Recent hires at EY USA – read their bios

EY has recruited/relocated several senior tax professionals recently:

Stephen Nash moves from England to Philadelphia as an executive director and global tax account leader in the Northeast Region of Ernst & Young LLP. He has been with EY Tax since 1987, most recently as a partner with EY in London. As a member of the Global Compliance and Reporting practice, Stephen focuses on the telecommunications, media and entertainment industries. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of London.

Bryan Ward

Bryan Ward returns to Ernst & Young LLP Tax as a tax executive director in the Dallas Real Estate practice. With 18 years of experience, Bryan serves companies throughout the Real Estate space including REITs and Private Equity owners and operators of commercial and industrial real estate.  He received his Master of Science in Accounting from Texas Tech University. 

Mitchell Kops

Mitchell Kops joins Ernst & Young LLP’s National Tax Department International Tax Services as a Principal located in New York City. He joins EY after spending 17 years with Withers Bergman LLP/Withersworldwide, where he was a partner focused on US international and domestic tax, predominantly working with private companies, family offices, and high net worth individuals, and served as the global head of the tax practice. Kops received his LLM from New York University School of Law, juris doctor from Fordham University School of Law and bachelor of arts in Philosophy from the University of Virginia.

McRae Thompson joins Ernst & Young LLP as a partner with the Business Tax Services practice in Atlanta, leading the Southeast region real estate, hospitality and construction tax practice. Previously, he spent more than 11 years at consulting firm Alvarez & Marsal after beginning his career at Deloitte Tax in 2003. McRae earned a Bachelor of Business Administration and a Masters of Accountancy from the University of Georgia. He is a licensed CPA in the State of Georgia.

Mark Lowry returns to Ernst & Young LLP as a partner in Chicago. Before joining the DFMC family office in 2016 as Chief Operating Officer, he had been with EY since 1995, holding the positions of Central Region Transaction Tax Leader and head of Transaction Tax in Asia-Pacific. Lowry received a Bachelor of Science in accounting and Master of Science in Taxation from Texas A&M as well as a Master’s in Business Administration from NYU Stern School of Business.

Josh Scala joins Ernst & Young LLP’s National Tax Department as a principal in Business Tax Services located in San Francisco. Scala will be a member of the Partner Transactional Planning and Economics practice, focused on real estate. He joins EY from Arnold & Porter LLP, where he worked since 2004. Prior to tax law, he spent time in the real estate investment sector, including private development and work at a publicly traded REIT. Scala received his Juris Doctor, from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and a bachelor of arts from Amherst College. 

Brian Murphy rejoins Ernst & Young LLP in the National Tax Department as a partner focused on the Energy & Utilities sector, located in West Palm Beach, FL. He joins EY from NextEra Energy, Inc. where he was vice president of tax, responsible for enterprise wide tax related matters. Over his almost 19 years with NextEra Energy he held progressive tax leadership roles in the organization including VP Tax for Florida Power and Light. Murphy began his career at EY where he worked until 1998. He received both his bachelors and masters of science in accounting from the University of Florida. He is the founder of STARTUP (the industry trade group for state tax professionals) and had been a sergeant in the United States Air Force from 1985 to 1989.