John L. Verna, CBA
MBA, CPA, CFE, CICA
CEO & Executive Director
John L. Verna is founder and Executive Director of the American Institute of Certified Board Advisors, an organization dedicated to developing independent, effective corporate oversight strategies and skills.
John is a highly experienced business executive with over 25 years of strategic development, investigations, organizational design & controls, forensic accounting, computer forensics, and corporate governance, integrity monitoring and financial auditing experience. John has been a member of the board of directors of several privately held companies and has advised the boards of many Fortune 500 and large privately held companies in resolving serious, material integrity issues. He has worked as a trusted advisor to the boards of numerous clients. John has helped them manage both domestic and international investigative crises, evaluate breakdowns in organizational controls as well as resolve related business disputes.
After a sponsored leave from Coopers and Lybrand‘s Auditing & Investigations practices to attain his MBA at Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management, John rejoined C&L and was a key contributor to the startup team responsible for forming the C&L Strategic Management Services Group. Subsequently, he assumed a leadership role in establishing the Atlantic Region M&A Divestiture Consulting Practice.
Following C&L, John joined Kroll Associates renowned for its work in uncovering Saddam Hussein’s World-wide network of clandestine armament companies. He was a leader in both the firm’s Forensic Financial Investigations Group and the Global Corporate Investigations Practice. He founded and led the Total Business Controls Consulting Practice, an extension and enhancement of the firm’s core global investigative business.
John led many of the Kroll’s largest and most complex engagements. They included independent confidential inquiries into allegations of serious, non-routine business controls breakdowns, internal/external investigations, financial reporting misstatements, fraud, theft, and Foreign Corruption Practices Act issues. He also addressed gray market inquiries, economic espionage, and other types of material business irregularities. He pioneered the concept of combining investigative services with organizational controls consulting, utilizing this methodology in such diverse engagements as the Bankruptcy of Orange County California, the Purdue Pharma OxyContin controversy, Enron’s Natural Gas trading irregularities as well as numerous confidential engagements for Fortune 500 and other organizations. He was a Deputy Federal Monitor for the U.S. Department of Justice’s mandated monitoring of the Los Angeles Police Department where he was responsible for oversight of the Department’s Internal Auditing and Inspector General Groups.
In addition to John’s client work, he developed and executed the Kroll acquisition plan which drove the Firm to nearly $1 billion in revenues.
In 2001, John founded Global Intelligence & Security LLC, an investigative and controls monitoring firm, which was acquired by Citigate PLC in 2002. As Executive Managing Director of Citigate Global Intelligence and Chairman of the governing Executive Committee, he led the firm’s Investigative & Controls Monitoring Practices. In his most significant, publicly disclosed engagement, John’s Business Controls Consulting Practice was teamed with Giuliani Partners as the Independent Monitor of controls over the manufacturing of Purdue Pharma’s highly controversial narcotic, OxyContin.
Since 2006, Mr. Verna has been the CEO and Executive Managing Director of Navigator Associates (formally Acumen Partners Investigative Practice). The firm specializes in providing M&A, investigations, organizational controls and monitoring services to the Fortune 1000. He is also the Managing Member of Global Audit LLC, a forensic investigative auditing firm assisting foreign governments with U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practice Act issues.
John has written and lectured extensively on integrity crisis management and organizational controls design. He was an adjunct professor at Widener University’s Graduate School of Business, where he lectured on litigation consulting, white-collar crime and M&A strategy.
John holds an MBA in Strategic Business Development from Cornell University and a BSc with Honors in Management from Rider University. He is a Certified Board Advisor, Certified Public Accountant, Certified Fraud Examiner, a Certified Internal Controls Auditor and a Member of the International Association of Independent Corporate Monitors.