Employee Benefit Plans Conference

Rachel serves as one of Grant Thornton’s Managing Director Center for Excellence (CFE) Leaders for Employee Benefit Plan Audits (EBPAs), dedicating her expertise exclusively to this practice. Since joining the Oklahoma City office in June 2006, Rachel has focused on public and private company audit clients nationwide. In her capacity as CFE Leader and Managing Director for EBPAs, she is responsible for providing services to some of Grant Thornton’s most complex employee benefit plan engagements across the nation, which include defined contribution plans, defined benefit plans, health & welfare plans, and employee stock ownership plans. She has extensive experience with a wide range of plan service providers.

Rachel leads the employee benefit plan SOC 1 project, to review the top service providers and provide key audit documentation to the EBP audit teams. With over 19 years of experience in the employee benefit plan industry, Rachel plays a key role in developing and leading national training programs for the Employee Benefit Plan practice, significantly enhancing the team’s expertise and performance.

Jenn Sturgeon brings over two decades of financial and auditing expertise to Blankenship, having resided in Middle Tennessee more than 25 years. A graduate of Lipscomb University, her career spans diverse roles, including IT Audit, Internal Audit, External Audit, and Firm Administration. Prior to joining Blankenship in June 2021, she served as Controller for a non-profit organization with a budget exceeding $9 million. Currently Jenn leverages her passion to enhance and support nonprofits by providing outsourced accounting and audits for non-profits. Jenn excels at collaborating with clients to identify and implement process improvements to optimize their resources and sharing ideas based on her experience and observations.

Fun fact: Jenn has served on the TSCPA Scholarship committee for several years and "runs the spreadsheet" (if you know, you know)!