BFS is your Strategic Partner. Our goal is to help our clients achieve theirs.
Good relationships are what make great business. BFS is proud to serve government organizations. We create custom solutions utilizing proven methods to meet the needs of every one of our clients. Choosing BFS as your strategic partner will always result in a positive impact. We are focused on “closing the loop” – leaving clients with the knowledge and tools needed to be successful after our engagement. At BFS, we are “Doing the right thing because it’s the right thing to do!”
Leadership
Mara Ash, CIA, CGAP, CGFM,CRMA,CICA
CEO
Mara Ash is the CEO of BFS – Strategic Partners, a client-focused management and consulting firm. She has over 25 years of financial management, compliance, audit, and consulting experience serving all levels of government and nonprofit organizations. Mara has a passion to support public sector professionals. She has served in leadership positions with Association of Government Accountants (AGA) as well as the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA). She currently serves as the Chairman of the Institute of Internal Auditor’s (IIA) Public Sector Audit Center and is active in Association Government Accountants local chapter. Mara believes success built on efficiency, effectiveness, and transparency. Her goal is to help organizations improve service delivery, ensure compliance, enhance transparency, and reduce costs.
Whitney Cornwall
COO
Whitney Cornwall brings a wealth of experience to her role as COO across both public and private sectors. With specialized experience in federal grant disaster funding, Whitney excels in complex grant coordination, ensuring financial and programmatic compliance while delivering technical assistance and effective program management. Her proficiency extends to managing federally funded disaster recovery grants under 2 CFR 200, as well as overseeing Texas-specific grant funding in accordance with Texas Uniform Grant Management Standards. Whitney’s technical expertise spans Federal Compliance, Grant Monitoring and Audits, Subrecipient Monitoring, and Business Process Improvement, among others.
Timothy E. Flynn, J.D.
Legal Council
Timothy Flynn, JD serves as Legal Counsel and Secretary of the Board of Directors of Business & Financial Management Solutions, LLC. His career spans corporate, civil and criminal law in Texas, New Mexico and Nevada. Mr. Flynn, a retired Deputy District Attorney, has turned his passion for helping people into a second career as a Consultant. Having run his own practice, and federal, state and locally funded programs, he understands how to integrate federal and state requirements into operations. His legal, operational and grants expertise improve service delivery while maximizing funding streams.
Cindy Watson, CICA
Director, Government and Public Sector
Cindy Watson is a compliance auditor with over 20 years of financial management, compliance and legal experience in the government sector. While she specializes in education grants compliance, her career includes extensive experience with federal and state grants. Her in-depth experience spans auditing and managing grant programs such as Title programs, ESSA, IDEA-B, major testing, indirect cost rates, maintenance of effort, cost matching, and other grant specific requirements. Ms. Watson has created numerous automated subrecipient monitoring systems to randomly sample grantee submissions up-to 100%. In order to improve efficiencies and ensure adequate grant monitoring, she created a system to assign, manage and supervise audit staff. She also has experience negotiating cognizant agency’s Indirect Cost Rate Approval Delegation Agreements.
David Brymer
Director, IT and Special Projects
David Brymer serves BFS in several different capacities - whether its crunching massive amounts of data, managing IT infrastructure, building software solutions, desiging instructional material, and running the production of our DEDCODED© series, he leads the charge of all things not related to compliance.