Jay Fishman, FASA, CBA (Moderator)

Jay E. Fishman, FASA, CBA, is a Managing Director of Financial Research Associates and has been actively engaged in the appraisal profession since 1974.  He specializes in the valuations of business enterprises and their intangible assets including: patents, trademarks, customer lists, goodwill, and going concern.  Mr. Fishman has co-authored several books including Guide to Business Valuations (with Shannon Pratt), and written numerous articles on business valuations as well as qualifying as an expert witness and providing testimony in twelve states.  He has taught courses on business valuation to numerous groups throughout the world, including groups in Russia and The Peoples’ Republic of China.  He holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree from Temple University as well as an M.B.A. from LaSalle University.  Mr. Fishman is a Fellow of the American Society of Appraisers, a former Chairman of the Business Valuation Committee of the American Society of Appraisers, Accredited Senior Member of the Institute of Business Appraisers, Inc. and formerly a Trustee of the Appraisal Foundation.

Neil Beaton, CPA/ABV, CFA

Mr. Beaton is Partner in Charge of Grant Thornton LLP’s Valuation Services Group. He specializes in the valuation of closely held businesses and intangible assets for purposes of litigation support (marriage dissolutions, lost profits claims and others), acquisitions, sales, buy-sell agreements, ESOPs, incentive stock options, and estate planning and taxation. He also performs economic analysis for personal injury claims, wrongful termination and wrongful death actions.

Prior to joining Grant Thornton LLP, Mr. Beaton was a Partner and shareholder at Brueggeman and Johnson, P.C., Seattle’s largest, independent valuation firm. He was also a National Business Analyst with Dun & Bradstreet Corporation, where he was responsible for analyzing large, publicly traded corporations and assisting in large-scale credit decisions. He specialized in the banking, insurance and financial services industries.

Mr. Beaton holds a Master of Business Administration in Finance from National University and a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Economics, from Stanford University. He has also completed specific coursework covering the financial analysis of banks and insurance companies and numerous continuing education classes in the areas of accounting, taxation and business valuation. In addition, he has completed the American Society of Appraisers’ Business Valuation Courses, Levels I–IV.

Mark Zyla, CPA/ABV, CFA, ASA

Mark L. Zyla is a Principal with Willamette Management Associates.  Mark has provided valuation consulting for various types of entities for the purposes of mergers and acquisitions, tax planning, corporate recapitalizations, as well valuing various types of intellectual property and other intangible assets for many purposes.    Prior to joining Willamette Management Associates he was a shareholder in his own firm, Acuitas, Inc.  Additionally, he was formerly a practice leader for PricewaterhouseCoopers’s Corporate Finance Consulting Group for the Southeastern U.S.

Mark received a BBA degree in Finance from the University of Texas at Austin and an MBA degree with a concentration in Finance from Georgia State University.  Mark also completed the Mergers and Acquisitions Program at the Aresty Institute of The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Valuation Program at the Graduate School of Business at Harvard University.  He is a Certified Public Accountant, Accredited in Business Valuation (“CPA/ABV”), a Chartered Financial Analyst (“CFA”), and an Accredited Senior Appraiser with the American Society of Appraisers certified in Business Valuation (“ASA”).

Mark is a member of the American Society of Appraisers (“ASA”), the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (“AICPA”), the CFA Institute, and the Atlanta Society of Financial Analysts.  Mark is a former member of the Business Valuations Committee of the AICPA, and a current Chairman of the ABV Examination Committee of the AICPA.  He is also a current member of the Business Valuation Standards Subcommittee of the ASA.  He is also a member of the Atlanta Venture Forum, a professional organization of the venture capital community. 

He is one of the authors of the International Glossary of Business Valuation Terms which has been adopted by the major valuation organizations.
Mark is a frequent presenter and author on valuation issues.  He has presented to such corporations as Northup Grumman and Coca-Cola.  He has taught valuation courses at the FBI Academy in Quantico Virginia, and since 2002 has been on the faculty of the National Judicial College teaching business valuation to judges.   He is a co- author of Valuation for Financial Reporting: Intangible Assets, Goodwill and Impairment Analysis, SFAS 141 and 142 and Financial Valuation: Application and Models, bothpublished by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Mark is also the co-author of the course, “Valuing Goodwill and other Intangible Assets”  published by the AICPA.

Ed Ketz, Ph.D.

J. Edward Ketz, Ph.D., a member of the Penn State faculty since 1981, has authored and edited 17 books, including Hidden Financial Risk (Wiley, 2003) and Accounting Ethics (Routledge, 2006).  He and co-author Mark Zyla are currently writing Fair Value Measurements, which summarizes the FASB’s Statement No. 157, supplies the conceptual ideas behind this topic, describes methods employed by valuation assessors, and reviews criticisms of fair value measurements. 

Professor Ketz has been cited frequently in the popular and business press, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Business Week, Fortune, USA Today, and Chicago Tribune, on topics such as accounting for stock compensation, business combination accounting, accounting for derivatives, and evaluations of specific corporate accounting practices at Enron, Tyco, Rite Aid, HealthSouth, AIG, CVS, Starbucks, Krispy Kreme, and others.    He also has appeared as an accounting commentator on CNBC, CNNfn, and National Public Radio.  Dr. Ketz writes a column about financial reporting issues, “Accounting Cycle: Wash, Rinse, and Spin,”  which appears on SmartPros.com.

CPE Credit Information

Earn 2 Interactive CPE Credits (Consulting Services)
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