Craig E. Gifford is a member of the American Bankers Association’s accounting administrative committee and is the executive vice president and chief accounting officer of Guaranty Financial Group, Inc. He joined Guaranty Bank in 2003 after thirteen years with Ernst and Young LLP. Mr. Gifford managed the financial filings and related matters associated with Guaranty’s recent spinoff from Temple-Inland, Inc. At Ernst and Young, he specialized in financial institutions and financial instruments, working with a number of the largest banks in the United States. He also served as one of Ernst and Young’s derivative accounting subject matter experts.

Harvey L. Pitt is CEO of Kalorama Partners, LLC, a global business consulting firm. Prior to founding Kalorama Partners, Mr. Pitt was appointed by President George W. Bush to serve as the twenty-sixth chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). As chairman from 2001 to 2003, he was responsible for overseeing the SEC’s response to the market disruptions resulting from the terrorist attacks of September 11, creating the “real time enforcement” program, and leading the adoption of dozens of rules in response to the corporate and accounting crises generated by the excesses of the 1990s. Prior to his tenure as SEC chairman, Mr. Pitt was a senior corporate partner at Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson for nearly twenty-five years. He also was a founding trustee and the first president of the SEC Historical Society. Mr. Pitt is currently teaching a course on corporate governance at Yale Law School. He served as an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center from 1975 to 1984, at George Washington University Law School from 1974 to 1982, and at the University of Pennsylvania School of Law from 1983 to 1984. From 1968 to 1978, he served in numerous capacities at the SEC, working his way up from staff attorney to general counsel. Mr. Pitt is the vice chair of the board of trustees and chair of the audit committee at National Cathedral School and is a member of both the board and the audit committee of Approva Corporation.

Vincent R. Reinhart, a resident scholar at AEI, is a former director of the Federal Reserve Board’s Division of Monetary Affairs who has spent more than two decades working on domestic and international aspects of U.S. monetary policy. He held a number of senior positions in the Divisions of Monetary Affairs and International Finance and served for the last six years of his Federal Reserve career as secretary and economist of the Federal Open Market Committee. Mr. Reinhart has worked on topics as varied as economic bubbles and the conduct of monetary policy, auctions of U.S. Treasury securities, alternative strategies for monetary policy, and the efficient communication of monetary policy decisions.             

Mark Scoles is a partner in the accounting principles group of Grant Thornton LLP and has over twenty years of experience in public accounting. He is responsible for technical matters relating to accounting, auditing, and the Securities and Exchange Commission, with an emphasis on transfers of financial assets, financial instruments and derivatives, fair value measurements, and debt and equity arrangements. Mr. Scoles is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), the Illinois CPA Society, and the Missouri Society of Certified Public Accountants. He has been involved with the AICPA in numerous capacities, both as a member of the auditing standards board and as a member of the technical standards subcommittee in the division of professional ethics.

Leslie F. Seidman was appointed to the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) on July 1, 2003. Prior to joining the board, Ms. Seidman managed her own firm, providing consulting services to major corporations, accounting firms, and other businesses. Previously, she was vice president of accounting policy at J.P. Morgan & Company, where she was responsible for establishing accounting policies for new financial products and analyzing and implementing new accounting standards. Ms. Seidman started her career as an auditor in the New York office of Arthur Young & Company (now Ernst & Young LLP) and is a certified public accountant. Prior to launching her consulting practice, Ms. Seidman served the FASB in various capacities, most recently as assistant director of implementation and practice issues but also as industry fellow and project manager. She is also the author of the first three editions of Financial Instruments (CCH), a comprehensive practice manual for accountants and other professionals.

Gerald I. White is a chartered financial analyst and president of Grace & White, Inc. Investment Counsel. He is a member of the CFA Institute, where he serves as chair of the Corporate Policy Disclosure Council. He was also a member of CFA Institute’s Financial Accounting Policy Committee from 1970 to 2000. Previously, Mr. White was an adjunct professor of accounting from 1978 to 1995 at the Stern School of Business at New York University. He is a coauthor of The Analysis and Use of Financial Statements (3rd ed., Wiley, 2003).

Peter J. Wallison holds the Arthur F. Burns Chair in Financial Policy Studies at AEI, where he codirects the Institute’s program on financial market deregulation. He previously practiced banking, corporate, and financial law at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Washington and New York. From June 1981 to January 1985, Mr. Wallison was general counsel of the Treasury Department, where he had a significant role in the development of the Reagan administration’s proposals for deregulation in the financial services industry. He also served as general counsel to the Depository Institutions Deregulation Committee and participated in the Treasury Department’s efforts to deal with the debt held by less-developed countries. During 1986 and 1987, Mr. Wallison was White House counsel to President Ronald Reagan. Between 1972 and 1976, Mr. Wallison served first as special assistant to New York governor Nelson A. Rockefeller and, subsequently, as counsel to Mr. Rockefeller when he was vice president of the United States.

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