Rich Lanza

Rich is a managing director in the Audit Technology Delivery Team, where he uses his 35+ years of audit analytic and innovation experience to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the firm’s service lines.  He is the author of the firm’s whole ledger analytics, a patented software enhancing the firm’s general ledger analytics by assessing risks related to each financial reporting transaction. 

In 2026, he became the inaugural recipient of the University of Central Florida - Dixon School of Accounting’s Excalibur Innovator in Accounting Award.  The award recognized his efforts in bringing financial reporting analytics to audit standard development, notably the AICPA’s SAS 99: Consideration of Fraud in a Financial Statement Audit, exponentially growing the use of data in an audit beyond trial balances to general ledgers.

Prior to joining Grant Thornton, Rich managed his own firm for over 12 years, working directly with advisory practices, internal audit departments, and cost recovery firms to integrate his analytic systems into their business processes. 

Rich previously automated the internal audit teams of Toys “R” Us, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, Disclosure, Inc. and Lafarge where he deployed automated continuous monitoring toolkits. He also held technology roles as an ACL and IDEA trainer with AuditWatch, as well as, managing the Year 2000 project for the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. 

Rich began his career for KPMG Peat Marwick in their Manhattan middle market audit practice.

Rich has served on the Expert Network of the International Institute for Analytics where he first introduced letter analytics, a new textual analytics approach. He has served as the President for two Institute of Internal Auditor chapters (Northern Virginia and Northern New Jersey), as well as, been a past member of the NYSSCPA – Technology Assurance Committee.