Joseph Koletar, DPA, CFE, has over 40 years of professional experience in the public and private sectors. He had a distinguished career with the U.S. Army, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and two of the Big Four accounting firms. Based out of North Carolina, he now works as an independent forensic consultant.

Joe served for twenty-five years as a Special Agent and Senior Executive in the FBI. At the time of his retirement, he was the national program manager for the Witness Protection Program, criminal undercover operations, surveillance and aviation operations, and White House Background Investigations. Previously, he was an Intelligence Officer in the U.S. Army Special Security Group.

Later in his career, he was an executive in the fraud investigation and dispute advisory practices of Ernst & Young LLP and Deloitte & Touche LLP. During this time Joe conducted and managed investigations at clients in several industries such as retail, healthcare, energy, and financial services. Matters addressed included executive defalcations, conflict of interest, revenue recognition,  sales commission schemes, payroll and disbursement schemes, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act,  anti–money laundering controls,   fraud risk vulnerability assessments, compliance testing, and crisis management preparedness.

Joe’s work has taken place throughout the U.S.  and in sixteen foreign countries, and has involved working with many premier law firms. His clients have included General Motors, Johnson & Johnson, GE Capital, Credit Suisse, Columbia HCA, and Dell Computer. For over two years Joe ran a Swiss bank “Holocaust” that involved a review of over 16,000 boxes of corporate records dating to the 1920s.

Joe holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the Pennsylvania State University, a Master of Science in Industrial Administration from George Washington University, and a Master of Public Administration and a Doctor of Public Administration (DPA) from the University of Southern California. He wrote his doctoral dissertation on “Codes of Ethics in Complex Organizations: Assessing Implementation Strategies and Organizational Benefit.” He is an alumnus of the Program for Senior Managers in Government at Harvard University.

He has written extensively on fraud topics in professional journals, has been quoted in The New York Times, and interviewed on National Public Radio. In 2003, his book Fraud Exposed: What You Don’t Know Could Cost Your Company Millions was published by John Wiley & Sons; since then, he has also written The FBI Career Guide,  Rethinking Risk, and authored three sections in the Encyclopedia of Law Enforcement (Sage Publications, 2004). Joe serves on the editorial review board of The CPA Journal, and has been a guest lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, Pennsylvania State University,  Kennesaw State University, and the Louisiana State University. He has spoken to groups such as the American Management Association, the American Institute of CPAs, the Institute of Internal Auditors, the New York Bar Association, and the American Corporate Counsel Association, among others.

Joe is the former Chairman of the Board of Regents of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), the highest elected position in the 66,000+ member global association. He was also the Chairman of the ACFE Board of Review, which deals with professional practice issues, and was named ACFE Fellow in 2003.