News Stories

The Accounting Leadership Series engages all business students to hear about career experiences that have shaped our industry executives’ views on leadership.  The series offers students an opportunity to hear from executives who are SCU alums.

Dr. Michael Calegari

The 2025-2026 Accounting Leadership Series program is hosted by Dr. Michael Calegari, Associate Professor of the SCU Accounting Department and the Executive Director of the Center for Accounting Research and Education (CARE).

Francis Santiago

October 22, 2025

Francis Santiago (SCU '00) is a highly skilled finance professional with over 25 years of experience in both industry and public accounting. After graduating from Santa Clara University, Francis began his career and spent 11 years in public accounting with KPMG's audit practice before leaving as a Senior Audit Manager. Francis transitioned to industry, joining Informatica and progressing through various roles including Revenue Accounting, Financial Planning & Analysis, and Corporate Controller. In March 2025, he was appointed by Informatica to serve as the company's Chief Accounting Officer.  

Ken Miller

November 5, 2026

Ken Miller (SCU ’93) is the former Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Juniper Networks (NYSE: JNPR), a role he held from 2016 until the company’s $14 billion acquisition by Hewlett Packard Enterprise in July  2025.  As CFO, he led the company’s finance and accounting functions as well as manufacturing operations, real estate, investor relations, and internal audit. Prior to serving as CFO, Ken was senior vice president of finance, responsible for Juniper's financial planning and partnering functions as well as its tax, treasury and global business services organizations. His team was responsible for the development and implementation of the company's operating plan and capital return strategy. Since joining Juniper in 1999, he has been instrumental in scaling the company’s accounting and finance teams from a ‘start-up’ model to supporting a multi-billion-dollar business.  He began his career at Ernst & Young, and was working as an audit manager for EY when he joined Juniper. Ken currently serves as a member of the board of directors for Zebra Technologies, a leading digital solution provider that enables businesses to intelligently connect data, assets, and people.  Ken enjoys spending time with his wife Stefania (SCU ’93) and three sons – especially traveling, golfing and waterskiing.

Roopa Gottimukkala

January 21, 2026

Roopa Gottimukkala (SCU '06) joined the not-for-profit organization Filoli in February 2025 as its Chief Financial Officer. Prior to joining Filoli, she managed Accounting, Compliance, and Human Resources at KIPP TEAM and Family Schools, supporting efforts to scale this organization of charter schools in Camden, Newark, and Miami. A CPA and Santa Clara University graduate, Roopa started her career at Deloitte San Francisco and serves on Athlete's Soul's board, an organization committed to rising awareness of the challenges of athletic retirement.

Don Dixon 

February 11, 2026

Don Dixon (SCU ’90) is Chief Financial Officer at Vectra.ai, a cybersecurity company providing an AI-driven Attack Signal Intelligence platform to detect and respond to advanced cyberattacks across hybrid and multi-cloud environments. Before joining Vectra.ai in August 2025, Don held executive finance positions in both startups and established organizations, many of which were acquired by public companies. Most recently, Don was CFO at DataStax when it was acquired by IBM in May of 2025 and CFO at Skyhigh Networks when it was acquired by McAfee in January 2018. Don began his career at KPMG, where he worked as a CPA for over three years before transferring to industry.

Germaine Cota

April 29, 2026

Germaine Cota (SCU ’03) is Senior Vice President of Finance and Accounting at BILL (formerly known as Bill.com), a cloud-based financial operations platform that automates and digitizes accounts payable and accounts receivable processes for small and mid-sized businesses. Germaine began her career in assurance and advisory services at Ernst & Young, where she worked for 10 years, serving technology clients, before joining LinkedIn as Senior Manager of Technical Accounting and progressing to Assistant Corporate Controller over her tenure. She later served as U.S. Chief Financial officer at Mercari, a peer-to-peer e-commerce marketplace, and Chief Accounting Officer and Treasurer at 8x8, a cloud-communications platform, before joining BILL. Since December 2021, Germaine has also been an investor in and advisor to Klarity, a San Francisco-based enterprise AI platform that automates back-office and finance functions for large businesses.

If you or others you know are SCU Accounting or A&IS alumni and are interested in participating as a guest speaker, please contact accounting@scu.edu.