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.