Lori Novak, CPA

Clients are confident in Lori’s guidance because of the unique combination of her highly technical background and her friendly and easygoing style, which creates an almost instant rapport. Funds and providers alike know if they have an issue she will see them through it, sifting through the regulatory detail to help find a practical solution.

With more than 25 years of experience, Lori offers clients deep technical expertise and insights from working at a national firm for most of her career. As part of our Assurance Practice leadership, she is actively involved in quality control and technical initiatives, and is responsible for the overall coordination and execution of the firm’s investment industry audit plan. Lori plays a key role in the oversight of audit planning and risk assessment, financial statement work and work-paper review, supervision of the audit team and board reporting. In addition, she oversees the audit innovation strategies being developed and incorporated into the audit plan, and frequently provides technical training on a firm-wide basis for the assurance department.

The funds Lori audits range in terms of structure, strategy, investment style and use of derivatives. With a highly diverse client base and technical acumen, Lori is commonly involved in engagements that include unique audit issues, such as hard-to-value securities and non-standard asset classes or product types. She handles the majority of the firm’s registered fund-of-funds as well as a number of large engagements. Lori also provides audit and consulting services to various entities in the financial services and investment industry, including custody exams, and SOC 1/SSAE 18 reports to investment advisers and service providers, in addition to her mutual fund and hedge fund clients.

• Leads the technical training initiatives for the firm’s Registered Funds and Alternative Investment Groups
• Ohio Society of CPAs
• American Institute of CPAs
• Frequent author on the Cohen & Company blog

Lori lives in Medina, Ohio, with her husband, three kids and two dogs. Lori’s life outside of work primarily consists of spending time with her immediate and extended family, as well as fitting in a Yoga workout every once in a while.