UACPA 2025 Annual Conference

Alastair MacDonald Related Seminars and Products

Alastair Macdonald is a private advisor, speaker, and strategist known for guiding entrepreneurs, investors, and business leaders through complicated decisions in high-consequence environments. With over two decades of experience in global investment management, he draws on deep expertise in macroeconomic cycles, capital flows, and risk management to help clients thrive-regardless of where they sit in the economic tide. His unique expertise is Full-Cycle Business development.

His work is particularly relevant to professionals navigating growth, partnerships, consolidation, or exits. As a multi-industry business owner, and advisor to top-performing individuals and groups, Alastair brings real-world insight into the intersection of individual entrepreneurship and global capital flows.

Born and raised in war-torn Zimbabwe, Alastair's understanding of volatility is not simply academic, but deeply personal. From successfully owning businesses through the greatest hyperinflation in world history, to building and exiting a large multi-doctor integrative veterinary hospital, to accurately forecasting and profiting from both the global financial crisis and the US housing bubble and its implosion, his eclectic perspective and experience has served and protected clients and partners throughout multiple industries, countries and business cycles.

Today, he advises entrepreneurs, PE firms, hedge funds, family offices, and healthcare leaders across the U.S. and internationally. A TEDx speaker, he has served as advisor to state governors, legislators, and public policy think tanks on social and economic strategy.

He is the Founder and head-guide of the Sovereign Dentist Mastermind, and serves as Chairman of Chengeta Wildlife, an international counter-wildlife trafficking operation in high-conflict zones across Africa and the Amazon jungle. He's also a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt, and proud father of two.

David Wood, Ph.D Related Seminars and Products

Professor of Accounting

Brigham Young University

Cassie Whitlock Related Seminars and Products

Chief People Office

Diversify Advisor Network

Cassie Whitlock is a seasoned HR executive with more than two decades of experience shaping exceptional workplaces and high-performing teams. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Management and Accounting from Utah Valley University and a Master's in Human Resources from Utah State University's nationally ranked HR program.

Cassie has spent much of her career in the Technology sector, where she built and refined people operations to support rapid growth and lasting culture. Notably, during her 11 years leading HR at BambooHR, she developed a world-class team and helped establish an award-winning company brand and culture within the Tech and HR software community.

Today, Cassie serves as Chief People Officer at Diversify Advisor Network, bringing her expertise to the financial services sector and helping the firm create an environment where people and performance thrive. She is also deeply committed to advancing others through education and proudly serves as an Adjunct Professor in Utah State University's MBA and Executive MHR programs, teaching courses in leadership and technology.

Robert Spendlove Related Seminars and Products

Robert is a Senior Vice President and the Economic and Public Policy Officer for Zions Bank. In this capacity he monitors and reports on economic indicators and public policy developments

for the bank. Founded in 1873, Zions Bank is Utah's oldest financial institution and it operates locations in communities throughout the Intermountain West.

Robert's research interests are primarily in the areas of macroeconomics, demographics, financial markets and public policy. He frequently advises and briefs policymakers, as well as business and civic groups throughout the United States. He is also regularly called on to give expert analysis in the media, through print, radio, and television. He is known for his insightful and understandable approach to explaining economic trends.

Robert also serves in the Utah House of Representatives, where he was elected in 2014. He represents District 49 in the Legislature, covering parts of Sandy and Cottonwood Heights cities. He is the Chair of the Revenue and Taxation Committee and the Vice Chair of the Rules Committee. He also serves on the Public Education Appropriations Committee, and the Health and Human Services Committee.

Robert serves on a number of boards and commissions, including the Utah Economic Council, the Utah International Relations and Trade Commission, and Envision Utah. He also serves on the Board of Trustees for Intermountain Healthcare Salt Lake Valley Hospitals.

His previous experience includes time as the Governor's Deputy Chief of Staff for Federal Relations, the Governor's Chief Economist and the State Demographer, where he served as the Chair of the Governor's Council of Economic Advisers, Chair of the Utah Population Estimates Committee, and President of the Wasatch Front Economic Forum.

Robert received a Master's of Public Administration with an emphasis in economic public policy at the University of Utah, where he is currently an adjunct instructor of public policy.

Robert is married and the father of four children.

Jan Lewis, CPA Related Seminars and Products

Justin Paperny Related Seminars and Products

Justin Paperny is an ethics and compliance speaker and the founder of White Collar Advice, a national crisis management company that has prepared some of the most high-profile defendants in the country for sentencing and prison. He is the author of Lessons From Prison,& Ethics in Motion, and the upcoming book After the Fall.

A former stockbroker who served time in federal prison for a securities offense, Justin now uses his own story to show how small rationalizations turn into big ethical and criminal failures & and how leaders can build cultures, controls, and habits that prevent them.

He has delivered ethics presentations for audiences at the FBI Academy, KPMG, Wells Fargo, Stanford, USC, and many other institutions, and his work has been featured on Dr. Phil, Netflix, CNN, CNBC, Fox News, The Washington Post, and The New York Times.

David Walker Related Seminars and Products

Hon. David M. Walker is a nationally and internationally recognized fiscal responsibility, government transformation/ accountability, and retirement security expert. He is a non-practicing CPA with over 40 years of executive level experience in the public, private and non-profit sectors, including heading three federal agencies (two ERISA agencies), two non-profits, and leading a global service line for Arthur Andersen LLP. His most recent full-time federal position was as the seventh Comptroller General of the United States and CEO of the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) for almost 10 years. This was one of his three Presidential appointments by Presidents from both political parties, with unanimous Senate confirmation each time. Dave also served as one of two Public Trustees for Social Security and Medicare from 1990-1995, and as the first Chairman of the Independent Audit Advisory Committee for the United Nations.

Most recently, Hon. David M. Walker served as the Distinguished Visiting Professor and Crowe Chair at the U.S. Naval Academy where he taught the Economics of National Security. He currently serves on a number of government and non-profit Boards and Advisory Committees, including the Defense Business Board, the Federal Fiscal Sustainability Foundation, and as a National Co-Founder of No Labels.