113: Forensic Accounting, Litigation Support, & Data Analytics – Rubik Yeriazarian, CPA, CFE, CFF

Rubik Yeriazarian, Principal with Briggs & Veselka in the area of Forensic Accounting & Litigation Support, joined us for this episode of Life In Accounting, a podcast production of Where Accountants Go.

Targeted the area early on…

In the beginning of this episode, Rubik recounts the story of how he came to work in forensic accounting in the first place. He came from a family of accountants, and knew he was interested in “tracking money” early on in life.  He considered math as a possible interest initially, but then realized he didn’t enjoy that quite as much as he thought.  However, he had done well in UIL accounting competitions in school so he decided to choose the accounting career path instead.  As he neared the end of college, he had an internship at KPMG where he met some of the individuals in the forensic area and ended up getting the opportunity for a rotation in forensics.  It was there that his career got started in forensic accounting, and obviously it has worked out well for Rubik.

Goldilocks career

Rubik uses the term “Goldilocks career” when describing the path he took. He first worked at KPMG, and while the experience was beneficial, it was “too big” for him personally.  He then moved on to more of a boutique firm that had 6-8 employees, finding that that organization was “too small” for his preference after a few years.  It was then that he found the opportunity that was “just right”, which is his current role at Briggs & Veselka there in Houston.

Skills you need

Given his specialty and the length of time he has worked in it, I wanted to make sure we dedicated some time to getting Rubik’s professional opinion on the skills and characteristics that are vital to preparing for a career in this area. Some of the items that he listed as being necessary for success are:

Need to be a self-starter

Ability to dig in to the data

Ability to communicate with non-accounting professionals (this is key!)

And of course, strong skills in Excel

Other systems skills such as Python and SQL are helpful, but if you have the items listed above, that makes for a strong start in the forensics and litigation support specialties.

Please make sure you listen to the audio file as well below. Rubik shares much, much more than we could ever possibly cover in this short summary.

Other episodes you may enjoy include: Episode 038 with Billy Petty, and Episode 082 with Fred Olivares