This week PETITION welcomes a notice of appearance by Anne Eberhardt, Senior Director of Valuation & Litigation Consulting in the New York office of Gavin/Solmonese.

PETITION: What is the best piece of advice that you’ve been given in your career?

Do your homework, study, and show up to class.

PETITION: What is the best book you’ve read that’s helped guide you in your career?

Gone with the Wind. Though not everyone’s idea of a role model, Scarlett O’Hara had several admirable qualities:

Resourcefulness. When Tara Land Resources LLC was on the brink of insolvency, she sought funding from R. Butler Capital Management. Realizing she had nothing to wear to the meeting, she cut up the drapes to make an outfit that would make her desired first impression.

 Entrepreneurship. After the RBCM deal collapsed – and finding herself in a city the Yankees had just burned to the ground – she quickly grasped there was money to be made in the lumber business and sought a partnership with the Kennedy Lumber Company.

 Persistence. Whenever things didn’t quite go her way, she always reminded herself that “tomorrow is another day.”

PETITION: What is the one product that helps make you a more efficient or relaxed pro?

Frank’s Red Hot, Chili ‘n Lime

PETITION: What is one notable trend you expect to see in ’18 that not enough people are talking about?

The fallout from the effects of the collapse of trust. When even the auditors of the auditors’ audits are cheating (see DoJ’s press release of January 23, 2018, announcing the arrest of several former partners of a Big Four CPA Firm, accused of hiring PCAOB staff to provide confidential regulatory information to help the Firm improve its audit inspection results), you know we’re headed for a disaster of biblical proportions: fire and brimstone, rivers and seas boiling, forty years of darkness, human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together…mass hysteria.

PETITION Note: Yikes. Sounds like we ought to stock up the bunker with some Frank’s Red Hot Chili ‘n Lime.