Stewart

WSW CPAs founder Bob Whisenant, a veteran of 46 years in the industry, is stepping aside as managing partner on Jan. 1. Taking over those duties will be WSW partner Geoffrey Stewart.

Whisenant

Whisenant will remain as partner emeritus, continuing to serve clients and mentor staff. His career began with CPA Jack Grannis in 1972, and he was later managing partner for Horne LLP’s Tennessee Office. Horne is a national accounting firm with a regional presence.

When Horne closed its Nashville office in 2009, Whisenant approached Stewart and Trent Watrous and WSW Director of Operations Julia Johnson about starting a new firm they would call Whisenant, Stewart, Watrous & Associates CPAs, now WSW CPAs.

Today, WSW CPAs employs 24 people in their Green Hills office and serves clients across the nation, with concentrations in the dental industry, commercial real estate and business accounting.

Whisenant is a CPA and valuation analyst and is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants; National Association of Certified Valuation Analysts; and Tennessee Society of Certified Public Accountants, where he has served as board chair and president (2005-2006), chair of the Federal Tax Conference, and as a member of the State Council. He is a Belmont University alumnus and has served as a member of the Belmont University Board of Trustees where he chaired the Audit and Finance & Operations committees and serves on the Executive Committee.

Stewart has more than 35 years of experience in public and private accounting and is a certified public accountant and a certified global management accountant. He provides planning, consulting and compliance services for a diverse range of clients and has significant experience in federal and state tax work. Stewart also represents clients before the Internal Revenue Service and various state departments of revenue regarding income, franchise and sales and use tax audits.

2 members in charge retiring at KraftCPAs

Horner

Beverly Horner and Ronda Pitts have retired from their full-time positions after a combined 61 years with KraftCPAs PLLC.

Horner joined KraftCPAs in 1988, and Pitts in 1987. Both became members (partners) at the firm in 2004.

Horner, CPA, CFSA, served as member-in-charge of the assurance services team, where she worked with clients in the healthcare, not-for-profit and manufacturing/wholesale/distribution sectors. She also was the member-in-charge in the firm’s Columbia office.

Pitts

Although no longer a full-time member, Horner will continue to work part-time with the firm as a consultant. She also remains active with several community leadership groups in Columbia and Maury County.

Pitts, CPA, was a principal in the firm’s accounting services department before she assumed a member-in-charge role with the entrepreneurial services team. In addition to providing accounting and tax services to a variety of businesses and individual clients, Pitts was one of the firm’s business growth advisors. In that capacity she helped teach, mentor and counsel business owners to fulfill career and personal goals.

Financial Tech. board selects Built’s Parkey

Parkey

The Association for Financial Technology, a national association devoted to the advancement of fintech companies and a broader U.S. financial industry through technology, has added Built Technologies’ Kara Parkey to its board of directors.

Built is a Nashville-based fintech company focused on bringing construction lending into the digital age by simplifying the complex lending process through technology. Built manages more than $15 billion in construction loan volume and is the only endorsed software platform for construction loan management by the American Bankers Association.

Parkey is Built’s strategic alliance manager.

AFT has 116 member companies and organizations, representing financial technology firms of all sizes, data providers, processors and service organizations.

Downtown hotel hires for leadership team

Vandenberg

Pinnacle Hospitality Partners, a Nashville-based hotel company, has appointed Doug Vandenberg as general manager and Scott Phillips as director of sales & marketing to the Holiday Inn & Suites Nashville Downtown Convention Center, the newest full-service hotel scheduled to open in SoBro later this fall.

Vandenberg was previously general manager of the Holiday Inn Express Nashville Downtown Conference Center. A Nashville resident since 1984, he has managed the Hermitage Hotel, the Inn at Opryland, the hotel now known as the Hotel Preston and the Sheraton Grand Hotel. A Certified Hotel Administrator, he serves as the 2018 Chairman of the Greater Nashville Hospitality Association.

Vandenberg earned a degree from Penn State in hotel food service, and a degree in hotel administration from University of Nevada Las Vegas.

Phillips

Phillips, a 22-year veteran of the hospitality industry, was previously director of sales at Home2 Suites by Hilton Nashville-Vanderbilt. Prior to his experience at Home2 Suites, he spent 16½ years at the Holiday Inn Nashville-Vanderbilt, the final 10 years as senior sales manager.

Phillips currently serves as vice president and government relations chair of Tennessee Business Travel Association and will begin a two-year term as president of the association in January 2019. He also is an active member of Global Business Travel Association and was one of the Founding Board Members of the Tennessee Society of Government Meeting Professionals.

New Zoning chief named for Metro Codes

Lamb

Emily Lamb has been chosen to serve as zoning chief for the Metro Codes Department.

Lamb has been with Metro for more than six years in the Legal Department, representing the city in litigation and at the Environmental Court, and for the last three years providing client advice to the Codes and Planning Departments.

Lamb is a graduate of the University of Mississippi, where she also earned her Juris Doctor. She gained experience in the private and public sectors prior to joining Metro Legal.

She will be taking the role previously held by Jon Michael, who earlier this year was appointed to serve as zoning administrator for Metro. In her role as zoning chief, Lamb will be responsible for managing the Board of Zoning Appeals cases and assisting zoning examiners and customers with interpreting and resolving conflicts or questions over the zoning code.

Authentically American selects Suttle as VP

Suttle

Adam Suttle has joined Authentically American as vice president of sales and business development. He previously was regional vice president of sales-west coast for Name Logo Brands.

Veteran-owned Authentically American supports U.S. job creation by selling apparel and other merchandise that is exclusively made in America. Based in Nashville, the company’s customers range from Fortune 500 companies and non-profits to small businesses and individuals.

Suttle holds a degree in business administration and management from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville and an MBA from Lipscomb University.

Gill named asst. dean of Lipscomb’s Shinn College

Gill

Veteran higher education administrator, nationally recognized worship leader and musician Randy Gill has been appointed assistant dean in Lipscomb University’s George Shinn College of Entertainment & the Arts.

In this role, Gill will develop a strategic and intentional approach to integrating faith into the college’s curriculum and culture through special programs, service projects and mission opportunities among other initiatives. In addition, Gill will lead the university’s growing worship ministry program, will collaborate with church leaders representing a diversity of faiths to offer programs and resources, develop a touring musical group to represent the institution at events across the country and collaborate with CEA and university leadership to develop new programs in the future.

Gill also will serve as assistant professor of worship ministry and will begin his appointment at Lipscomb University on Dec. 1. He is currently worship and creative arts minister at Otter Creek Church in Brentwood.

Gill has a career in higher education, music and worship ministry that spans more than 40 years. For 13 years, he was associate professor of music and associate director of church relations at Pepperdine University, where he founded the popular singing group Won by One. Gill has also been on faculty at Rochester College and Oklahoma Christian College as well as has served as an adjunct faculty member at Lipscomb University.

He also has more than 20 years’ experience in worship ministry. In addition to his work at Otter Creek, Gill served as worship minister for churches in Atlanta and Nashville. He also is a successful songwriter and arranger whose work is featured on several albums and is used in worship at churches across the country. He speaks at churches, conferences and retreats across the country and was a founding member of the ZOE Worship Resource Group and continues to be active in its annual conferences, recording and publishing projects.

Gill holds a degree in music education from Harding University, a master of music degree in music education from the University of Michigan and a doctor of musical arts degree in choral and church music from the University of Southern California.

Bacchetta joins VU’s pulmonary program

Baccetta

Matthew Bacchetta, MD, MBA, MA, has joined the Department of Thoracic Surgery as an associate professor and the surgical director of a new respiratory institute at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

Bacchetta comes to Vanderbilt from Columbia University Medical Center, where he was the director of Adult ECMO, surgical director of the Pulmonary Hypertension Comprehensive Care Center, director of the Pulmonary Thrombo-endarterectomy Program and co-director of the Center for Acute Respiratory Failure at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center as well as being a lung transplant surgeon.