Member Profile

Shirley Chin

After practicing as a corporate attorney at Davis Polk & Wardwell in New York, Shirley Chin returned to San Francisco and spent several years advising nonprofits. In addition to general board advisory and corporate governance work, the technical law that governs exempt organizations is tax law, she notes, with a… Read more »

Anthony O’Donnell

Anthony (Tony) O’Donnell was a history major in college and, during his formal legal training, never set out to pursue tax. “I fell into it late in law school when I took the basic tax course and found that the key concepts of tax made sense to me and the… Read more »

Ralph Corasaniti

Some budding corporate tax specialists have a five-year plan to become part of this fascinating profession, whereas others just sort of fall into it. That was the case for Ralph Corasaniti, who thought he would be more interested in finance positions because he didn’t see himself as a general auditor.… Read more »

Richard Pettigrew

Are in-laws the bane of your existence? Well, that’s not the case with Richard Pettigrew, who first became interested in tax when his father-in-law introduced him to this complex yet interesting field in 1972. Pettigrew had just begun his education at the University of North Texas, and his father-in-law asked… Read more »

Ellen Berenholz

When Ellen Berenholz was in college and working for a CPA firm, she could recite financial statement opinions backward and forward. You think that might have come in handy when she began her post-college career at Arthur Andersen’s audit group? Actually, Berenholz proofread financial statements at the CPA firm, checking… Read more »

Julia Lagun

Some say that practicing tax law is like playing chess. If that’s true, then Julia Lagun, a competitive chess player since age four, has had quite a lot of practice. Lagun, senior vice president and senior tax director at KeyCorp, has always been good with numbers and puzzles and has… Read more »

Gregory Viggiano

What on earth could the late 1960s television show The Green Hornet have to do with tax planning at the AP Moller–Maersk Group? Let’s let Gregory Viggiano, the company’s senior director of tax planning, explain it in his own words: “When I was five, I was a fan of the… Read more »

John Mann

John Mann has distinct childhood memories that foretold his current career in tax. One involved attending a meeting with his mother and the tax advisor who prepared her tax return. Another was having that same advisor prepare his own tax return for part-time work during high school. “It’s funny how… Read more »

Michael Bernard

When Michael Bernard was a sophomore at Creighton University, he took a business law class. It was the start of something big—a notable career in tax, including almost three decades at Microsoft Corporation. He is now the chief tax officer at Vertex Inc. “The cases in the book covered a… Read more »

Teri Hull

Teri Hull’s interest in tax issues was sparked by dry cleaning. Yes, dry cleaning. Her father owned a dry cleaning business when she was young, and she often tagged along on Saturday mornings. But it wasn’t the back of the store, with all those hangers and clothes, that intrigued Hull;… Read more »