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Cloud Computing Part 2 - An Executive's Primer: Benefits, Risks, and Success Stories

Presented by:

 

Jim Bourke, CPA.CITP, Partner at Withum, Smith & Brown

Daniel Druker, Senior VP, Marketing and Business Development at Intacct

Karen Northrup Watts, Chief Executive Officer of Corefino

Michael Cohn, CEO of CloudSherpas

Renuka Shankar, Founder and CEO of AverQ

 

 

Wednesday, July 22nd at 2:00-3:30pm EST (11:00-12:30pm PT)

 

Implementing traditional software products, particularly during these challenging times, can be draining on valuable Cap-Ex dollars, and can bring about more technology complexities than may be warranted.

 

Welcome to the opportunity for “Cloud Computing”.  It’s an innovative and increasingly popular model of software deployment that offers enterprise-class software function without traditional up-front infrastructure costs or the unpredictable support and maintenance costs of on-site software and hardware.

 

In this online event, Jim Bourke and other expert representatives will educate the CPA community about how Cloud Computing and SaaS can provide additional value to their practices.  The discussion will include:

 

  • Recap of inherent benefits and risks discussed in the part 1 seminar series of Cloud Computing
  • In depth panel discussion between vendors and specialist about the benefits and risks associated
  • Case studies of cost savings

 

 

Speaker bios:

 

Jim Bourke, CPA, CITP, Partner and Director of IT at WithumSmith+Brown

Jim Bourke is a Partner at WithumSmith+Brown and serves as Director of Firm Technology. In that capacity, he has the responsibility for overseeing all technology issues and operations for the Firm’s nine offices and over five hundred employees. Jim gives direction and vision to a group of talented internal technology professions whose job it is to keep the Firm functional 24/7. His responsibilities include overseeing network design and implementation, Internet connectivity solutions, wireless network configuration, technology strategic planning, and the acquisition, implementation new applications and technologies and related training.

 

Jim is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and the New Jersey Society of CPAs (NJSCPA). He currently serves as the AICPA’s CITP Credential Committee Chair and as a member of the Executive Committee for the New Jersey Society of Certified Public Accountants where he is the Immediate-Past President, and is a member of the AICPA council. Jim is also Past-Chairman of the NJSCPA Chapter Operations Committee, Past President of the Monmouth/Ocean Chapter of the NJSCPA, and has been featured on the cover of Accounting Technology and Practical Accountant Magazines.

 

Intacct representatives

 

Daniel Druker, Senior VP, Marketing and Business Development at Intacct

Dan joined Intacct as Senior Vice President of Marketing and Business Development in 2007. Dan brings more than 20 years of executive, strategy and operational excellence to Intacct.

 

Before Intacct, Dan served as executive vice president of global marketing for Postini, transforming sales, marketing and channels for this $90 million Software as a Service communications security leader and leading to a $625 million acquisition by Google.

 

Karen Northrup Watts, Chief Executive Officer of Corefino

Karen Watts is the founder and CEO of Corefino, a 21st century model for accounting "in the cloud" via a bundled three-part people-place-platform solution paradigm. Known as a pioneer throughout the Silicon Valley financial community, Ms. Watts is the first to target a complete solution for strategic CFO's seeking to radically cut costs by eliminating technology and people redundancies.

 

Prior to funding at Corefino, Ms. Watts served as CFO or acting CFO of several venture-backed technology startups, including Scout Media Inc. (acquired by Fox Interactive Media in August 2005), Telesuite Inc., Rivals.com and Telocity Inc. (now DirectTV). Ms. Watts was also named to the prestigious "2009 Women of Influence in Silicon Valley" list compiled annually by the Silicon/Valley San Jose Business Journal.

 

Google representatives

 

Neal Miller, Partner at TechCFO

Neal Miller brings over 25 years of financial, operations, sales and marketing executive management experience to TechCFO, having served in senior management positions in private and public companies ranging from $2 million to $2 billion in revenues. Neal has significant experience in software, telecommunications and subscriber based services. In his role as a partner at TechCFO, Neal has worked with companies ranging in size from startup to $90 million in revenues, primarily in software, services and technology enabled manufacturing industries.

 

Michael Cohn, CEO of CloudSherpas

Michael is a technologist, a marketer, and the visionary behind Cloud Sherpas. As CEO, he is responsible for setting the company’s strategic direction and overseeing the business. With roots as a dot-com era web developer, an enterprise software channel marketer, and most recently, the Marketing Director for one of the country’s largest VARs, Michael has a strong background fit for leading a next-generation systems integrator.

 

AverQ representative

 

Renuka Shankar, Founder and CEO of AverQ

Renuka founded AverQ with a vision towards delivering high-value integrated audit solutions to companies to reduce their audit risk and improve their efficiencies. Previously, she was the cofounder, Vice President of Engineering at Certus Software Inc., where she delivered market-leading GRC solutions for Fortune 1000 companies. Prior to Certus, she was part of the early team at Rightworks, through its $1B valuation and subsequent merger with i2 Inc.

Copyright © 2009 by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, Inc., New York, New York.