Featured Experts
Featured Experts
John D. Owens
Independent Consultant;
Former Professor of the Practice, Leventhal School of Accounting,
Marshall School of Business,
University of Southern California;
Former Audit Partner, KPMG LLP
John Owens is an expert in auditing, financial accounting, financial reporting, and cost accounting. His expertise spans a range of topics that arise in investigations and complex litigation, as well as regulatory enforcement matters brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB). He has extensive experience with U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), and auditing standards of the PCAOB and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA).
Mr. Owens has been retained as an expert witness in litigation, regulatory investigations, and arbitrations. He has testified on issues related to auditor independence, compliance with PCAOB and AICPA auditing standards, compliance with accounting standards, quantitative and qualitative materiality, and cost accounting.
As a former audit partner at KPMG, Mr. Owens led audits of public and privately held clients in a variety of industries, including energy, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, medical devices, and consumer and industrial products. He served as lead engagement partner in the audits of several prominent multinational corporations, including a Fortune 150 energy company, a Fortune 500 metals company, and a $25 billion consumer products company (under IFRS).
At KPMG, Mr. Owens also served as a consultant to public and privately held companies, analyzing issues of corporate strategy, production and inventory management, and business processes. He consulted on the re-engineering of a major medical research and education institute, as well as the European distribution system of a U.S.-based international pharmaceutical company. In addition, he assessed the integration of a Europe-based global pharmaceutical company in its acquisition of a U.S. biotech company.
For sixteen years, Mr. Owens served on the faculty in the USC Leventhal School of Accounting, teaching classes in corporate strategy and operations, financial statement analysis, and auditing. He developed and taught “Strategy and Operations through a CFO Lens.” As part of this class, Mr. Owens welcomed CFOs from major corporations to speak to and interact with students. He developed and led USC’s MAcc D+A program, which fostered expertise in business and auditing with a data analytics focus.
Featured Experts
David Gal
Professor of Marketing,
College of Business,
University of Illinois at Chicago
David Gal is an expert in consumer behavior, consumer judgment and decision making, and financial decision making. Professor Gal researches a wide range of consumer behavior topics, including loss aversion; how consumers approach and respond to financial and other types of risk and losses; and the role of identity in consumer choices and decisions. Professor Gal has designed and used consumer surveys extensively in his research. He has identified previously unrecognized biases in survey methods. He has also analyzed the foundational assumptions underlying conjoint analysis. Separately, Professor Gal has researched consumer behavior on social media and the business intelligence that can be gathered through social media analytics.
Professor Gal has published numerous articles in leading academic journals in the fields of marketing, statistics, and psychology. He is an associate editor of the Journal of Consumer Psychology and serves on the editorial review boards of the Journal of Consumer Research and the Journal of Marketing Research. His work has also been featured in mainstream media outlets, such as Harvard Business Review, Scientific American, and the Wall Street Journal.
Professor Gal has consulted to Fortune 500 companies on a variety of consumer-focused marketing topics. He has also designed and analyzed consumer surveys in the context of litigation.
At the University of Illinois at Chicago, Professor Gal teaches courses on marketing-led innovation and marketing management. Previously, he served on the faculty at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.
Featured Experts
Maureen O’Hara
Robert W. Purcell Professor of Finance,
Professor of Economics,
SC Johnson College of Business,
Cornell University
Maureen O’Hara is a renowned authority on market microstructure and high-frequency trading. Professor O’Hara has addressed a range of topics involving banking, financial intermediaries, law and finance, and experimental economics.
In her research, Professor O’Hara has assessed the impact of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) on market stability, liquidity issues in corporate and municipal bond markets, transaction costs in bitcoin, and access to price information in financial markets. She has also examined financial regulation and corporate governance in the banking sector. In 2020, the CFA Institute honored Professor O’Hara with the James R. Vertin Award, which is “presented periodically to recognize individuals who have produced a body of research notable for its relevance and enduring value to investment professionals.”
She has testified in high-profile securities litigation, including matters involving class certification. Professor O’Hara has consulted to major tech firms, financial institutions, exchanges, FinTech companies, and pharmaceutical manufacturers.
Professor O’Hara is the author of Market Microstructure Theory, a noted textbook focused on liquidity, multi-market trading, market structure, and market design. She also coedited High-Frequency Trading: New Realities for Traders, Markets and Regulators. Professor O’Hara has published numerous articles in leading finance and economics journals. She has received multiple best paper recognitions, including three Smith-Breeden Prizes for a Distinguished Paper, awarded by the Journal of Finance.
Professor O’Hara was president of the American Finance Association—the first woman to hold that role—the Western Finance Association, the Financial Management Association, the Society for Financial Studies, and the International Atlantic Economic Society. She has served as executive editor of the Review of Financial Studies, and advisory editor for the Journal of Finance, the Journal of Financial Markets, and the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, among others.
At Cornell’s SC Johnson College of Business, Professor O’Hara teaches courses on financial markets and institutions, as well as finance and ethics. She has received several awards for outstanding teaching.
Professor O’Hara holds honorary doctorates from Facultés Universitaires Catholiques à Mons (FUCAM) in Belgium, Universität Bern in Switzerland, and University College Dublin. She served as professor of finance at the University of Technology Sydney.
Featured Experts
Lesley Chiou
Laurence de Rycke Professor of Economics,
Occidental College
Lesley Chiou addresses the antitrust, privacy, and copyright implications of search engine and social media business practices. An expert in the economics of the internet, Professor Chiou focuses on consumer behavior, firm competition, and implications for government regulation of online markets. In these contexts, she has addressed vertical integration in search markets, content aggregation by platforms, the use of trademarks in online search, and the effects of digital advertising on consumer behavior.
Professor Chiou applies her econometric expertise to address various issues related to frictionless commerce, such as bidding behavior in internet auctions, the impact of paywalls on demand for online news, and consumer responses to pricing changes. In addition, Professor Chiou has analyzed competition between online and offline firms. Her industry expertise includes arts and media, consumer goods, and retail.
Professor Chiou presents her research in governmental and academic settings. She has spoken at the Federal Trade Commission and Federal Communications Commission on topics related to competition in digital and print advertising markets. She has also participated in panels and presented her work at leading universities and conferences in the United States and Europe.
Professor Chiou’s papers have been published in the Journal of Economics and Management Strategy; the Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization; Marketing Science; and the Journal of Econometrics. She has coauthored working papers on search engines and data retention; how advertising on social networks can disseminate fake news; and internet access and inequality, among other topics.
At Occidental College, Professor Chiou teaches courses in econometrics and industrial organization. She has held visiting academic positions at UCLA and Boston University.
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