Dave Cornish joined American Express in August 2004 as Senior Vice President & Deputy Controller. Throughout his tenure at the Company, he has been a member of the Company’s Disclosure Committee that reviews all public financial disclosures, and Deficiency Evaluation Committee that reviews control deficiencies for material weakness and significant deficiency consideration. He is also part of the AXP Finance Forward Transformation Champions who are responsible for the overall success of several Finance enterprise-wide change management initiatives being performed.
Cornish currently leads the Company’s Global Record to Report function, which includes the Global Financial Operations group responsible for areas such as AXP accounting for Card Member billings & merchant payment processing, maintenance of the general ledger and the production of both managed and legal financial statements, the analysis of AXP & business segments results as well as the reconciliation of AXP’s balance sheet accounts, the External Reporting group which has responsibility for monthly consolidations and all SEC and bank regulatory filings (Federal and state), the Basel Reporting group which is responsible for all external reporting required under the Basel initiative and the Global Accounting Policy and Advisory group responsible for all technical accounting conclusions (US GAAP and IFRS) and development of accounting policies and standards.
From 2012 through 2014, he led the Business Advisory Controllership groups which directly support the USCS, ICSS, GMS and GNS business activities, the Global Accounting Policy and Advisory team, which provides timely and consistent technical accounting (US GAAP and IFRS) and finance policy support, the SOX team which oversees the Company’s Sarbanes-Oxley compliance program, and the Legal Entity Governance Center of Excellence team which is responsible for the roll out of the recently introduced governance standards for the Company’s legal entities around the globe.
From 2009 to 2012, Cornish led the Global Reporting Group, responsible for monthly consolidation of financial results, the preparation of the Company's SEC financial statement filings (Form 10-Q and Annual Report), as well as support of the earnings release and earnings supplement processes. He was also responsible for the Company's Bank Holding Company regulatory filings with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Cornish began his tenure with American Express as leader of the Global Accounting Policy and Technical Advisory Group, M&A Controllership and the IFRS Center of Excellence teams (2004 - 2009).
Prior to joining American Express, Cornish spent 21 years in the public accounting, supporting clients primarily in the Leasing & Finance/International Banking industries. He spent the first 19 years of his career with Arthur Andersen and in 1999 was promoted to Partner In-Charge of their Metro New York Leasing & Finance/International Banking Assurance Practice. In 2002, Cornish moved to KPMG, spending two years as a partner in their Leasing & Finance/International Banking Assurance Practice.