The Daniels School of Accountancy has an impressive rate of success placing students in FASB/GASB positions
Rodrigo Granillo
The tremendous success Granillo found at the Daniels College of Business was no accident. He graduated in five years with a bachelor’s of accountancy and master’s of accounting, technology and analytics degrees—with a 4.0, summa cum laude, with distinction and Beta Gamma Sigma honors no less.
It all added up to a prestigious position in the Postgraduate Technical Assistant (PTA) program at the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB).
“I feel very proud, I cannot lie,” Granillo said. “It’s a long line of [Daniels] people who have done this. [The School of Accountancy is] such a small program and we are competing against UT Austin, Gonzaga, Ohio, all of these very prestigious schools with huge accounting departments. To be able to be one more [DU recipient] on this list of a smaller program to punch above our weight, I feel a pride for the school to be able to put our name up there, more than for myself.”
Daniels is well-accustomed to placing students in the PTA programs at FASB and its public sector counterpart, the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB). In the past 15 years, 11 School of Accountancy (SoA) students have landed the job, which places them in Norwalk, Connecticut for one year. That includes Mallory Bell (BSAcc 2016, MAcc 2016), who recently returned for a post-doctoral fellowship.
In the past 15 years, 11 School of Accountancy (SoA) students have landed prestigious positions at the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB).
Daniels is well-accustomed to placing students in the PTA programs at FASB and its public sector counterpart, the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB). In the past 15 years, 11 School of Accountancy (SoA) students have landed the job, which places them in Norwalk, Connecticut for one year. That includes Mallory Bell (BSAcc 2016, MAcc 2016), who recently returned for a post-doctoral fellowship.
Adam Greiner, the SoA’s director, attributes the success to a hyper-focus on rigor, professional development and connections to companies.
“The FASB/GASB have consistently awarded many of our best graduates with PTA positions because the Daniels School of Accountancy delivers intensive courses to form its graduates as technical accountants with exceptional business acumen and communication skills,” he said.
The FASB/GASB have consistently awarded many of our best graduates with PTA positions because the Daniels School of Accountancy delivers intensive courses to form its graduates as technical accountants with exceptional business acumen and communication skills.
Natalie Vaughan
Illustrious internships
Natalie Vaughan
The accounting profession leans on an established set of rules, within a common structure that improves transparency and consistency across organizations. FASB and GASB set those standards.
Alumna Natalie Vaughan (BSAcc 2020, MAcc 2021), for example, worked with derivative accounting improvements during her stint as a FASB PTA. Topic 815 offers the definition of a derivative instrument, how a company determines if it has one, the accounting treatment it receives and any exceptions to the rule.
Taking a peek behind the curtain exposed Vaughan to the technical accounting profession and gave her a leg up in her everyday work.
“It helps you understand how the board thought about the standards when they wrote them, so it makes it a lot easier to apply them,” said Vaughan, who now works in KPMG’s Denver office as a senior associate in accounting advisory services. “It gives you a lot of resources people don’t necessarily know about to go and find things that the board was thinking about when they wrote the standard.”
Sydney Hong
“Now, I’m at Deloitte in their M&A (mergers and acquisitions) practice, so we write reports all the time,” she said. “It’s a similar concept of taking these broad, complex topics and make them simple for readers. That’s definitely transferrable.”
Hong already had a job in Denver with Deloitte lined up post-graduation, but she deferred it a year to take the GASB position.
“I think that was the greatest start to my career post-Daniels,” she said. “And anytime I can help someone have a similar path or even just start the same way, I’m all for helping other students.”
The Daniels Effect in action
Daniels alumni are the wheels that sustain the SoA’s remarkable success placing FASB and GASB PTAs.
Granillo’s interest in the position started when he met Vaughan for coffee. When the time came to interview for the job, he sought advice from Vaughan, Danika Greiner (BSAcc 2013, MAcc 2013) and Sonja Kuranz (BSAcc 2023, MAcc 2023). The Daniels Effect—an assurance of lifelong support through a network of alumni who are eager to pay it forward—had fully materialized
“It’s really fun [to be part of the DU network],” Vaughan said. “You feel really supported because anything that you’re going through, there’s always someone you can reach out to and ask and see what path they decided to take and get advice. That’s very helpful and very comforting.”
Alumni credit the SoA’s cohort structure for creating tight-knit groups of students that navigate the accounting core together. Hands-on, discussion-based classes give them a unique opportunity to not only learn the rules of accounting, but apply them.
They also laud the faculty, who get to know them as people, offer support and share in their triumphs.
“Being in a smaller program makes it easy to make those connections,” Granillo said. “The regular person doesn’t know what FASB is or what it stands for, but once you go into this more niche accounting world, the people [big firms] go after are people in these programs. It opens a lot of doors.”