Banco Popular de Puerto Rico

John R. Ezell, CPA, CEPAFounding Principal and PresidentJohn R. Ezell, CPA, is the President of ProHorizons Network, Inc. ProHorizons is a national brokerage and consulting company focusing on tax and accounting practice sales, acquisitions, and business development services. John has advised hundreds of clients in the merger and acquisition of accounting and tax firms since founding the company in 1995.John is the principal author of the book, Successful Practice Sales: The Complete Guide to Buying, Selling or Merging Your Accounting, Consulting or Tax Practice. This 200-page book serves as a guide through every nuance of the potentially daunting business transactions, including financing your acquisition to exploring the complete lifecycle of a sale, and much more.  He is also a frequent speaker and presents seminars and webinars regarding buying, selling and merging accounting and tax practices. Previously, John operated his own CPA practice in the Washington, DC area that he successfully sold in 1994. Prior to starting his practice, John worked with two CPA firms in Washington, DC, including BDO Seidman, an international accounting and consulting firm.John is a Certified Public Accountant licensed in California. He has earned the designation of Certified Exit Planning Advisor (CEPA) from the Exit Planning Institute® for completion of their spring 2009 program. He is also a licensed California Real Estate Broker. He holds a BS in Accounting from George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the California Society of Certified Public Accountants.John served in the US Marine Corps and was an embassy guard in Moscow and Berlin.John is married to Jennifer and they have four children. He coaches youth baseball and soccer, and serves his community in a variety of volunteer leadership positions.

Bill Carlino joined Transition Advisors as Managing Director of National Consulting Services in 2012 after serving for nearly 12 years as editor-in-chief and editorial director of Accounting Today and AccountingToday.com, where he was responsible for all content both in print and online. During his tenure as editor, Accounting Today won a number of financial journalism awards including Excellence in Financial Journalism from the New York State Society of CPAs and was a two-time finalist for the Jesse R. Neal Award, the premier publishing accolade among business-to-business publications. In his new role as managing director of consulting, he helps match Transition Advisors� array of services such as succession readiness evaluations, new partner admissions, partner retirement and exit support, partner retreats and owner agreement evaluations and design, to the strategic transition and succession needs of CPA firms across the country.He has been a frequent industry speaker, presenter and panel moderator and has appeared as an expert commentator on such business channels as CNBC, Reuters, Bloomberg, CNN as well as National Public Radio.

Andy Armanino manages a $70 million “Top 100” firm in the nation. The firm has been named one of the 25 “Best of the Best” managed firms in the country for the past 8 out of 9 years. Under Andy’s leadership, the firm doubled its size in 5 years and has been named for five straight years as a “Best Place to Work” in the entire San Francisco Bay Area by the San Francisco Business Times. In 2009, Andy was named one of the “Most Admired CEOs” in the Bay Area by the San Francisco Business Times and Inside Public Accounting named him one of seven of the “Most Admired Peers” in the country.As managing partner, Andy focuses much of his time on firm strategy, vision and culture. This year, Andy implemented a four year strategic plan based on a high growth model with key areas of focus. His entrepreneurial spirit, ability to take risks and his talent to motivate and challenge people keeps the firm and its partners accountable and driven for success. Andy also recognized the need for a best-in-class training program for the firm and hired a training director who established Armanino McKenna University (AMU). AMU offers a variety of comprehensive programs with dedicated live and online resources and tools to go beyond traditional CPE with professional and personal development skills to assist firm employees in being well rounded. Andy has more than 20 years of accounting and consulting experience serving a wide variety of industries. After spending several years at a National Firm, Andy joined Armanino McKenna in 1989. In 1994, at age 29, Andy became the youngest person in the firm's history to be admitted to the partnership of Armanino McKenna. In 2005 Andy was named managing partner of the firm. Andy is regularly asked to speak on various topics in the industry.

Gary Sutherland has over 20 years of insurance experience and founded North American Professional Liability Insurance Agency, LLP (NAPLIA) in 1998. NAPLIA has grown to be one of the leading writers of professional liability insurance specializing in financial professionals and was named to Entrepreneur's list of fastest growing companies in America. Gary holds the prestigious designation of Certified Insurance Counselor (CIC), an honor attained by only 2% of all insurance brokers. Gary's expertise is well acknowledged and he regularly speaks at national conferences, including Fiduciary 360, CFDD and large accounting firms.

Ben Stein is an economist, FORTUNE columnist, humorist, TV and movie actor,author, lawyer and university teacher.He might be described as either the funniest well-known economist or the most economically insightful humorist.He studied economics at Columbia and law and economics while at Yale Law School, where he graduated as valedictorian of the class of 1970. He has served as a trial lawyer, a poverty lawyer, a university teacher most recently at Pepperdine, a speech writer and economic advisor for Presidents Nixon and Ford, a columnist for The Wall Street Journal, a novelist, screen writer, TV writer, syndicated columnist, writer of nonfiction books about culture and finance and expert witness in complex securities law cases.Stein became extremely well known in 1986 for his iconic role in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, where two words, “Anyone, anyone?” and “Bueller, Bueller?” made him a cult figure. He added to that with his long running game show on Comedy Central, Win Ben Stein’s Money, which won seven Emmy Awards, including one for Ben Stein as Best Game Show Host. He has also won recognition for his economics writing including The Malcolm Forbes Award for Excellence in Financial Reporting for 2008.Within the last ten years he has been a best-selling author of a series of finance and self help books beginning with How To Ruin Your Life, a columnist for The New York Times, a regular commentator for CBS Sunday Morning, Larry King Live on CNN, Fox News, and Yahoo! Finance. He also has been writing a diary for The American Spectator for over twenty years. He has been the spokesman for Clear Eyes for more than fifteen years.He does many different things but what he really likes most is meeting new people and making new friends. He lives in Southern California with his wife of 40 years, Alexandra Denman, many dogs, cats and a fish.

Jim Hart has been involved with Internet technologies in one form or another since the early 1990s. His first foray into leveraging the Internet to facilitate business was in creating data‐driven e‐Commerce platforms for his clients. This rapidly evolved into creating, installing and maintaining networks and connectivity to legacy systems. From enabling banks to more rapidly process and monitor merchantcard transactions, to running web operations for Realtor.com and developing predictive algorithmsfor choosing the best ad to serve a web‐site visitor, Hart’s singular focus has been on leveraging technology to accelerate and foster business process. Hart has worked in both small and large enterprise businesses in many roles including Director of IT/CIO, Product Manager, Developer, and General Manager. This experience has given him a very holistic view of what technologies a company should keep in‐house and what is better pushed to the cloud. Jim has also been a guide to mid‐market and growing businesses for ERP software selection and program management activities. Hart joined SingerLewak in February, 2010 and has been managing SingerLewak Systems: a service area of SingerLewak’s ERMS (Enterprise Risk Management Services) Practice. SingerLewak Systems’charter is to leverage SaaS (Software as a Service) technologies to improve their clients’ business processing. SingerLewak Systems has become a licensed reseller or implementer for several complimentary SaaS offerings in order to deliver “best‐of‐breed” applications to their clients.Jim Hart can be reached at 818.251.1356, or by email at jim.hart@singerlewaksystems.com