SQCS No. 7 Managing Your Quality Control Systems

Ahava Goldman, CPA is technical manager with the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) Audit and Attest Standards team. She is the staff liaison for the Auditing Standards Board, which sets U.S. auditing standards for private companies, non-profit organizations and governmental entities. 

Before joining the Audit and Attest Standards team, she was senior manager on the AICPA’s Examinations team, where she was responsible for the content and development of all sections of the Uniform CPA Examination and provided staff support to senior-level committees and task forces focusing on examination policies, content, and computerization. 

Prior to the AICPA, she was a supervisor at DDK & Company, manager at Ernst & Young LLP, and senior accountant at Kipnis & Karchmer. She graduated magna cum laude from Stern College of Yeshiva University with a Bachelor of Science in Accounting

Dean Beddow is a senior manager of Grant Thornton’s Practice Quality Review Team. The team is responsible for internal inspection and quality monitoring of the firm’s accounting and audit practice. Dean’s current responsibilities have focused on risk management, including being the Firm’s liaison for the external peer review and DOL Inspections. Dean has 21 years of public accounting experience including 10 years serving clients, primarily in the construction and distribution industries. Previous to Grant Thornton LLP, Dean was a senior technical manager at the AICPA. At the AICPA, his primary responsibility was managing all aspects of the AICPA Peer Review Program (Program) which included drafting peer review standards, serving as staff liaison to the AICPA Peer Review Board and overseeing the Program’s operations. 

Dean is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and NJ Society of CPAs. Dean is also a member of the NJ Society of CPAs Peer Review Executive Committee. He has been a Board member of several not for profit organizations. 

Dean is a frequent presenter on auditing and quality assurance matter at AICPA conferences and state CPA societies. 

Education: Bachelor of Science in Commerce - Accounting, Rider University, NJ

Tania Sergott have worked for Deloitte & Touche for 12 years, starting in the Costa Mesa, California office, primarily on health care and insurance audit engagements, and then moving to National Office, where she have focused most recently on audit standards. While working at Deloitte, Tania have also served as staff to the Panel on Audit Effectiveness (2000), and was seconded to the International Federation of Accountants for 18 months (2001 to mid-2002), to work on the US and International joint project on developing the Risk Assessment standards. She have provided technical support to the Deloitte members of the US ASB since 2002 and the PCAOB’s SAG since its inception in 2004. 

Tania is currently the technical advisor to Deloitte’s representative on the International Audit and Assurance Board (IAASB) and also the secretary to the firm’s global technical policies and methodology group, which is currently working to incorporate the “clarified” ISAs into its audit manuals. 

Tania graduated from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, with a Bachelor of Science in Economics, majoring in Accounting and Marketing.

Ralph Nach, CPA, is a senior consultant in the AuditWatch group of the Tax and Accounting business of Thomson Reuters. Ralph is responsible for designing, developing, and nationally delivering continuing education programs covering a wide range of topics related to accounting, auditing, and leadership development. 

Ralph has over 30 years of experience in the accounting profession in a variety of capacities including auditor for numerous businesses, director of quality control for one of the 50 largest CPA firms in the U.S., chief learning officer, and national office quality control partner in the fifth largest international accounting and consulting firm. 

Ralph is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), the Illinois CPA Society, and the Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA) as well as an associate member of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE). 

Ralph holds a BSBA with honors from the Walter E. Heller College of Business Administration of Roosevelt University in Chicago, Illinois. Ralph also served as an adjunct lecturer in graduate level accounting, finance, and economics at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. 

Ralph is a co-author or contributing author of several technical reference works including: GAAP Interpretation and Application, John Wiley & Sons, 2001 – Current Edition; Handbook of Accounting and Auditing, Warren Gorham & Lamont, 1999; Controllers Policies and Procedures Manual, Warren Gorham & Lamont, 1998; and Technical Practice Aids, AICPA, 1995.