Kelly Richmond Pope
Dr. Kelly Richmond Pope is a nationally recognized expert in risk, corporate governance, and audit practices. An SEC qualified financial expert, Kelly provides insight across the audit, nominating/governance, and compensation committees possessing a unique ability to synthesize and distill complex issues. Named among the top 25 most powerful women in accounting, Kelly is an advisor and consultant to executives and senior leadership teams globally. A published author and frequent media contributor on preferred approaches for fraud risk management and ethics, Kelly has offered commentary on news outlets including C-SPAN, CNBC, the BBC, and WGN-TV. She is known for guiding management and boards to create and sustain ethical cultures which protect corporate brand and preserve stakeholder value.
In 2025, Kelly was invited to train audit committee members serving on public company boards regulated by the Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets, where she also designed and delivered a fraud training program to strengthen employees’ professional skepticism and fraud detection skills. That same year, she was an invited speaker at the American University in Cairo’s Eight Annual Business Forum, joining global thought leaders from academia and industry to discuss doing business in the Middle East, internationalization, and corporate governance. In 2024, Kelly was appointed to the Board Observer Program of the Superior Group of Companies (NASDAQ: SGC), a global enterprise with operations in Asia and Central America, gaining firsthand insight into international governance and strategy. She has also trained auditors, accountants, and executives from CPA Australia and CPA Canada on corporate governance best practices, further underscoring her global reach.
In addition to her international work, Kelly serves on the Board of Directors for the Greater Chicago Food Depository, where she chairs the Audit Committee and plays an integral role on the Executive Committee overseeing the launch of the organization’s $50 million food manufacturing facility. She also developed financial fraud workshops for the Securities Commission Malaysia, training employees who oversee the integrity of the Malaysian capital markets. In 2023, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker appointed Kelly to the Money Laundering in Real Estate Task Force for the State of Illinois. Earlier in her career, she served as a consultant for the Harvard Center for International Development and USAID on development projects in Ethiopia aimed at strengthening the financial management of donor-funded programs. Her accounting foundation was established at KPMG, where she led assignments for public, regulated, private, and nonprofit organizations—experience that continues to inform her global perspective on governance, ethics, and financial accountability.
Kelly’s research into executive misconduct culminated in directing and producing the award-winning documentary, All the Queen’s Horses, which explores the largest case of municipal fraud in U.S. history. Her film serves as a tool utilized worldwide to train employees about fraud spotting techniques. Her book Fool Me Once: Scams, Stories and Secrets from the Trillion Dollar Fraud Industry, was recognized as one of fifteen best business books of 2023 by Inc. magazine. Fool Me Once serves as an indispensable resource in boardrooms and senior leadership teams, offering insights into governance and risk management best practices for organizations globally.
As a pioneering entrepreneur in organizational oversight, Kelly has launched several successful businesses including Red Flag Mania, an edtech company providing immersive educational experiences and corporate training workshops using true-crime stories for universities and corporate entities. Growing to over 50,000 platform learners since the 2019 launch, Red Flag Mania is used at over 200 universities including Western Governors University, one of the largest universities in the U.S. and organizations such as Deloitte, KPMG, RSM, Eide Bailly, Workiva, and Sage.
Kelly earned her Bachelor of Science in accounting from North Carolina A&T State University and her master’s degree in accountancy and doctorate in accounting from Virginia Tech. She is a licensed CPA in the State of North Carolina and is a Certified Fraud Examiner.