ELS24: Nuts and Bolts of Endowment Management

Terri Albertson is the vice president for finance and administration at Ursinus College. She was previously with Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine and Haverford College. She has spent over 25 years in public accounting at national firms with an industry focus on colleges and universities, healthcare entities, and not-for-profit organizations. She is the current chair of NACUBO's accounting principles council and is a graduate of NACUBO's Fellows program. She is a member of the board of trustees of Salus University and is on the audit and compliance committee and the finance committee.

Nicole Tirella, senior vice president, chief financial officer, and treasurer for Boston University oversees the financial operations including accounting and financial reporting, debt and treasury functions, research financial operations, risk management, sourcing and procurement, and internal audit. She is a certified public accountant and an active member of NACUBO's accounting principles council. She spent over seven years as an auditor for KPMG, specializing in higher education and not-for-profit entities. Before coming to Boston University, she was the associate controller at the University of Massachusetts within the president’s office where she led the compilation of the university system’s consolidated financial statements.

Rick Cole has more than 25 years of experience serving nonprofit organizations. He is the New York Market Industry Leader for nonprofit and education and is a member of the FORVIS higher education center of excellence. Before joining the firm in 2019, he worked at FASB, where he served as a supervising project manager for almost six years. Prior to joining FASB, Cole was vice president and controller at a large national museum in New York for seven years and a senior manager with a large international accounting firm where he worked for 14 years and specialized in audits of higher education institutions and other nonprofit organizations. He is a lecturer at the Columbia University School of Professional Studies, in their nonprofit management program.

Cole is a CPA in New York and New Jersey and is a member of the AICPA and New York State Society of Certified Public Accountants. He is a graduate of Montclair State University, with a BS degree and an MBA degree.

Sue Menditto is NACUBO’s expert on financial accounting and reporting, managerial analysis, and financial viability. She is charged with fulfilling higher education advocacy needs with the GASB, FASB, AICPA, and Department of Education. She was appointed to the IPEDS Finance Survey Workgroup in August 2023 as one of its financial reporting experts. She has also represented higher education on the Governmental Accounting Standards Advisory Council (2006–2012), AICPA’s Revenue Recognition Task Force (2016–2017), and the Department of Education’s financial responsibility subcommittee (2017–2018).

Menditto informs the association’s research efforts on accounting issues, endowment management, and tuition discounting; writes member communications: news, advisories, accounting tutorials, and articles; and supports members’ professional development needs by providing subject matter guidance. She has also co-authored chapters of publications addressing accounting, public health, and analytics and regularly speaks on accounting and financial management topics at conferences.

Menditto began her career in public accounting, was a CFO and Controller for a not-for-profit organization, and a vice president for Bank of America where she specialized in change management and accounting policy. She holds degrees in psychology and accounting and is a certified public accountant.