Audit Readiness

In this section

Moderator

Tina Pierce
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Financial Operations, Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Financial Management and Comptroller

Ms. Tina M. Pierce is the Deputy Chief Financial Officer (DCFO) for the Department of Defense. She is the principal advisor to the Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller)/Chief Financial Officer and other Defense senior officials for Department compliance with the amended Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990 (CFO Act) and related financial management reforms. She is responsible for improving and sustaining DoD’s financial framework in the areas of policy, audit, remediation, and financial reporting; leading compliance with government accounting standards, Federal regulations, and laws; and promulgating best practices for effective, efficient, and lawful use of DoD resources. Her portfolio includes the annual DoD Agency Financial Report, financial audit support and issue remediation, oversight of the Department’s internal control and payment integrity programs, and DoD Financial Management Strategy development and implementation.

Prior to her selection as DCFO, Ms. Pierce served in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Financial Management and Comptroller as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Financial Operations, where she successfully implemented provisions of the CFO Act and related financial management reforms. She also ensured the timely and accurate submission of Department of Air Force financial statements and managed, at the executive level, the Department’s Financial Improvement and Audit Remediation program.

Prior to her service with the Department of the Air Force, Ms. Pierce served as the Chief of Financial Reporting and Compliance for the Defense Health Agency. Her responsibilities included preparation of Defense Health Program’s financial statements and Agency Financial Report, oversight of Military Health System accounting policy, statutory and regulatory financial compliance, the Risk Management Internal Control Program, and Agency-lead for audit remediation efforts across the military health enterprise.

An Idaho native, Ms. Pierce was commissioned as a Marine Corps officer, serving in operational and staff financial management assignments from 1991 to 2006. Prior to reentering federal service in 2018 as a staff accountant with the Defense Health Agency, she held finance and accounting roles in the public and private sectors in the United States and Europe, with experience in information technology, energy, education and consulting industries. Ms. Pierce was appointed to the Senior Executive Service in August 2020. She holds a Bachelor of Science (Accounting) from the University of Utah and a Master of Business Administration from Colorado State University. She is a Certified Public Accountant (Commonwealth of Massachusetts) and an active Certified Defense Financial Manager Level 3.

Panelist

Natasha N. Anderson
Director, Financial Operation & Accounting, Department of the Army

Ms. Natasha N. Anderson is currently serving as the Director of Financial Operations and Accounting (FOA) within the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army (Financial Operations and Information) as of 15 August 2021. In this role, she is responsible for all ongoing financial management initiatives for policies, programs, and procedures designed to establish, implement, and maintain Army’s accounting, auditing, risk management, and financial reporting activities.

Ms. Anderson has served FOA since January 2011. Prior to her current governmental service, she was a Manager with Kearney & Company, where she was responsible for establishing and executing Army’s Financial Improvement and Audit Readiness plan Ms. Natasha N. Anderson is currently serving as the Director of Financial Operations and Accounting (FOA) within the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army (Financial Operations and Information) as of 15 August 2021. In this role, she is responsible for all ongoing financial management initiatives for policies, programs, and procedures designed to establish, implement, and maintain Army’s accounting, auditing, risk management, and financial reporting activities.

Ms. Anderson was previously the Director of General Fund Audit Readiness for FOA, beginning in August 2017. In this role, she was responsible for the execution of the Army’s General Fund financial statement audits and corrective action efforts stemming from those audits. She provided oversight of the Army financial statement audit infrastructure and implementation of the strategic plan to achieve a clean audit opinion. Ms. Anderson has served FOA since January 2011. Prior to her current governmental service, she was a Manager with Kearney & Company, where she was responsible for establishing and executing Army’s Financial Improvement and Audit Readiness plan.

Panelist

Shawn Lennon
Deputy Chief Financial Officer, Defense Logistics Agency

Description automatically generated. Shawn Lennon is the Deputy Chief Financial Officer for the Defense Logistics Agency, headquartered at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. In this role, he serves as a financial management advisor for the agency’s $50 billion budget and the Director, Financial Improvement and Audit Remediation leading the financial statement audits and the Statement on Standards for Attestation Engagements No. 18 Examination for Service Owned Items in DLA Custody.

Prior this this role, Mr. Lennon served as the Deputy Director for the Revolving Funds Directorate within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller). He is a graduate of the Defense Comptrollership Program, class of 2011, from Syracuse University.

As Deputy Director for Revolving Funds, he was responsible for leading the planning, programming, budgeting, execution, and audit of the DoD Revolving Funds; developing and issuing budget policy; and improving processes and controls to optimize the quality of financial information for the Military Services and Defense Activities.

Mr. Lennon started his government service with the Communications Electronics Command as a Department of the Army intern. He has served as a budget analyst, staff accountant, and then as Director, Army Working Capital Fund Audit Readiness with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army (Financial Management & Comptroller). He received the LTC Thomas P. Belkofer Award for highest grade point average and the Leonard F. Keenan Award for Distinguished Service from the Defense Comptrollership Program. He holds a Level III DoD Financial Management Certification and Certified Defense Financial Manager – Acquisition and is a member of the Washington Chapter of ASMC.

Melissa Sikora
Director, Enterprise Audit, Defense Finance and Accounting Service

Melissa A. Sikora is the Director, DFAS Enterprise Accounting and Audit Support. In this role, Ms. Sikora leads a professional staff that provides enterprise-wide financial reporting and accounting services, oversight and standardization of enterprise financial information requirements and business intelligence solutions, and oversight and guidance for DFAS’ support to the Department of Defense audit readiness efforts. Enterprise Accounting and Audit Support drives DFAS and DoD audit and financial reporting successes by means of increased collaboration, support, and solutions. She is also the Fund Balance with Treasury (FBWT) lead for the Department, responsible for implementing process improvements and remediating audit findings in order to downgrade the Department’s FBWT material weakness.

Prior to her current role, Ms. Sikora was the Director, DFAS Enterprise Audit Support & Compliance, where she led a professional staff that provided enterprise-wide oversight and guidance for DFAS’ support to the DoD audit readiness efforts. Enterprise Audit Support & Compliance provided the framework with which DFAS executed actions to support the Department’s audit readiness goals by ensuring DFAS services were ready for independent audit.

Ms. Sikora was the Deputy Site Director, DFAS Cleveland from July 2014 to April 2019, where she led more than 2,100 accounting and finance personnel responsible for paying the operational expenses for the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. In additional, the site provided pay support to 4 million people, including active duty, reserve and civilian employees of the Navy, Marine Corps, Department of Energy, Health and Human Services and the Broadcast Board of Governors, as well as military retirees and annuitants from all four Service branches.

Prior to being the Deputy Site Director, Ms. Sikora was the Director of Corporate Reporting. Though her time in this position was only less than a year, she served as an advocate for important changes to enterprise systems and influenced change to Financial Improvement and Audit Readiness guidance to support the Department’s short term audit readiness goals to produce and support the Schedule of Budgetary Activity (SBA), and the longer term goal of fully supporting the Statement of Budgetary Resources (SBR).

Ms. Sikora was the Accounting Director at the DFAS Cleveland Center from 2009 until 2014, where she managed the operations of Navy and Marine Corps financial statement reporting, general ledger maintenance, accounts payables, accounts receivables, and systems operations. She also took on an additional challenge of leading the DFAS efforts in supporting the audit of the Marine Corps SBA, supporting financial statement audits for both the Navy and Marine Corps, and even championing the Financial Statement Compilation and Reporting assertion milestone for the Navy.

Also during Ms. Sikora’s tenure as the Cleveland Accounting Director, she held a developmental assignment with the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Financial Management Operations (FMO). Some of her day-to-day responsibilities at the Navy FMO included overseeing the preparation of the Quarterly Financial Statements, preparing and presenting the OSD and SMP Metrics to executive level stakeholders, and serving as the liaison between DFAS and Navy on the Navy’s Integrated Plan of Action and Milestones for the SBR Audit Assertion.

Prior to her position as the Accounting Director, Ms. Sikora served as the Director of Departmental Reporting, overseeing key financial reporting requirements for the Navy and Marine Corps. During the 2006 and 2007 timeframe, Ms. Sikora was the project officer for two transition teams responsible for moving the DFAS workload to Cleveland from both the Oakland and Charleston field offices impacted by Base Realignment and Closures.

Before joining DFAS in 1999, Ms. Sikora served as a senior auditor with the Department of Defense Inspector General Office, where she developed an extensive knowledge of DoD organizations and performed audit work in all of the Military Departments and the Defense Logistics Agency. Her early experience as an auditor has been a key strength to her financial management experience at DFAS, where she has emerged as a key leader in audit readiness improvements, demonstrating her passion and devotion to improving financial statement supportability and auditability.

Back to Program / Budget Summit Home Page