Stephen Landry, Mark Schutzman and Douglas Sirotta joins EY US as tax partners

Ernst & Young LLP today announced that Stephen Landry, Mark Schutzman and Douglas Sirotta have joined the firm as partners, along with Perry Papantonis as principal, and Rozeta Atlas, Jack Burns, Michael Cutri, Marc Halsema, Alice Harbutte, Stephen Reilly and Jeff VanderWolk as executive directors. Dalton J. Albrecht and Yamel Cado have joined as partners in Ernst & Young LLP (Canada) and Mancera S.A, respectively.

Stephen Landry returns to Ernst & Young LLP, where he began his tax career in 1985 and became a partner in 1998 before his 2007 move to Marathon Oil Company. While at Marathon, he served as Vice President of Tax responsible for the coordination of worldwide income and transaction taxes. During his tenure at Marathon, Landry and his team helped successfully complete a tax-free spin-off of downstream operations. This transaction resulted in the creation of two separate tax departments to serve the needs of the newly formed Fortune 100 company, as well as its parent. Under his leadership, the tax department reporting relationships were re-assigned, the company implemented a new tax accounting and compliance system and developed and implemented tax planning strategies in several regions of the world. Previously at Ernst & Young LLP, he managed a three-state practice group and was actively involved in educational training for new hires. Landry is based in Houston.

Joining the Financial Services practice of Ernst & Young LLP in New York, Mark Schutzman is a tax management consultant providing performance improvement services to large corporate tax functions. He was the founding partner and US practice leader for Tax Function Effectiveness at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and developer of innovative technology programs and related service delivery models for the firm and his clients. Prior to that role, Schutzman led PwC’s New York Metro Tax Outsourcing practice. He is a frequent speaker and co-author of the book Tax Function Effectiveness: the vision for tomorrow’s tax function, published by CCH in 2008.

In his 25-year career, Douglas Sirotta has served as a strategic advisor to multinational corporations and entrepreneurial businesses on domestic and international tax issues, including corporate structuring, tax reporting, compliance, strategic tax planning, ASC 740 (FAS 109), and mergers and acquisitions. Based in Seattle, Sirotta started his career with Ernst & Young LLP in Los Angeles, then relocated to the Bay area with BDO LLP to help it develop and grow its tax practice in the Bay area, West Coast and at the national level.

Perry Papantonis comes to the firm’s Human Capital practice in New York from Exequity, LLP, a human capital consulting firm he co-founded. He has also worked as a partner and global M&A practice leader at Hewitt Associates and as a legal consultant at IBM. Papantonis has deep experience advising Fortune 500 clients on all HR aspects of corporate transactions as well as Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) compliance.

Adding further to Ernst & Young LLP’s Financial Services practice in New York, Rozeta Atlas joins its Tax Performance Advisory group from Deutsche Bank, where she was a Director of Tax Reporting and then Tax Advisory since 2009. She managed special projects related to the tax accounting function, process improvements and the reorganization of the bank’s US operations. Previously, she had been vice president, tax accounting and Sarbanes-Oxley compliance for American Express, a director of tax reporting at IAC/Inter-ActiveCorp and a Tax senior manager with KPMG LLP.

Ernst & Young LLP’s Financial Services Office also adds Jack Burns to its Business Tax Advisory practice in New York. He was previously a managing director with Citigroup’s Markets and Banking Business segment and a member of its Tax department. In that capacity, Burns addressed financial product and tax controversy issues. Prior to working with Citigroup, he was a tax partner at Arthur Andersen LLP.

Michael Cutri joins Ernst & Young LLP’s Indirect Tax group in Los Angeles, focused on national discretionary business incentives. Most recently, he was senior managing director for global business consulting at Cushman & Wakefield, leading its North American Business Incentives Practice. Cutri brings 25 years of diverse leadership experience and background advising clients in development, expansion, consolidation or relocation of facilities to optimize location decisions and cost reduction through negotiation and management of state and local tax and non-tax business incentives. Prior to joining Cushman & Wakefield in 1996, he spent five years with Shimizu Corporation in real estate development as an owner’s representative.