SkyStem: Recent Episodes
SkyStem
The SkyStem Podcast is a place where we ponder topics around finance and accounting, including the people, process and technology that drive the back-office function. We explore ideas relating to process improvement, technology, corporate governance and fraud. SkyStem LLC is the maker of ART – a SaaS solution that helps CFOs and Controllers shorten the month-end close.
Milford Federal Bank is headquartered in Milford, MA, and has been serving its communities since 1887 for over 136 years. Today, it has roughly an asset size of $500 million and 4 locations. In this session, we’re thrilled to have Melissa Mestre, VP Finance at Milford Federal Bank, share her firsthand experience with SkyStem ART.
This is the story of Janet Mello, a civilian who is accused of stealing $100 million from the Army.
University of Wisconsin Credit Union is a $5 Billion dollar institution headquartered in Madison, WI. With more than 300,000 members. UWCU is the third largest credit union in the state of Wisconsin and currently operates 29 full service branches throughout the Madison and Milwaukee metro areas. In this webinar, we will chat with Sandy O’Connor, the Director of Accounting Operations at UWCU, about her accounting team’s journey into the world of month-end close automation and how that made an impact on her team’s closing process today.
This is the story of Tom Stalf, Pete Fingerhut and Greg Bell, who were indicted this month and are charged with fraud and misuse of the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium's assets to the tune of $2 million.
This is the story of John Nock, an Arkansas businessman convicted in $18 million investment fraud conspiracy this September 2023
This is the story of Aimee Boch and her non-for-profit Feeding Our Future, along with 60 other individuals, orchestrated a $240 million scheme to defraud a federal program designed to feed underprivileged children.
Check out the latest episode of the CUES Podcast, "Becoming a CEO With a Vision for Technology and Teamwork," with guest Dana DeFilippis, CCE, CEO of Merck Sharp & Dohme Federal Credit Union. Now CEO at the credit union for two years, DeFilippis has leveraged the knowledge she gathered to help her use technology and teamwork to promote staff innovation and better serve members.
Lancaster Leaf Tobacco Co., Inc., is a subsidiary of Universal Corporation, the leading global leaf tobacco supplier. Lancaster Leaf manages Universal’s dark air cured tobacco operations in all relevant traditional dark air-cured origins. Lancaster Leaf supplies virtually all of the major cigar manufacturers in the U.S. with filler, binder, and wrapper from the U.S. and other origins.
In addition to domestic supply, Lancaster exports filler, binder, and wrapper to international cigar manufacturers. Lancaster Leaf contracts directly with farmers in all dark air cured growing regions around the world including the United States, the Dominican Republic, Brazil, Paraguay, and Ecuador. Join Raul Perez, VP and CFO of Lancaster Leaf, in this one hour webinar as we discuss his team’s journey to modernizing his finance and accounting operations.
This is the story of Ali and Yousef Jaafar, a father and son who were sentenced to federal prison this month in connection with a massive "ten-percenting" scheme that resulted in over $20 million dollars in fraudulent lottery winnings.
This is the story of George Constantine, Marc Elefant and Andrew Dowd. These three individuals, together with others, attempted to defraud their victims of more than $31,000,000 through "trip and fall" accidents in New York.
Episode source: https://dailyvoice.com/new-york/mamaroneck/31m-trip-fall-fraud-scheme-attorneys-doctor-sentenced-for-defrauding-ny-businesses/
This is the story of Guo Wengui, who was arrested this week for allegedly orchestrating a complex $1 billion fraud scheme that duped online followers with promises of outsized investment returns.
This is the story of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Certified Public Accountants LLP ("Deloitte China"), who paid a $20 million penalty to the SEC for asking clients to perform their own audit testing, and presenting the results as its own.
This Chit Chat session features Jonna Wall, Financial Analyst of Pinnacle Financial Partners, a ~$40 Billion (assets as of 06/30/2022) publicly traded financial institution based in Nashville, TN with locations in many markets throughout the southeast. Join us as we discuss the Bank’s journey to become more efficient during month-end close, at a time when it was also going through a period of tremendous growth.
This is the story of German Nino, a former investment advisor as UBS, who allegedly Stole $5.8 Million from investors’ discretionary accounts.
This is the story of Justin Costello, who allegedly defrauded victims out of $35 million based on the 'mirage' of being billionaire, Harvard MBA, Iraq veteran.
This is the story of Rosa Bonilla, former First Lady of Honduras, who misappropriated $590,000 of public funds and spent it on real estate, credit card payments and her children's school fees.
This episode features Tara Bartko, SVP Accounting and Finance, and Jody Dennison, VP Accounting of Machias Savings Bank.
With nearly $2.2 billion in assets, 300 employees, and 16 locations stretching across Maine, the team at Machias Savings Bank believes that with every relationship there is a way to keep their customers moving forward, now and in the future. Founded in 1869, and a leader in customer experience and community, Machias makes an impact beyond products and services by donating nearly $1 million to Maine non-profits.
Machias Savings Bank was named the #1 Best Small Bank in Maine in 2020 by Newsweek. It ranked #2 in the Best Places to work for in Maine in 2021. And also in 2021, It was ranked #8 in the Best Bank to Work With in the Nation by American Banker Magazine. Join us as we discuss the Bank’s journey in taking the month-end close process from good to great.
This is the story of the City of Cottage Grove, MN, which fell victim to a wire fraud scam to the tune of over $1.2 million in losses. The investigation is still ongoing as of August 2022.
This is the story of Marc Sporn, who committed healthcare fraud worth $20 million to fund a lavish lifestyle.
A key responsibility for anyone in the finance function is closing the company books on a monthly, quarterly and yearly basis. And although to a layperson that may seem like a straightforward process, anyone with an accounting or finance background knows it’s anything but.
Filled with multiple stakeholders and dependencies, the financial close can be a complicated process for even a small organization. But that complexity can increase algorithmically with the size of the organization.
In this episode of the Financial Executive Podcast featuring Nancy Wu at SkyStem, Nancy speaks about the increased use of automation in the financial close and how recent events, like the move to remote working during the COVID-19 pandemic, may have accelerated an already rapidly changing financial close process.
For more information on SkyStem please visit www.skystem.com.
This is the story of Michael Kail, an ex-Netflix executive convicted of taking $500K+ in bribes and kickbacks from tech companies for approving streaming contracts with Netflix.
This "Chit Chat" session features Matt Guth, VP and Assistant Controller of Citizens and Farmers Bank (C&F Bank), $2 Billion publicly traded financial institution based in Virginia. Join us as we discuss C&F Bank’s journey to build a month-end close process involving less administrative burden and no more paper.
This is the story of Paul Henri Marie Harleman, an accountant who stole more than $1 Million from his clients through his bookkeeper business.
This is the story of Marie Fulle, the ex-bank manager of Comerica Bank who embezzled over $1 million from a customer over the course of one year.
2022 marks 20 years since the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2022 was established. How do retail investors feel about it and how has compliance / audit functions fared?
This is the story of Peter Armbruster, the former CFO of Roadrunner Transportation, who executed a complex securities and accounting scheme that resulted in $245 million of shareholder losses.
This is the story of Kevin McInnis, former CEO at Merida Group, who orchestrated a $150 million healthcare fraud scheme.
This is the story of Kevin Miller, Eam Peng Chou, Mean Peach, Chonnathason Has and Thi Ho, who stole $2.4 million from a Maryland-based company over the course of three years.
This is the story of Luckin Coffee, the Wall Street darling that was ultimately found to have falsely inflated revenues by $300 million.
This is the story of Maryann Stoffel, a 70-year old woman who misappropriated ~$650,000 from the Vermillion Township in Dakota County, Minnesota.
This is the story of Zachary Horwitz and his production company, who allegedly orchestrated a pyramid scheme that raised $690 million dollars.
SkyStem’s Head of Sales and Support, Nancy Wu, and Stock Yards Bank & Trust's Corporate Controller, Derek Slone, explore his team's progression from a manual reconciliation process to one that is automated and modernized.
This is the story of Suraj Samaroo, who defrauded IKEA out of $400,000 by processing unauthorized customer refunds.
John Kurtzweil joins the SkyStem Podcast to discuss his experience working as the Corporate Controller of MiniScribe in the late 1980's around the time a massive fraud was discovered to have been perpetrated at the company.
This is the story of MiniScribe Corp, whose employees perpetrated massive fraud in the mid to late 1980s.
This is the story of Rita Crundwell, who stole $53 Million from the City of Dixon, Illinois over the course of 22 years (Part 2 of 2).
The Association for Finance Professionals (AFP) sits down with Nancy Wu at SkyStem and Linda Harris at Ichor Systems to discuss modernizing the month-end close process at Ichor Systems. As featured in AFP Conversations podcast.
Headquartered in Indianapolis, CountryMark is an agricultural cooperative firm in the crude oil and oil refinery business. Nikki Collier, Director of Accounting & Finance for CountryMark, joins us in this webinar to share her experience in automating month-end close and reconciliations to modernize the process and provide much-needed organization and accountability to the mature organization.
This is the story of Rita Crundwell, who stole $53 Million from the City of Dixon, Illinois over the course of 22 years.
Today's case involves a company called Tangoe, an IT Expense Management Company, that was accused of accounting fraud by the SEC along with four of its high ranking executives: Albert Subbloie, Gary Martino, Donald Farias and Thomas Beach.
This is the story of Sheila Jameson, who embezzled $1.8 million from Enersys over the course of 11 years.
SkyStem’s Head of Sales and Support, Nancy Wu, and Aquarion’s Corporate Controller, Deb Kirven, explore the challenges facing today’s finance and accounting function. Deb and Nancy journey through Aquarion’s decision to evaluate and adopt month-end close automation while touching upon topics such as cloud solutions, change leadership and consensus building.
Established over 100 years ago, Lake Health is a leader in community health care in Northeast Ohio and the largest private employer in Lake County. Join Lisa Mothersbaugh, Director of Accounting at Lake Health, as she shares her team's journey to modernize the close and reconciliation process with the goal of improving overall work quality and reduce financial statement risk.
AM Retail (Part of G-III Apparel Group) operates retail stores for Wilson Leather, G.H. Bass & Co., Calvin Klein Performance, Karl Lagerfeld Paris, and DKNY. Join Charlie Kettering, Finance Director at AM Retail, as he shares his team's vision for modernizing month-end close. Charlie and his team, over the course of one month, turned a manual reconciliation process into one that is electronic, and in the process, successfully saved two weeks of man hours per quarter.
Kemba Credit Union was established in 1934 to serve employees of the Kroger Company. Today, it has over $1 Billion in assets and offers a plethora of banking, lending, investing, financial planning and insurance solutions to its members. It aims to provide its members with the best that technology has to offer. Join Janet Oiler, Controller at Kemba Credit Union, as she shares her team's exploration into month-end close and reconciliation automation, and how modernizing this process has impacted the way her team approaches month-end activities.
At the end of every month or quarter, credit union finance professionals tackle the close process, or the preparation of the credit union’s financial statements for publication. It requires extensive research and reconciliation on the part of the finance team, and completing these tasks manually can be challenging.
Nancy Wu, head of sales and customer support for SkyStem, says many credit unions experience pain points in their close processes. This is where automation tools can help to streamline the close process, removing inefficiencies and allowing teams to work more effectively together.
For $551 million asset 121 Financial Credit Union in Jacksonville, Florida, implementing automation made the close process easier on the finance team. Chief financial officer Benjamin Munday says this led to smarter ways of working, improved morale, and happier team members.
In this episode of the CUNA News Podcast, sponsored by SkyStem, Wu and Munday share best practices for identifying an automation solution that fits your credit union’s needs, getting employees on board with new tools and processes, and working through potential challenges like the coronavirus pandemic.