The author can be contacted at rizzirisk@aol.com. Joe Rizzi has over 25 years of banking experience. He is also an instructor at Chicago-area universities, including Loyola and DePaul. He previously was a senior investment strategist for CapGen Financial, a private equity firm. This column is adapted from a piece he wrote for “MergerProf,” a blog on acquisitions, finance and governance that he co-authors with Dr. Ralph Walkling, director of the Center for Corporate Governance at Drexel University (www.mergerprof.com).

Dennis T. Whalen is Partner in Charge and Executive Director of KPMG’s Audit Committee Institute. Greg Bell is KPMG’s U.S. National Practice Leader, Information Protection & Business Resilience. The authors can be contacted at auditcommittee@kpmg.com.