Speaker

Rita Karachun

Rita Karachun is the Senior Vice President Finance - Global Controller for Merck & Co., Inc. As Global Controller, Ms. Karachun is responsible for all accounting and reporting aspects for Merck. In this role, She has oversight responsibility for all accounting at Merck including developing accounting policies for Merck, the interpretation of those policies for specific transactions and the consolidation of Merck’s results.  Ms. Karachun also oversees Merck’s external reporting, the accounting for business development activity as well as managing the financial supply chain of intercompany sales transactions. Ms. Karachun joined Merck in 2007 as an Assistant Controller for Schering-Plough and continued as Assistant Controller for Merck after the merger between Schering-Plough and Merck in 2009. In these roles, She led the integration of Schering-Plough’s acquisition of OBS, a Netherlands-based company and also led the implementation of a global consolidation system. Before joining Schering-Plough, She worked at AT&T Corp. and it’s leasing subsidiary, AT&T Capital, for 16 years. Her last position with AT&T was Assistant Controller and Chief Accountant.  She held a variety of roles at AT&T of increasing responsibility, including investor relations manager and controller of corporate units. Prior to AT&T, she was a senior at Arthur Andersen & Co., Ms. Karachun is a certified public accountant and earned a B.S. degree in accounting from Fairleigh Dickinson University, graduating Summa Cum Laude.