Dennis, a senior business advisor with special focus in finance, spent over 27 years as a partner with Arthur Andersen. He specialized in consulting with companies in the financial services sector, with particular emphasis on commercial banking, securities/investment banking and asset management industries. He also worked with companies in many other businesses over those years. Dennis retired from Andersen in early 1999.
In the early part of Dennis’s career, he spent most of his effort involved in the performance of accounting and audit-related services for clients. While he moved on to a primarily consultative role later, he retained the “client liaison” role with many companies regarding their accounting and audit services. Thus, Dennis has extensive knowledge of accounting and generally accepted accounting principles. Many of those clients were public companies, so he also has a detailed knowledge of SEC reporting requirements.
Dennis’s primary activity for most of his Andersen career was selling and overseeing the provision of a wide variety of consulting services offered by Andersen. In this capacity, he headed hundreds of consulting projects, mainly for financial services-type business enterprises. These projects covered almost all facets of business, including operations, systems, capital planning, financial instruments, strategic, mergers and acquisitions, executive recruitment, and initial and secondary public offerings.
As the senior partner in the San Francisco financial services practice during a large part of his career, Dennis oversaw tremendous growth in revenues and profitability in the practice. Activities included development and implementation of selling strategies and the introduction of new products. Besides having oversight responsibility for the work performed for hundreds of individual clients during his career, Dennis also had profit and loss responsibility for the San Francisco financial services practice, the West Region securities industry practice, and the West Region derivatives and financial instruments practice.
Dennis graduated summa cum laude from California State University, Fresno, in 1972 with a B.S. in Business Administration, Finance and Accounting Option. He holds a C.P.A. certificate.
Since Dennis’s retirement from Andersen, he has been involved in a number of activities. Besides his role as a Leader for The Language of Business, he has continued with not-for-profit board service and provides part-time consulting services for a number of organizations, including through his role on the Council of Advisors for the Gerson Lehrman Consulting Group. He is actively involved with a venture capital angel investment group. Dennis also serves on the boards of four corporations., a leasing company and a software company and two privately-held companies. He also serves on the boards of directors of two public companies: MCF Corporation (MEM), investment banking and securities firm, and Varian Semiconductor Equipment Associates (VSEA), a semiconductor equipment manufacturer. His role includes serving as chairman of the audit committee for both companies and is the designated “financial expert” required to be specified under the law.