CohnReznick, an advisory, assurance and tax firm in the United States, hired Ted Kowalsky as a principal in its government and public sector advisory practice. In this role, Kowalsky will focus on advising public sector and commercial businesses on ways to leverage government funding and the tax code in support of a nationwide focus on community resilience, economic development and sustainability objectives.
Kowalsky has more than 20 years of experience across the public administration, financial services and information technology areas. This includes a broad range of domain expertise including affordable housing, renewable energy finance, capital markets stabilization, homeownership preservation, environmental grants and, most recently, topics related to public sector sustainability. His experience further includes a focus on serving disadvantaged and underserved communities.
“Our clients across the public and private sectors are looking for ways to improve the utilization of public sector funds to accomplish community-based projects. Many are doing this by leveraging the once-a-generation financial opportunities created by large national investment programs such as the CHIPs Act, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill and the Inflation Reduction Act,” Frank Banda, managing partner, government and public sector advisory at CohnReznick, said. “Ted comes to CohnReznick with extensive experience in the burgeoning sustainability sector along with more than a decade of experience in U.S. Treasury leadership roles focused on grants and asset management, state and local fiscal recovery programs and financial services and operations. His proven capabilities to help clients to meet their fiscal and program targets and achieve optimal outcomes will be invaluable to our clients and our team.”
Before joining CohnReznick, Kowalsky was director of ESG and public sector sustainability at a major advisory firm. There, he helped lead a practice focused on national sustainability topics for commercial and public clients including ESG materiality, climate risk analysis, quantification and reporting. This included work around greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) accounting, transition planning, scenario analysis and regulatory disclosure (e.g., SEC climate disclosure, ISSB S1/S2, CA Climate Bills 253/261).
Kowalsky previously served at the U.S. Department of the Treasury as executive director (Career SES) of the Office of Grants & Asset Management, overseeing a $45 billion portfolio of large-scale stabilization, federal financial management and grant programs. This included executive roles on the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and leadership of a $5 billion affordable housing program (Sec. 1602), a $26 billion renewable energy program (Sec. 1603) and launching the Deepwater Horizon oil spill trust fund and grant programs (RESTORE Act). He also served in several executive roles across the national COVID-19 response from the CARES Act through the American Rescue Plan (ARP). Kowalsky is a recipient of the U.S. Treasury’s Exceptional Service Award, awarded by Secretary Janet L. Yellen.
Kowalsky earned an MSc in economic history from the London School of economics and political science; an MA in history from The George Washington University; and double majored at American University to earn his BA, literature, and BA, history and philosophy. He holds several industry credentials including the Program Management Professional (PgMP), Project Management Professional (PMP) and Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) designations. Kowalsky serves on the Climate Task Force of the Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board (FASAB) and sits on the board of directors of a cryptocurrency, digital assets and blockchain 501(c)(3) non-profit which he co-founded.
