Jay Spinella

Jay Spinella is a Senior Managing Director at FTI Consulting and is based in Washington, DC. Mr. Spinella is an accounting professional with more than 27 years of accounting experience gained in “big 4” public accounting and with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. He provides consulting services for law and accounting firms, public companies, and others regarding financial reporting, technical accounting and SEC related matters.

As noted, prior to joining FTI Consulting, Mr. Spinella spent 7 years in public accounting, with the later 2 years as an Audit Manager, working heavily with publicly listed real estate companies. Responsibilities included supervising teams of professionals on large attest engagements, as well as assisting clients with the preparation of numerous SEC filings and providing technical and interpretative accounting guidance.

Mr. Spinella worked with several public real estate companies in assisting merger, spin-off and restructuring related transactions and the accounting, financial reporting and SEC reporting impact of those transactions. Expertise was gained in all areas of real estate related accounting topics such as leasing transactions, cost capitalization, revenue recognition, purchase price accounting, project development, joint venture investments and cost allocations.

While Mr. Spinella was at the SEC, he worked in the Division of Corporation Finance (Real Estate and Business Services Group) and was responsible for the examination of numerous financial statement filings, including periodic reports, registration statements, merger documents, proxy solicitations and other filings related to REITs and other publicly traded real estate entities. Those examinations involved identifying material accounting, auditing and financial reporting deficiencies in financial disclosure, including pro forma financial statements, resulting from deviations in GAAP, GAAS and the accounting rules and regulations of the SEC.

Recently, Mr. Spinella assisted an international hospitality company with coordination and supervision within the Company’s accounting policy group. Included preparation of complex accounting policies and remediation of identified significant deficiencies related to internal control. He has also served as an expert witness involving a non-traded REIT matter before FINRA on various SEC reporting and disclosure topics. He also led a team that assisted a Fortune 500 Real Estate Company analyze numerous real estate transactions and facilitated preparation of restated financial statements. This project included: 1) analyzing technical accounting issues, 2) presenting results of our analysis to the Company’s audit committee and outside counsel and; 3) assisting the Company in its correspondence with the SEC.

In addition, Mr. Spinella led a team that assisted outside counsel for the audit committee of a publicly traded Fortune 500 real estate company conduct an independent investigation of accounting irregularities stemming from several previous restatements and whistleblower allegations. Also performed analysis related to internal control deficiencies that led to accounting breakdowns.

Mr. Spinella received a B.S. in Accounting from the University of Maryland-College Park. He is a Certified Public Accountant. He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Maryland Association of Certified Public Accountants.