Sharon Kurek

Sharon M. Kurek, CPA, CFE, CCEP, MBA

Vice President for Audit, Risk, and Compliance and Chief Risk Officer, Virginia Tech

Sharon is the Vice President for Audit, Risk, and Compliance and Chief Risk Officer at Virginia Tech, reporting to the Compliance, Audit, and Risk Committee of the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors, President Tim Sands, and Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Amy Sebring.  Sharon supports Virginia Tech's vision of an integrated view of risk and leveraging what it can bring to strategic decision-making across the university.  In her vice president role, Sharon has institutional responsibility for facilitating the university’s enterprise risk management (ERM) program, coordinating the institutional compliance programs (ICP), and overseeing internal audit.

Sharon is an experienced leader with proven ability to promote a culture of accountability and ethical decision-making, facilitate identification and mitigation of risks to an acceptable level, and foster continuous improvement in the areas of risk management, internal control, efficiency, policy, and procedure.  She strives to be a collaborative leader with an expectation of excellence and is dedicated to advancing the risk management, compliance, and auditing professions.

Prior to joining Virginia Tech in 2008, she worked at University of California, Berkeley, serving in a number of roles including Manager of Controls and Accountability, Senior Auditor, and Principal Auditor.  She began her professional career at the Georgia Department of Audits conducting external audits of state entities, including colleges and universities for the State of Georgia.

Sharon received her MBA from Virginia Tech, bachelor’s degree in business administration (accounting) from Mercer University, and is a Certified Public Accountant and Certified Fraud Examiner.  She is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the Institute of Internal Auditors, the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, and the University Risk Management and Insurance Association.  Sharon served as President of the Association of College & University Auditors (ACUA), an international association of 600 higher education institutions from the United States, Canada, and abroad.  She continues service in various committees and holds an appointment to the ACUA Faculty.

Contact Sharon:

kurek@vt.edu
540-231-7496