Regional managing director Resources Global Professionals; Compliance Week columnist
Colleen Cunningham was named Managing Director, Tri-State (new Jersey, New York and Connecticut) for Resources Global Professionals (RGP) in June 2007. In this role, she oversees the operations, financials and recruiting while mentoring teams and offering strategic guidance to the six practices within the region.
Prior to joining RGP, she was President and CEO of Financial Executives International (FEI) for four years. FEI is the professional association of choice for senior-level corporate financial executives and the leading organization dedicated to advancing ethical, responsible financial management. Serving 15,000 members from all industries, the global association is a proactive advocate, working with regulators and legislators on behalf of the membership. In her role, she had significant influence in legislative and regulatory matters including Sarbanes Oxley, Rating Agency reform, pension reform and accounting standard setting. She testified before Congressional committees on many of these issues.
She began her career in public accounting with the firms formerly known as Touche Ross and Coopers & Lybrand. She then spent thirteen years with AT&T as Assistant Controller of AT&T Capital, and later as Vice President and Chief Accountant at AT&T Corporate where she was part of the leadership team that executed the Lucent and AT&T Wireless initial public offerings.
Cunningham also served as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, North America, of Havas Advertising (NASDAQ: HAVS), at the time, the fifth largest advertising holding company in the world. At Havas, Cunningham was responsible for North American financial operations, including real estate, human resources, tax, controller and treasury functions, SEC and U.S. GAAP reporting and worldwide accounting policies, as well as establishing and staffing the company’s North American headquarters.
Cunningham has frequently been named as one of the top 100 influential people in finance by Treasury & Risk Management magazine, one of the top 100 influential people in accounting by Accounting Today, and one of the 60 top influencers in finance by Business Finance. She spent several years as a member of the standards advisory committees of both the FASB and the IASB. She has appeared as a subject matter expert on several financial related television shows and is widely published in financial magazines.
She is currently a columnist for Compliance Weekly and sits on the Board of Directors for the Ethics Resource Center, and chairs its Finance Committee, and the Advisory Committee to Pennsylvania State University’s Accounting Department. Cunningham earned a BA in Economics from Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ, and an MBA in Management from NYU’s Stern School of Business in New York City, where she was a Stern Scholar in the Executive Management Program. She resides in Rockaway Township, New Jersey with her husband Todd and their five children.
