W. Steve Albrecht is a professor emeritus in the Marriott School of Business at Brigham Young University. Albrecht, a certified public accountant (CPA), certified internal auditor (CIA) and certified fraud examiner (CFE), came to BYU after teaching at Stanford and the University of Illinois. Earlier, he worked for Deloitte. Albrecht received a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Brigham Young University and his MBA and PhD from the University of Wisconsin. While a professor, Albrecht has been heavily involved in the business world. Following are the highlights of his academic and professional career.
Academic: Professor Albrecht has had held many leadership positions in academia. From 1998 to 2008, he was the associate dean of the Marriott School of Business. For the previous nine years, Albrecht was director of the School of Accountancy at BYU. He served as president of the American Accounting Association, Beta Alpha Psi and the Accounting Program Leadership Group. He also chaired the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) Accounting Accreditation Committee from 2000-2003. From 2002-2004 he was chair of the AICPA’s Pre-Certification Executive Education Committee. From 2004-2007, he served as the U.S. representative on the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) Education Committee.
Albrecht has done extensive research and writing on financial reporting, business fraud, ethics and corporate governance. His research has resulted in the publication of over one hundred and twenty-five articles in professional and academic journals. He is the author or co-author of over 25 books or monographs, several of which are on fraud, integrity, financial and managerial accounting and corporate governance/boards of directors. His financial and principles of accounting textbooks are in their 15th editions and his fraud text is in its 6th edition. In 2000, he co-authored a major study (Accounting Education: Charting the Course through a Perilous Future) on the future of accounting education in the U.S. Albrecht has taught classes in financial and managerial accounting, auditing, fraud and corporate governance.
Expert Witness, Professional Service & Consulting: Albrecht has enjoyed success with his work in the business world. He has consulted with numerous organizations, including Fortune 500 companies, major financial institutions, the United Nations, FBI and other organizations and has been retained as an expert witness in 38 major fraud cases, including many of the largest financial statement fraud cases in the U.S. His work on internal controls and fraud prevention, detection and investigation has brought him wide acclaim. He was the first president of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, a fraud-fighting organization now with over 80,000 members. He was a former member of the Board of Regents of the Institute of Internal Auditors and the Board of Directors of the Utah Association of CPAs. He served on the task force of the American Institute of CPAs that wrote SAS 82, a fraud auditing standard and on the FASAC, an advisory committee to the FASB.
From 1997 to 2000 he was a trustee of the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations (COSO), the organization that wrote the internal control standards used by most corporations and the AICPA Council from 2000-2003. From 2005-2009, he served as a trustee of the Financial Accounting Foundation that oversees both the FASB and GASB. He was recognized, as part of Utah’s Centennial Celebration, as one of 131 Utahns who have made outstanding contributions or brought unusual recognition to the state. In 1997, 2001, 2002 and 2003 and 2004 he was chosen as one of the 100 most influential accounting professionals in the United States by Accounting Today magazine. In 1998, he received the Cressey Award from the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, the highest award given for a lifetime of achievement in fraud detection and deterrence. In 2002, in honor of his contribution in fighting fraud, the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners named one of its headquarter buildings in Austin, Texas after Albrecht. In 2017, he received the inaugural Hall of Fame Award from the Association of Certified Examiners.
Board of Director Service: Albrecht has served on the boards of directors of four public companies (SkyWest Airlines, Cypress SemiConductor, RedHat, Inc. and SunPower Corporation) and five private companies (ICON Health & Fitness, Bonneville International, Sallie Mae Bank, Larry H. Miller Corporation and Deseret Mutual Benefit Administrators (DMBA)).
In 2009, he resigned from almost all of his boards to accept a three-year volunteer position as president of the Japan Tokyo Mission of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, where he and his wife supervised the volunteer efforts of approximately 500 young people. Since returning from Japan in 2012, he is again a member of three of the public company boards he previously served on –Red Hat, Inc., Cypress SemiConductor and SkyWest Airlines (The majority ownership in SunPower was sold to a French company). He has also joined two large private company boards—Deseret Mutual Benefit Association (DMBA) and Larry H. Miller Company (own the Utah Jazz along with 90+ other companies).
In 2006, he was named by Utah Business as one of its first class of top five corporate directors in the state of Utah. In 2013 he was included in the NACD Directorship 100, being named one of the top 50 Corporate Directors in America. In June, 2017 Albrecht received the Lifetime Outstanding Director Award in the State of Utah.
Albrecht, who is a NACD Board Leadership Fellow, has chaired the audit committee and served on the nomination/governance committee of nearly every board he has served on and has served on the compensation, long-range planning, safety and executive committees of some companies. He is currently the lead independent director at Larry H. Miller and Chairman of the board at Cypress SemiConductor. Albrecht developed and taught the MBA corporate governance and board of director class at BYU. He is the author of The Board of Directors and Corporate Governance, published in 2015.
