Larry E. Rittenberg
PhD, CPA, CIA
Ernst & Young Professor of Accounting & Information Systems at the University of Wisconsin

Larry E. Rittenberg, PhD, CIA, CPA, Ernst & Young Professor of Accounting & Information Systems at the University of Wisconsin.  Professor Rittenberg was recently recognized in "2005's Influencers: 50 Worth Watching", by Business & Finance Journal, January 2005, as one of the 50 most important accounting influencers in the country.  He was also recognized as “One of the Most 100 Influential Individuals in Finance” by Risk and Treasury Magazine, 2005  

He teaches primarily in the area of auditing, including risk analysis, governance, and control.  He has served as accounting department chair for 11 years and has been heavily involved in developing strategy and running a large department.  He currently serves on the Board of Directors, Governance Committee, and Audit Committee of Woodward Governor, a publicly-traded corporation.

Professor Rittenberg became the chair of COSO – The Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission in January 2005.  The COSO Integrated Internal Control Framework is broadly looked at as the model for evaluating and reporting on internal control under Section 404 of the Sarbanes – Oxley Act.  Under Professor Rittenberg’s leadership, COSO recently issued guidance on implementing internal control over financial reporting for smaller public companies (July, 2006).  He also played an instrumental role in the development of the Enterprise-Wide Risk Management framework issued by COSO in 2004.   

He has made numerous presentations on internal control and ERM to groups as diverse as the Director’s Summit for Corporate Director; the Major Firms Group of the AICPA, the European Confederation of the Institute of Internal Auditors, and the Annual Meeting of the American Accounting Association, the Financial Executives Institute, the Norwegian Institute of Internal Auditors, and the Enterprise Risk Management Center at Miami University.

Professor Rittenberg recently served as the President of the Institute of Internal Auditors Research Foundation.  His responsibilities included coordinating and funding research on the practice of internal auditing on a global basis.  He had previously served as the Vice-Chair of Professional Practices where he had oversight responsibilities for developing the Professional Practices Framework and internal audit standards for the profession.  He was integrally involved in the IIA’s Guidance Task Force that developed the revised the definition of internal auditing.

Professor Rittenberg teaches and researches mainly in the areas of auditing and corporate governance. He is the co-author (along with Brad Schwieger) of Auditing: Concepts for a Changing Environment, 5th Ed. (2004) and the co-author of The Outsourcing Dilemma: What Works Best for Internal Auditing.  His research has been in the area of audit, risk, control, and governance and includes over 45 articles and monographs in leading accounting and auditing journals.  His most recent research addresses the cost/benefit of Sarbanes-Oxley 404 work and argues that we often underestimate the benefits associated with that work.

Professor Rittenberg has been a leader in the corporate governance area for more than a decade.  He was the author of Improving the Effectiveness of Audit Committees (1993), and “Audit Committees:  Is There an Expectations Gap,” (with R.D. Nair), in AICPA, The Expectation Gap Standards, (1993).  The insights in those articles have been subsequently captured in the recent legislation and stock exchanges mandates for more knowledgeable, active, and responsible audit committees.  He was a member of the Drafting Subcommittee and a committee member of the Report of the NACD Blue Ribbon Commission on Audit Committees.  He also served as a task force member of the Independence Standards Board dealing with the effect of outsourcing on auditor independence.  He has been the recipient of a number of outstanding educator awards.