The Team

Helen Kane

Founder and President

In this capacity Helen has worked with over 250 corporations and financial institutions to establish FAS 133 compliant hedging programs, and as both a FAS 52 and FAS 133 specialist Helen advises clients on derivative hedging programs, both strategy and related accounting.
Prior to founding the company, she led Deloitte & Touche's Silicon Valley risk management practice for seven years where she designed, developed and implemented hedge programs for multinational corporations to improve performance and accountability. Before that Helen spent eight years working for multinational corporations such as Measurex-Honeywell, Tandem Computers and NCR on foreign exchange risk management, global treasury and finance issues.

With Hedge Trackers she has assembled a team of highly qualified, highly experienced like-minded finance professionals who share her goal - to help make commodity, foreign exchange and interest rate risk-management efficient, effective and GAAP compliant.
Helen regularly guest lectures for industry, academic and corporate audiences on practical implementation issues associated with international transaction and derivative accounting. She earned a Bachelors Degree in Political Science (with Honors) from Arizona State University and a Masters of International Management from the American Graduate School of International Management.

Nichole Krause 

Director, Consulting Services

Nichole has over 12 years of accounting and treasury experience, most recently working for Macromedia, Inc., a leading developer in internet and mobile device software. At Macromedia, she developed a best-in-class hedge program for the company’s foreign currency exposure by integrating the hedge process with the forecast and planning function and continuing that integration through to the quarterly and annual reporting process. Nichole was successful in minimizing FX exposure and increasing senior management’s visibility into the effect FX had on the company’s bottom line.

Nichole has extensive experience with the reporting requirements for hedge accounting and has worked closely with external auditors to ensure complete transparency of the programs and their goals. In addition to foreign currency, she has experience in other aspects of risk management including cash and investments and insurance. Today at Hedge Trackers Nichole is responsible for clients like Visa International, Otis Spunkmeyer and Symphony Services Corp., and she has delivered integrated FAS 52 and FAS 133 programs for companies such as Borland Software, Illumina, Inc. and Komag Inc.

Nichole has a BS in Business Administration from the University of Arizona majoring in Accounting and an MBA, with honors, from Santa Clara University, with a concentration in Finance. She is also a Certified Treasury Professional.

Sandra Koch

Senior Technical Consultant

Sandra has more than 13 years of corporate treasury experience, most recently spending seven years with Tellabs, Inc., a provider of solutions for telecom service providers worldwide. Her career has given Sandra strong, deep expertise in the various areas of global financial management including: planning/budgeting, business unit management, cashflow forecasting, foreign exchange management, merger and acquisition assimilation and financial management software implementation. At Tellabs Sandra drove a wide range of initiatives including establishing a full-scale, FAS 133-compliant, FX hedging program, and successfully educated the business units about the value of her programs and became an integral part of their planning and performance review activities.

Sandra joined Hedge Trackers in July 2006 as a dedicated consultant based in the Chicago area and is responsible for developing business and establishing a Hedge Trackers office in that geography. Her Hedge Trackers clients include McDonalds, DENTSply International, and Sterling Commerce, and she has delivered integrated FAS 52 and FAS 133 programs for companies such as Crocs, Inc., Maui Jim, Inc. and Glatfelter.

Sandra graduated from Indiana University with a BS in Business Finance.

Glenn Suarez

Senior Consultant

Glenn has more than 15 years of corporate treasury and financial risk management experience, most recently working at Countrywide Capital Markets in controller and financial risk manager roles. Before Countrywide, he worked for five years as a Senior Manager with Deloitte & Touche’s Risk Accounting and Advisory practice, where he assisted multinational corporations and financial institutions in implementation and compliance with FAS 133/FAS 52 provisions, and the establishment and assessment of hedging programs to manage interest rate, foreign exchange, and commodity price exposures. Glenn’s prior experience involved working as a senior treasury analyst and foreign exchange trader with Atlantic Richfield Corporation.

Glenn’s diversified experience has provided him expertise in the accounting implications of derivatives and financial instruments, as well as the strategic and analytical considerations associated with managing financial risk. He is based in the Los Angeles area and is responsible for developing business and establishing a Hedge Trackers office in Southern California. Glenn graduated from Stanford University with BS and MS degrees in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research, and is a Chartered Financial Analyst.

Janice Oberhofer

Director FX / Software

Janice brings over 10 years of Treasury and Foreign Exchange experience to bear on her client engagements through experience gained at Tandem Computers and as Foreign Exchange manager for KLA-Tencor.

Janice has also been instrumental in ensuring that Hedge Trackers aggregated FX experience and FAS 133 best practices are encoded into the AcappellaFX software solution and today she manages all aspects of the Hedge Trackers software business, including development of AcappellaFX and all customer installations. Companies such as Polycom, Inc., National Oilwell Varco, Mentor Graphics and Gilead Sciences, Inc. are among the many that have benefited from Janice’s insightful, focused implementations of AcappellaFX.

Janice is well known in the Bay Area for her participation on the board of the Silicon Valley Treasury Management Association, and with the Peninsula Treasury Management Association. She graduated with a History degree from UCLA, and earned her MBA with Honors from Santa Clara University.

Ruth Hardie

Director, Outsourcing

Ruth joined Hedge Trackers at its inception in 2000 and has been instrumental in building Hedge Trackers' outsourcing services, especially for financial institutions. She now manages the firms entire outsourcing business, and has recently developed an innovative suite of services for banks facing restatement for previously "perfectly effective" hedges of step-up callable CDs and equity CDs. Ruth regularly provides individualized consulting, journal entry preparation, reporting assistance and regression and effectiveness testing in both the FX and interest rate arenas. Ruth's wide, practical experience and communication skills have made her an in-demand national and international speaker for both Hedge Trackers training and third party seminars such as those organized by the Center for Professional Education.

Prior to joining Hedge Trackers, Ruth was a manager at Deloitte & Touche where she managed and executed financial statement audit engagements for clients including large SEC companies, banks, software and traditional manufacturing companies, and Government entities. In this role Ruth audited investment portfolios of up to $100M, audited foreign hedge contracts and worked with clients to minimize foreign currency exposure. She qualified as a CPA, graduated from the University of Colorado with a BS in Finance, and earned her MBA from San Jose State University.

Lisa Wallace

Senior Technical Accountant

Lisa joined Hedge Trackers in 2001 and has been instrumental in building their foreign exchange outsourcing business, working with a wide variety of corporate clients on monthly entries, documentation, disclosures and related accounting issues. Today she oversees outsourcing for a number of Hedge Trackers’ major clients. Her Big 4 background and six years practical hands-on experience since joining the firm makes Lisa a frequent and valuable instructor for Hedge Trackers training seminars and external training events.

Prior to joining Hedge Trackers Lisa spent 15 years with Ernst & Young offices across the US, working within audit and corporate tax. During her time with E&Y she participated in financial statement audits for banks, government contractors, retailers and manufacturers. After relocating to San Jose she specialized in providing tax services to high tech clients of all sizes. Finally, she played an integral role in building the Pacific Northwest Tax Compliance Group and worked as an Associate Director within the Area Tax Compliance Leadership Team. She is a graduate of the University of Utah, BS in Accounting, and a CPA.

Jim Shepard

Senior Consultant

Jim has over 14 years of corporate treasury, accounting, and finance experience, most recently working for BEA Systems, Inc., a leading developer of enterprise infrastructure software located in San Jose, California. While at BEA, Jim held the position of Assistant Treasurer and was responsible for global treasury operations including: managing the cash flow forecasting process, developing cash management and investment strategies, and improving insurance and foreign currency risk management programs.

Jim has managed several FAS 133-compliant revenue hedging programs and numerous balance sheet hedging programs throughout his career. He has evaluated and implemented foreign exchange trading and accounting platforms to aid in managing those programs. Jim has experience working across finance functions such as Treasury, Tax, and Accounting to educate and promote understanding of the hedging and hedge accounting process. His work experience spans multiple industries including: semiconductor capital equipment, biotechnology, enterprise software, and retail goods manufacturing.

Jim joined Hedge Trackers in 2008 as a dedicated consultant based in the greater San Francisco Bay Area. He holds a bachelors degree in Psychology from California State University, Hayward and a MBA from the Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University. He is also a Certified Treasury Professional.

Elizabeth Rogers

Derivative Accountant

Liz has over 30 years experience in treasury and accounting. Most of her career was spent with Mentor Graphics Corporation, a leading provider of electronic design automation software tools, as the Worldwide Treasury Manager. In her 21 year tenure with Mentor Graphics, Liz was involved with foreign exchange management, cash management, investments, other income & expense forecasting, cash forecasting and banking. She developed a FAS 133 compliant hedging program that integrated the revenue and expense forecasting process with exposure management. In addition, Liz managed the FAS 52 hedging program.

Prior to Mentor, Liz worked for Nike, Inc., in international accounting, treasury and investor relations, and for PricewaterhouseCoopers in their Portland, Oregon office for four years.

Liz graduated from Pace University earning an MBA with a concentration in Accounting. She is also a CPA with Big 4 auditing experience.

Carli Anderson

Derivative Analyst / Project Manager

Carli has over 12 years of experience combined in Big-Four, treasury, corporate and non-profit accounting. She started her career in accounting at PricewaterhouseCoopers and just prior to joining Hedge Trackers, she was the Director of Finance at a local private high school. She has also worked in treasury and corporate accounting at Toyota Financial Services and Cisco Systems.

Carli's career has been diverse, from helping to implement FAS 133 in Toyota's Asset Backed Security group, implementing paperless systems for Cisco Systems and to running a $10M budget at a private high school.

She graduated from Loyola Marymount University with a BS in Accounting and is a licensed CPA.

Teresa Adams

Derivative Accountant

Teresa has over 13 years experience focused primarily on the financial services industry. Prior to joining Hedge Trackers, she spent 10 years with Waddell & Reed, Inc. (W&R), one of the original mutual fund complexes in the US. As a Financial Projects Specialist, she led financial initiatives, provided analysis, researched accounting issues, recommended solutions to management and implemented various corporate initiatives. As Internal Audit Manager, Teresa performed risk assessments and developed internal audit plans, managed the completion of broker/dealer and transfer agency operational audits and internal controls reviews. In addition, she coordinated and managed all of the testing phases of a major transfer agency system conversion.

Prior to W&R, Teresa worked for PricewaterhouseCoopers in their Kansas City office for three years.

She graduated from the University of Iowa with a BBA in Accounting and is a licensed CPA. She is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA).

Karen Gubler

Derivative Accountant

Karen has over 12 years Big 4 and corporate finance experience. She has spent her career focusing on complex accounting transactions and process improvements in areas such as hedge accounting, cash application, and research and development contracts. She has also gained considerable experience implementing and supporting SAP finance modules - particularly re-engineering the associated business processes and improving processes relative to financial analysis, project accounting, and asset management.

Before joining Hedge Trackers she spent six years as SAP Finance Manager at Applied Materials, Inc. leading their worldwide analysis and design of the SAP general ledger, cost center accounting, and extended general ledger modules and driving the North American implementation. Prior to that Karen worked in KPMG’s San Jose office for three years. She has a BS Accounting from Brigham Young, and is a CPA.

Karla Larsen

Derivative Analyst

Lorelei Clement

Derivative Accountant

Lorelei has over 12 years experience in accounting and corporate finance. Before joining Hedge Trackers she spent 7 years at Bank of America, mostly in U.S. Division finance where she was responsible for monthly performance reporting/variance analysis for the business managers and senior bank management. The product areas included investment banking, credit and lending, securities trading, and foreign exchange trading. She was also responsible for quarterly subsidiary regulatory reporting, and preparation of annual and three year operating plans for the equity investments and export finance groups.

Prior to Bank of America, Lorelei worked in the audit group in Arthur Andersen’s Oakland office and in project accounting for Vintage Properties, a real estate development firm. She has a BS in Business Administration from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri and is qualified as a CPA.

Sherlyn Czachor

Derivative Accountant

Sherlyn has over 7 years of experience in the financial industry, with a primary focus in Investment Accounting. Most recently she was the Manager of Investment Accounting at Members United CFCU, one of the country’s largest Corporate Credit Unions. Her main responsibility was to oversee the maintenance of MU’s investment portfolio made up of fixed income assets, loans, and member certificates. In 2005, MU received authority to enter into interest rate swaps. Sherlyn played an integral role in developing the tools to institute FAS133 accounting rules. She was responsible for developing and maintaining processes and procedures to ensure FAS133 rules were applied.

Prior to Members United, Sherlyn was a Senior Mutual Fund Accountant for Jackson National Asset Management, a subsidiary of Jackson National Life Insurance Company. Her main function was to reconcile complex mutual funds as well as calculate the daily net asset value of the funds.

She is a graduate of Northern Illinois University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Finance.

Julie McCloskey

Derivative Analyst

Jessica Jones

Executive Assistant

Jessica is a Bay Area native, originally from Redwood City. She provides senior level administrative support as well as managing day to day needs at Hedge Trackers. Having come from an eclectic background in Finance, Real Estate, and Internet Technology, she brings years of executive support experience as well as facilities management expertise to the office.

Jessica is a graduate of Sonoma State University, where she studied Anthropology with an emphasis in Linguistics. She is a classically trained pianist, and enjoys travel both within the United States and abroad.

Jan McCready

Accounting Manager

Jan provides all business support services to Hedge Trackers staff and clients, and is responsible for all operational aspects of the firm. Applying her Brigham Young University BS in Education, she provides the variable support that our business model demands.

Kim Young

Office Administrator