I am so grateful to these mentors. Their leadership has been a great example to me and has helped me grow. I would not be where I am today without them.
Bill DeVincenzi
Executive in Residence at SJSU, former CFO and Group Controller of Varian
In 1998, Bill taught me managerial accounting when I pursued my undergraduate degree in Accounting and Management Information Systems at SJSU. I surprised him in several ways and he hired me to be his teaching assistant after I passed his class with perfect scores in all of his quizzes and exams.
Bill’s class was one of the most memorable classes as he used to work as CFO and corporate controller before he started his teaching career. Bill emphasized business ethics and encouraged all students to keep that in mind before we joined the workforce. Bill devoted the past 20 years to teaching honors programs at SJSU and raised many finance / accounting professionals in Silicon Valley. I continue to reach out to him for coaching.
In addition, Bill is a very good racquetball player. We played against each other 20 years ago and recently he still won a couple of games when we played at City Sport gym at San Jose. Bill set the tone for my accounting and finance career at the very beginning of my American Dream. I was determined to be like him, to live an ethical and honorable life and to do something good and useful to make a difference in this world.