance, financial management and compliance. Ms. Fountain has held two Chief Audit Executive positions for international companies. In 2011, as the Chief Audit Executive for an international construction/ engineering firm, she was involved in the active investigation of a joint venture fraud. The investigation included work with the FBI and ultimately led to indictment of the perpetrators and recovery of $13M. Ms. Fountain is currently engaged in her own training and consulting business and is a regular trainer for the AICPA. Ms. Fountain is the author of three separate technical books. “Raise the Red Flag – The Internal Auditors Guide to Fraud Evaluations” was published by the Institute of Internal Auditors Research Foundation. -“Leading The Internal Audit Function” and -“Ethics and The Internal Auditor Political Dilemma” were published by Taylor & Francis In addition Ms. Fountain was a contributing author to the certification program exam for the National Association of Accountants. She also has certificate programs on various on-line platforms. Ms. Fountain has performed as an adjunct instructor for the School of Business for Grantham University and developed the first internal audit curriculum for the School of Business at the University of Kansas. Ms. Fountain obtained her BSBA from Pittsburg State University and her MBA from Washburn University in Kansas. She has her CGMA, CRMA credentials and CPA certificate (non-active).
