Director and Practice Leader, Goverernment Outsourced Accouting Services, Forvis Mazars

The practice leader of the Government Outsourced Accounting Services team, Karen has more than 19 years of public sector experience; including 11 years providing audit services to government entities and six years managing all aspects of finance for a Texas municipality. She also has experience with Annual Comprehensive Financial Report writing, year-end accruals, audit interface, and a myriad of other outsourced accounting and finance needs for the public sector. As a member of the firm’s Public Sector Advisory Services team, Karen serves governmental entities across the country.

In addition, Karen has conducted presentations and webinars, providing continuing professional education for public sector seminars and the Government Finance Officers Association of Texas.

In her prior role as the finance director of a Texas municipality, Karen performed a variety of supervisory, professional, administrative, and technical accounting and finance functions. Her duties involved regular presentations to the town council, budget preparation, monthly journal entry approval, monthly financial and investment report preparation, and year-end pension, post-employment benefit, lease and capital asset entries, as well as interfacing with independent auditors. Karen also served as Investment Officer and maintained the town’s cash and investment portfolio and supervised utility billing customer service and municipal court.

Her career as senior manager at BKD, LLP, a predecessor firm to Forvis Mazars, included supervising the audit team, communicating audit results to city council and management, and authorizing the signing and release of audit reports.

Karen is a Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE) and Certified Government Finance Officer (CGFO). She is a member of the American Institute of CPAs, AGA, Texas Society of CPAs, Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA), GFOA Texas, Association of Certified Fraud Examiners and ACFE Dallas. In addition, she serves on the GFOA’s Special Review Committee.

Karen is a graduate of Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, with a B.S. in mathematics and a graduate of the University of Texas at Dallas with a M.S. in accounting and information management.