Amanda “Jo” Erven is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA), a Certified Internal Auditor (CIA), a Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE), and the President and Founder of Audit. Consulting. Education. LLC. Jo’s firm specializes in progressive internal audit, risk, and ethics consulting along with providing impactful Continuing Professional Education (CPE) courses to organizations.

Jo is a full-time, accounting faculty member at Metropolitan State University of Denver as well as the Director of the Risk Assurance and Advisory Center at the University. As Center Director, Jo guides graduate students as they are the University’s Internal Auditors! Jo has also been helping to develop and manage an Enterprise Risk Management program for the University and thoroughly loves including her students in the real-world second and third line activities at MSU Denver.

“Jo is honest, bringing high integrity to all she does. She has the courage of her convictions and is one that always does the right thing. She takes responsibility for her actions and believes in meeting or exceeding her commitments. Her behavior and results-oriented approach forms the foundation upon which people can place their trust.”

Jo’s educational background includes both a bachelor’s and master’s degree in accounting from the University of Georgia. She started her career in public accounting at one of the Big Four firms, experienced a traditional accounting role at a multinational oilfield services corporation, and directed an internal audit function at an international financial services organization.

Jo’s professional experience includes advising management on a multitude of strategic initiatives, while providing ongoing recommendations for process and control improvements. She has designed SOX and other compliance programs, implemented audit management software suites, and has performed and managed financial, operational, and compliance audits for a multitude of industries, including oilfield services, agriculture, cannabis, transportation, insurance, retirement, investment, healthcare, higher education, and government. She has extensive risk identification, assessment, and mitigation experience and focuses her efforts on what is critical for future organizational success.

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Jo pushes the envelope of traditional assurance and advising practices. She believes internal auditors should no longer be reactive and should focus on proactive, real value-add activities. Her trademarked approach to internal audit, Total Quality Auditing® (TQA) was published in both book and workbook format. She provides in-person and virtual TQA trainings and developed a Certified Total Quality Auditor (CTQA) designation that has been earned by internal auditors across the globe.

Personally, Jo is known for her proactive nature as well. After finding out she was positive for the breast and ovarian cancer gene mutation (BRCA1), Jo underwent multiple preventative surgeries, including a full hysterectomy and a double mastectomy. She believes knowledge is power and encourages others to take action in their personal lives. Jo’s second book, Your Road. Your Choices., begins with a look at her story and exploring how we can each choose to embrace adversity. She delivers keynote presentations on our life choices, which have been called an “epic experience.”

Jo’s third and most recent book, Becoming The Everyday Ethicist, is based on Jo’s personal and professional life experiences, her leadership experiences, and ethics research and studies. Jo is passionate about ethics and her book provides the keys to living an ethical life, shows leaders how to display integrity and earn trust, and demonstrates the importance of ethics (and ethics monitoring by Internal Auditors) in all organizations. Jo’s most proud that her book is used in ethics courses at multiple universities across the United States!