Forensic accountant explains why fraud thrives on Wall Street

She definitely wins the award for the most charismatic accountant ever.

She is making accounting sound more exciting than it really is 😅 I love her energy.

She presented to my class during my Master's program. Great professor and you can tell she truly loves looking into fraud in both Gov and corporate environments

She has amazing presentation skills. Her students must be so lucky to have her as their professor

A mentor one time told me that in the accounting field you have to be willing to have any day be the last day on a job. Be willing to walk away rather than commit a crime. That is true even if it means missing a mortgage payment or going without health insurance. You have to take a long view that missing a few paychecks is better than ruining your career. Chances are you’ll have to do it more than once in a long accounting career.

As an ex auditor this hits home hard.. She definitely wins the award for the most charismatic accountant ever..

Every business school professor, especially those in accounting, should teach their students that they should ALWAYS be prepared to get fired from their corporate job. ALWAYS. Otherwise, you will exposing yourself to do things that are best unethical and at worse illegal. I guarantee you this accountant had a mortgage, bills, a family that relied on him and he new that getting fired would devastate him financially.

Never thought of accounting as such a risky job. I have a friend who's a corporate accountant. I hope she handles that pressure well.

As a chartered accountant, I completely agree that where people could fall down is in bowing to that pressure to make results be in line with what targets had been set at. Management can often think that a good enough accountant can make money out of thin air. However, I have found that my career has been boosted every time I have been able to clearly articulate why I am saying no to something. Accountants operate similarly to lawyers - there's room for judgement if the facts support it but there are fundamental rules which cannot be broken any more than the law can. Knowing those rules well and having the ability to state why something cannot be so has led to me being questioned on my judgement far less by my CFO and CEO.

The hardest interview I've ever been in I was grilled for an hour with several ethical and fraudulent scenarios and what would I do. I was young in my career and caught off guard. Reality is being an accountant is one of the hardest jobs you'll ever undertake because you're literally dealing with the psychology of people's mindsets about money.

As an accounting student this was very informative, easy to understand and gave me a little insight into cash vs accrual accounting. I was engaged the entire time. I could watch an entire series with Kelly.

This really hit home for me. In another life I used to work for a national fitness chain. They were publicly traded and things got interesting with the reporting of revenue vs cash. I was mid level and saw the writing on the wall early. Got out and watched the eventual crash from a distance. Regardless of the industry this happens in one shape or form or another. Be aware.

As an accountant, I was not expecting this video to be an accounting lesson 🤦🏽‍♀️

This is a topic that no one seems to talk about...audit independence is paramount to the industry yet the primary way the firm makes its money put into question the independence of the firm from its clients.

Every industry I’ve interacted with/worked in has corrupt, dishonest, fraudulent, or other shady practices. So that includes: retail, entertainment (specifically music), sales, insurance, healthcare, religion, food service/restaurant, chemical logistics, and finance/accounting. I’m tired of being asked to remember, cover, or fix people’s lies in order to draw a paycheck. Especially given that most of those people were considered “honest, upright citizens.”

I'm keeping my company 100% honest. People ruin their lives because of selling out their morals. Honesty is becoming such a scarce commodity I reckon there's an honesty premium to be had out there.

One executive director I worked with summed up his ambivalence about accounting in this: after going over some numbers, he asked the accountant, "What will the financials says?" To which the accountant replied, "What do you want it to say?" He switched accountants. The anecdote highlights the critical need for leaders to empower their financial teams to uphold integrity and solid financial management principles and practices. When people feel their jobs and reputations (even future career prospects) are at stake, it's more likely the organizational culture, and not just the financial team.

To her credit, she’s a great speaker. To any person who is not an accountant, she touches on the same topics that are taught in accounting 101 courses from over a decade ago. It’s great to see our profession’s intro syllabus hitting the main stream!

There has never been a topic I was less interested in then accounting, but this woman made it sound so cool and high stakes. I was anxious and hopeful for those CPAs! 😂😂

Auditors should be incentivized to find errors and fraud instead of being rewarded to downplay them.