Enterprise Risk Management Expert Advisors:
Governance Risk & Compliance needs change, and the regulatory landscape is constantly evolving. Vital Insight maintains strong relationships with leaders throughout the auditing, risk management, and regulatory communities. Some of these domain experts, including former executives from accounting and consulting firms and leading faculty from respected institutions such as the University of Texas, serve on Vital Insight's formal Advisory Board. A partial list of our expert advisors is included below.

Urton Anderson - Professor in Accounting Education and Accounting Department Chairman, University of Texas at Austin
Urton Anderson joined the Department of Accounting at the University of Texas at Austin in 1985, teaching auditing and managerial accounting. Dr. Anderson has consistently distinguished himself as a leading member of the accounting staff. In addition to his teaching responsibilities, he serves as the Chairman of the Department of Accounting at the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas.

Dr. Anderson's research has addressed various issues in internal and external auditing - particularly corporate governance, enterprise risk management, and internal control. He has written two books, Quality Assurance for Internal Auditing and Implementing the Professional Practices Framework (with Christy Chapman), as well as papers published in a variety of scholarly and professional journals. Prof. Anderson is currently editor/author of the Handbook for Internal Auditors published by LexisNexis/MatthewBender.

From 1994 to 1999, he served on the Board of Regents for the Institute of Internal Auditors. In 1999, he was appointed a member of the Internal Auditing Standards Board and now serves as its chair. He served on the CCSA Steering Committee, which developed the professional examination for Control Self-Assessment and the CGAP Steering Committee for the new professional examination in governmental auditing. Prof. Anderson is currently the chair for the IIA's Internal Audit Standards Board. In 1997 he was named Leon R. Radde Educator of the Year Award, by The Institute of Internal Auditors.

Dr. Anderson received his Ph. D from The University of Minnesota in 1985. He holds the Certified Internal Auditor (CIA), Certification in Control Self-Assessment (CCSA), and Certified Government Auditing Professional (CGAP) designations.


Eric Hirst - Professor of Accounting and Associate Dean, University of Texas at Austin
Dr. Hirst has been a leading Professor of Accounting at the University of Texas at Austin since 1991. The University of Texas has been consistently ranked among the top accounting schools in the United States by various publications including the Public Accounting Report, which ranked the University of Texas as the best public accounting school in the nation. In addition, Dr. Hirst serves as the Associate Dean for the Master of Business Administration Program (MBA) and teaches in UT's Executive MBA Programs in Mexico City and Dallas.

Dr. Hirst has blended his real world experience working as a public accountant at Thorne Riddell in Toronto with his work in academe to provide outstanding teaching, research, and consulting to public companies, industry groups, and students. He has developed and taught programs for executives in Asia, Europe, and throughout the Americas for KPMG, Dow Chemical, 3M, Texas Instruments, USAA, Motorola, and other major companies.

From 2001 to 2004 he served on the American Accounting Association's Financial Accounting Standards Committee and chaired the group in 2003-2004. This committee is responsible for writing comment letters on new accounting standards to the FASB and IASB.

His monograph, Earnings: Measurement, Disclosure and the Impact on Equity Valuation, was distributed to over 32,000 members of the Association for Investment Management and Research. Dr. Hirst has published numerous articles in industry journals including Journal of Accounting Research, The Accounting Review, Contemporary Accounting Research, and Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. In addition, he serves on the editorial board of The Accounting Review and was Associate Editor at Contemporary Accounting Research.

Dr. Hirst has received numerous awards and distinctions in his work including:

• Visiting Professor of Accounting and Control at INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France for the 2003-2004 academic year.
  
• Awards for Teaching Excellence in the MBA program at the University of Texas at Austin, INSEAD, and the University of Texas Executive MBA Program in Mexico City.
  
• 1997 College of Business Administration Award for Research Excellence for Assistant Professors.
  
• 2003 McCombs School of Business Award for Research Excellence.
  
• American Accounting Association Financial Reporting Section's 1999 "Best Paper Award".
  
• AAA Auditing Section's "Notable Contributions to The Auditing Literature Award" for 2000-2001.
  

Dr. Hirst received a BA in Economics and Master of Accounting from the University of Waterloo (Waterloo, Ontario) and a Ph.D. in Business from the University of Minnesota.


Sridhar Ramamoorti, PhD
Co-Author, COSO Guidance on Monitoring Internal Control Systems
Sri is a former Corporate Governance partner in Grant Thornton's National Corporate Governance Group in Chicago, Illinois. He led the firm's thought leadership efforts in the areas of corporate governance and accountability, consulted on Sarbanes-Oxley, technical matters in financial reporting and auditing, and anti-fraud programs and controls. He also assisted with global client pursuits across Grant Thornton's practices. He was a member of the Grant Thornton team that authored the 2009 COSO Guidance on Monitoring Internal Control Systems, and is a co-author of the IIA-published textbook, Internal Auditing: Assurance and Consulting Services (2009, 2nd ed.) as well as The Audit Committee Handbook (forthcoming from John Wiley).

Earlier, Sri was the Sarbanes-Oxley Advisor for the National Advisory Practices of Ernst & Young in North America. He was one of the Ernst & Young's Fraud Investigation & Dispute Services (FIDS) faculty that conducted U.S. Training on fraud awareness for over 1,000 audit partners and principals. He spearheaded the innovation team that built a simulation model for litigation risk management that attained patent-pending status with the U.S. Patents & Trademarks Office.

Sri has also been a Principal with Arthur Andersen's firm wide Professional Standards Group, where he participated in standard-setting efforts, contributed to Andersen's thought leadership publications, and was a key liaison for the multi-million dollar Andersen-MIT research collaboration.

Sri earned a Bachelor of Commerce (BCom) degree from Bombay University, India, the MAcc, and PhD degrees from the Ohio State University, and holds numerous professional certifications. After finishing his PhD, Sri was a member of the University of Illinois' Department of Accountancy Faculty. He has published extensively in journals such as Management Science, European Management Journal, International Journal of Accounting, Journal of Information Systems, Issues in Accounting Education, Internal Auditor, Journal of Government Financial Management, Financial Executive, etc. He has won several research grants and teaching excellence awards.

Active in the profession, Sri has been the inaugural Chairman of the Academy for Government Accountability (2005-2008), a member of the IIA Research Foundation Board of Trustees (2002-2008) and continues to serve on the Board of Governors of the Chicago IIA Chapter. Over the last decade, Sri has made professional presentations in the USA, Brazil, Canada, France, India, Japan, the Netherlands, Qatar, South Africa, Spain, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.

Strategic and Technical Advisors:
Vital Insight draws on the expertise of certain functional experts to ensure that the company continues to offer the highest quality products, implement the most effective marketing programs, and stay ahead of industry trends. Some of our advisors are listed below.

Gregory Fitzgerald - VP, Global Field and Channel Marketing, TippingPoint
Mr. Fitzgerald is an industry veteran of 15 years in the networking, wireless, security and systems management industries. He was previously vice president of marketing for Traq-wireless, the industry leader in wireless management software and services. Prior to joining Traq-wireless, Mr. Fitzgerald was the director of worldwide marketing at BMC Software, a leading provider of enterprise management solutions. He drove BMC's e-business management initiative from idea to final product, creating a $20 million product line.

Mr. Fitzgerald has extensive international experience, living and working in six countries, during which he opened BMC's international headquarters in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Mr. Fitzgerald holds a BBA in Marketing and Finance from Emory University, a MBA in Product Marketing from the University of Colorado, and a MIM in International Marketing Strategy from Thunderbird, The American Graduate School of International Management.


Jerry Eddy - Technology Advisor
Jerry Eddy has more than 22 years of successful software development, sales support, and product management experience interfacing with customers, defining problems, creating solutions, and working with highly technical software or hardware applications and technology.

As Chief Technology Officer and Director of Research and Development at CTR Systems, Jerry directed and managed the $25 million company's technology decisions and architecture with his "build, buy, or partner" philosophy that met the innovation, simplicity, and time-to-market needs.

During his 19 year tenure with CTR, Jerry held several positions, including Director of Software Engineering and Product Management. Jerry founded the software development department at CTR and was the chief software engineer for many of CTR's products, which had significant impact on profitability and growth of the company. He also managed the software department which was responsible for developing systems in the application areas of time and attendance, revenue control, payroll integration, e-commerce, and credit card authorization.

Mr. Eddy holds a degree in computer science from Kent State University.