Maria Nondorf, executive director of Haas' Center for Financial Reporting and Management (CFRM), was named among the "2012 Most Influential Women in Bay Area Business" in the April 27 issue of the San Francisco Business Times.
Nondorf was selected by the magazine's editors and an advisory board of select leaders and profiled in the magazine's April 27 issue. The women on the list, which also includes three Haas alumnae, will be honored at an awards dinner June 7 in San Francisco. Nondorf also was recognized at the Haas School's annual Accounting Recognition Dinner on Wednesday, April 25.
"Maria has done a tremendous job ensuring that Berkeley-Haas remains at the forefront of the accounting industry," says Dean Rich Lyons. "We are very grateful for her dedication to students and to our school."
Nondorf was nominated for the San Francisco Business Times honor by the California Society of CPAs, which noted that Nondorf "plays a key role in the future of the accounting profession in California" through her role at CFRM.
"She has passion and a sincere commitment to the accounting profession, students, and faculty to build partnerships that will lead to a stronger profession," says Loretta Doon, CEO of the California Society of CPAs.
For the past year, Nondorf has led CFRM's charge to increase the profile of the accounting profession at Berkeley through a campaign called "Accounting at Berkeley: This Way to CPA." The campaign focuses on making students aware of the varied career opportunities in accounting and ensuring that students are prepared and plan much earlier to fulfill their career goals.
In addition, CFRM is creating an Accounting Boot Camp in summer 2012 to provide additional help to students so that they can meet new CPA certification requirements. Combined, these efforts address a shortage of candidates ready and qualified to take the CPA exam.
UC Berkeley boasts the highest pass rate (60.2%) and highest first-time pass rate (67.1%) on the CPA exam in California (based on 2010 candidate performance), according to Going Concern, an accounting and finance news website.
In another demonstration of her commitment to students, Nondorf led an effort this past year to create the first annual Launch Conference for underrepresented UC Berkeley and community college students to assist them in developing competencies and skills to ensure success in college and beyond.
Nondorf was named executive director of CFRM in 2010 and joined the Haas School faculty upon completion of her PhD at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2003. She teaches intermediate and advanced financial accounting topics to Berkeley-Haas undergraduate and MBA students.
Nondorf is currently researching the effects of accounting on the structure of corporate financing activities, in particular, mergers and acquisitions. She is also studying the impact of Securities and Exchange Commission comment letters on disclosure quality and the effects of Sarbanes-Oxley regulation on smaller firms.
Prior to obtaining her PhD, Nondorf was a senior manager in the Corporate Finance Transaction Services Group of PricewaterhouseCoopers in New York. She started her career with Deloitte and Touche in Atlanta and she is a CPA in the state of Georgia, where she received her BBA in accounting from Mercer University.