Employee Benefit Plans Conference (VIRTUAL)

Marcus Aron

Mr. Aron has over thirty years of experience with EBSA working with audits of ERISA-covered plans. As the Chief, Division of Accounting Services, Mr. Aron’s responsibilities include implementation of EBSA’s CPA Firm Inspection Program, providing technical assistance to plan filers and plan professionals, and providing ERISA-related accounting and auditing expertise within EBSA.

Mr. Aron is a certified public accountant and holds a B.B.A. degree with a major in accounting from the College of William and Mary in Virginia.

Jason Newman

Jason D. Newman, CPA, is a partner with CohnReznick with 28 years of public accounting experience in areas including auditing and strategic business planning. Jason is the Assurance Practice Leader for New England and also co-leads the efforts of our Firm’s Employee Benefit Plan Practice in New England, where he performs audits of defined contribution and defined benefit plans, and is a member of the Firm’s Capital Markets and SEC Practice, where he provides services to a variety of closely held businesses and public companies.

Utilizing his expertise in these areas, Jason has actively developed continuing education and professional resources for the Employee Benefit Plan Practice, including the creation of templates that aid in financial reporting, the performance of control assessment engagements for service organizations, the audits of investment vehicles, and consultation on various employee benefit plan issues.

In his role with the Firm’s Capital Markets and SEC Practice, Jason serves a variety of public and private entities, including private equity partnerships, broker-dealers in securities, SEC registrants, investment advisors, real estate entities, third party administrators, and insurance operations. Jason has gained additional expertise in providing technical accounting support to the firm’s litigation support practice and in providing business advisory services for a variety of closely-held businesses

Corey Kohnle

Corey is a Director in the New England Employee Benefit Plan Practice with over ten years of public accounting experience. Corey’s responsibilities on engagements have included the supervision and review of work performed by senior associates and junior staff; leading communications between the audit team, firm specialists, and clients; reviewing financial statements for conformity with U.S. GAAP; and identifying control deficiencies, as well as preparing recommendations for improvement to management. Corey’s auditing experience includes investments, contributions, benefit payments, claims, post-retirement benefit obligation, asset transfers, plan mergers, plan spin offs, annuity buyouts, and ERISA compliance. Corey has led and performed financial statement audits for various industries, with a variety of Employee Benefit Plans including full scope audits and ERISA Section 103(a)(3)(C) audits of 401(k), 403(b), defined benefit plans and health and welfare plans as well as 11k audits.

Jason Eddy

As the Practice Leader for Grant Thornton’s National Employee Benefit Plan Practice, Jason is responsible for providing services to some of Grant Thornton’s most complex employee benefit plan engagements across the U.S.

Jason has extensive experience in dealing with reporting and disclosure issues related to benefit plans. Jason serves as a technical resource for his firm on employee benefit plan auditing, accounting and reporting issues.

Jason is also responsible for delivering training to audit team members to support the overall National Employee Benefit Plan Practice. Jason is actively involved with the ongoing process of updating Grant Thornton’s employee benefit plan audit methodology, innovation tools and practice aids, and serves as a program leader and developer for the firm’s nationally developed employee benefit plan training programs. Prior to joining Grant Thornton in 2019, Jason was a Director within a Big Four accounting firm’s National Employee Benefit Plan and Asset and Wealth Management Practices.

Jason has over 20 years of experience leading large employee benefit plan engagement teams. He also has experience performing both peer reviews and internal inspections for other employee benefit plan engagements.

Ryan Gardner

Ryan has been serving defined contribution plan clients for more than 20 years, assisting plan fiduciaries with governance oversight and education, plan design analysis and implementation, fee benchmarking and analysis, vendor search and selection, and performance measurement. Ryan served on the firm’s Defined Contribution Business Council and is the Chair of the Defined Contribution Strategic Oversight Committee. Ryan helped to establish Fiduciary Investment Advisors, LLC in 2006, which combined with Fiducient Advisors in 2020.

Prior to co-founding the firm, he was with the PRIME Asset Consulting Group at UBS Financial Services Inc. Ryan is a member of the Pension Committee of the Women’s Tennis Benefit Association, which administers the pension plan for professional women tennis players. Ryan is also a member of the Palmetto Society for Human Resource Management in North Charleston, SC. Ryan received his BSBA from the University of Hartford Barney School of Business, where he also served on the Board of Visitors.

In his free time, Ryan enjoys attending sporting events for his kids and spending time with his family at their home in Charleston, SC.

Paige Thompson

Paige services institutional clients by providing counsel and guidance on fund menu design, manager selection, vendor due diligence, investment policy statements and performance monitoring. She joined Fiduciary Investment Advisors, LLC in 2015, which combined with Fiducient Advisors in 2020. She earned her MBA with a concentration in Finance from the University of Connecticut and a BA at Fairfield University. Paige serves as Chairwoman of the Salvation Army’s Greater Hartford Advisory Board. Her personal interests include traveling, writing poems, reading and staying active.

Randy Dummer

Randy Dummer joined HHM in 2011 as a quality control partner in the Accounting and Assurance Department. He leads the firm in many initiatives including the peer review practice and employee benefit plan audit niche, in addition to providing technical reviews for clients in multiple industries such as auto dealerships, nonprofits, construction and manufacturing.

He is a nationally recognized employee benefit plan audit specialist and leads discussions for the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) in this area. His skills as a discussion leader have deemed him an eight-time winner of the AICPA Outstanding Discussion Leader Award. His teaching pursuits include instructing the Audits of 401(k) plans webcast since 2014 and teaching various employee benefit plan audit courses since 2006. He serves as the audit partner for audits of 401(k) plans, 403(b) plans, ESOPs, Defined Benefit Pension Plans, and Health & Welfare Plans.

As the captain for approximately 50 peer reviews each year, he helps other CPA firms raise the bar of quality for accounting, auditing and attestation services. He has been on the peer review committee of the Tennessee Society of Certified Public Accountants (TSCPA) since 2013. In addition, he is an approved Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) audit subject matter expert for the AICPA enhanced oversight project.

Leslie Whitney

As a Partner and Senior Consultant in our Maine office, Leslie services institutional clients by providing advice and counsel on all areas of fund oversight including policy, asset allocation, manager research, portfolio structure, portfolio rebalancing, performance monitoring and overall investment policy. She focuses on retirement plans for corporate and nonprofit organizations. Leslie joined Fiduciary Investment Advisors, LLC in 2014, which combined with Fiducient Advisors in 2020.

Prior to joining the firm, she founded a regional advisory firm providing consulting and advisory services to defined contribution plans and their committees. Leslie earned her BA from the University of Denver. She served on the committee responsible for developing the Financial Literacy Program for United Way of York County, Maine. In her free time, Leslie enjoys skiing, live music and travel.

George Kasper

George J. Kasper is a partner in the Labor, Employment Law and Employee Benefits practice where employers and plan fiduciaries seek his counsel on all types of employee benefit plans, including defined benefit pension plans, 401(k) and 403(b) plans, multiemployer plans, medical benefit plans, cafeteria plans, and disability plans.

Pulling from many years of diverse experience, George designs retirement and health care programs to meet the needs of today’s employers and their workforces. He has substantial experience with executive compensation issues and drafts non-qualified deferred compensation plans, supplemental executive retirement plans, severance plans, change-in-control agreements and stock-based compensation plans.

Employers seek George’s advice to work with them to manage the transition of employees and their benefits during and after a merger or acquisition, as well as ERISA issues stemming from investing in and structuring private equity and similar investments. He is sought after for his advice to employers and administrative committees on the fiduciary oversight of ERISA plans, including retirement plan investments, appropriate plan expenses, claims for benefits, self-funded health plans, and other plan administration issues. George has significant experience representing employers on IRS and Department of Labor audits and enforcement actions.