Michael Pisano

Michael is a Managing Director in our National Financial Services practice and is Protiviti’s Insurance Industry Internal Audit leader. Michael focuses on Insurance and has almost 20 years of audit, management consulting, and project experience. Michael has experience leading large programs of work including a wide range of financial and internal audits, SOX compliance, and MAR initiatives, and other process improvement review engagements. Michael has worked across multiple insurance and reinsurance lines, including P&C, Life, Health, Financial Guaranty, and Specialty lines. Michael also has significant experience supporting banking and asset management clients. Michael is a Certified Public Accountant and attended the University of Delaware from which he holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting. Prior to Protiviti, Michael worked for the public accounting firm, Arthur Andersen, focusing on Insurance.

Major Projects

• Michael led the process improvement review of one of the largest insurance carrier in the world’s Brazilian underwriting operations. The project, which included a look at the current state, involved designing a future state along with recommended improvements to streamline the underwriting processes across each line of business written in the Brazilian market.
• Michael serves as one of our deepest and most senior Insurance Industry SMEs on a wide range of insurance clients, primarily in the internal audit space. Michael’s work includes providing industry related subject matter expertise, risk identification and assessment, and guiding and mentoring our teams in the field.
• Michael served as project manager of the Risk Management work stream for a public company readiness initiative. The program was responsible for the initial design and build out of a risk function for a global Property & Casualty carrier. Michael’s responsibilities included supporting the International Chief Risk Officer, developing a detailed project plan, coordinating and leading a working group, and preparing executive presentations for use by the client’s Project Lead, Steering Committee and executive management, among other responsibilities.
• Michael led the review of a global insurance organization’s wire transfer and intercompany settlement processes as part of the implementation of an enterprise resource planning solution. The project entailed understanding current state requirements and proposed future state as well as the identification of gaps between the current and planned future state process needs.
• Michael helped lead the design and implementation of a Billing and Accounts Receivable function to support the billing of transition services as part of large scale divestiture transactions. The divestitures included the sale and separation of various insurance companies of a large global insurance group.
• Michael led a team of more than 20 consultants assisting a global asset manager through an ongoing SSAE16 readiness and process remediation engagement cutting across a wide range of asset classes including Loans, Derivatives, Real Estate, Private Equity Investments, and others.
• Michael has been the lead Project Manager on more than 15 SOX compliance engagements, including leading teams of consultants at a number of insurance and reinsurance clients supporting their SOX implementation and compliance programs. Areas of responsibility have included all key insurance processes as well as Statutory Accounting, Reinsurance Accounting, HR/Payroll, Financial Reporting, Treasury, etc.
• Michael has led and served as the insurance subject matter expert on Quality Assessment Reviews for our clients in the insurance industry, including leading the QARs at two large mutual life insurers, as well as a global, public P&C insurer.
• Michael supported a large Fortune 300 mutual life insurance and banking institution in an interim CAE support capacity. Support included involvement in a wide range of audit activities including reporting to executive leadership and the audit committee.

Areas of Expertise

• Internal Audit
• SOX and MAR Compliance/Financial Controls
• Project and Program Management

Industry Experience

• Insurance
• Reinsurance
• Financial Services

Education

• B.S. – Accounting University of Delaware

Professional Memberships & Certifications

• Certified Public Accountant (CPA), licensed in New Jersey
• Chartered Global Management Accountant (CGMA)
• Accredited in Quality Assessment and Validation (QAR)
• Certification in Risk Management Assurance (CRMA) 
• Member, American Institute of CPAs
• Member, Institute of Internal Auditors