William “JJ” Edmunds is a licensed Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and Partner with over ten years of public accounting experience, providing audit and assurance services to the firm’s financial institution clients with assets ranging from $10 million to $7 billion. He manages and oversees internal and external audit services and has worked closely with clients in understanding their major financial processes to help them strengthen their internal control policies and procedures.
In conjunction with his assurance background, JJ has more than eight years of IT experience. His duties include supervising and assisting in the performance and application of information technology risk assessment, security review services, and he specializes in data protection and privacy. JJ is instrumental in analyzing the root cause and impact of IT issues through gaining a deep understanding of an organization’s operations. He actively translates IT risks, recommending business solutions, and advising organizations on designing strategies to create and improve sustainable data protection and enterprise-wide risk prevention programs.
In addition to being a CPA, JJ has earned the Certified Internal Auditor (CIA) designation, Certified Information System Auditor (CISA) designation, and is also COSO Internal Control Certified. JJ also earned a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the Workplace Certificate from the University of South Florida. At PBMares, he is a member of our Audit Technical and Emerging Issues Group, Diversity Equity and Inclusion Advisory Council, and our Data Analytics ACE Team.
When not serving clients, JJ spends time with his wife, Lauren, their daughter, Tatum, their son, Tucker and their lab. He is an avid sports fan who also enjoys paddle boarding and traveling to new places.
PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS & AWARDS
- American Institute of Certified Public Accountants
- Virginia Society of Certified Public Accountants
- Institute of Internal Auditors
- Chamber RVA (Richmond, Virginia)
- Association of Credit Union Internal Auditors
- Chair of the VSCPA’s Young Professional Advisory Council (YPAC)
- 2019 Recipient of the VSCPA’s Top 5 Under 35 Award
- Leadership Team for the ChamberRVA’s Helping Young Professional Engage (HYPE) Group
EDUCATION
- Graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with a concentration in Accounting from Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Virginia
- Master of Science in Accounting from Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia
ARTICLES:
Credit Unions and the Rise of COVID-19 Financial Fraud
In the wake of COVID-19, financial institution fraud is on the rise thanks to a mostly virtual environment and exposed vulnerabilities in organizations’ security systems and processes. Developing awareness of the types of fraud schemes is an important part of mitigating and lowering the risk.
What Every Organization Needs to Know About the Updated Three Lines Model and Risk Management
How should an organization measure and respond to risk?
NCUA Issues Mid-Year Update to Credit Union Supervisory Priorities Amid COVID-19
2020 has been a year of transformation, challenge, and opportunity.
Cybersecurity 2017 – A Look Ahead
As 2016 winds down it is time to start looking ahead to 2017. Recently, Experian, a leading global information systems company, released its 2017 Data Breach […]
Credit Unions Must Actively Manage Vendor Relationships
Like any corporation, credit unions rely on a number of other businesses for materials, support, maintenance and more. Outsourcing these other activities allows credit unions to keep their costs efficient and their resources focused on their core banking functions instead. Because more and more credit unions are out-sourcing activities, the National Credit Union Association (NCUA) has outlined requirements for managing third party relationships.
Assessing a Credit Union’s Risk
Risk is the one element that lurks in the background of all businesses, impacting them in some form or fashion. When defining objectives, it is always important for a business to calculate risk and determine the amount of risk they are willing to accept.