Susan M. Cosper is the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) Technical Director and Chairman of the Emerging Issues Task Force, a role she has held since 2011. As Technical Director, she has responsibility for managing all of the FASB’s technical accounting and research activities and staff. In her role, she frequently interacts with staffs from the Securities and Exchange Commission, Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, Banking Regulators, AICPA, congressional and senate staffers, companies, auditors, investors and standard-setters from around the globe. Cosper is also the Diversity Leader for the Financial Accounting Foundation, the parent organization to the FASB and the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB). In that role, she has focused on ways to promote diversity and inclusion within the accounting profession.
Prior to her appointment at the FASB, she was a partner with PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC), and had the distinguished honor of being the first female partner in the Pittsburgh office. Cosper joined the Pittsburgh office of PricewaterhouseCoopers in 1992, where she performed audits of private and public companies in PwC’s Assurance practice. From 1998 to 2001, she accepted an international assignment in the Firm’s London office. There, she led global audit engagements and advised clients on international accounting issues. After her return to Pittsburgh, in 2005 she was selected for a three-year fellowship with the FASB. Upon completing the fellowship, she became part of PwC’s National Office in Florham Park, NJ and, served in PwC’s Financial Instruments, Structured Products, and Real Estate Group in New York City.
Cosper earned her B.S. in accounting in 1992 from Indiana University of Pennsylvania and is a certified public accountant in the states of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.