Biography
Dr. Elizabeth Yost joined the IB faculty in the Fall of 2023 and teaches the Business Climate Analysis course. Prior to joining IB, Dr. Yost was an assistant professor at the Rosen College of Hospitality Management of UCF. At Rosen, she taught a variety of undergraduate and graduate classes for the Hospitality Services department, including Financial Accounting, Managerial Accounting, Finance, Strategic Management and Corporate Social Responsibility and Ethics. Dr. Yost is passionate about teaching applied business and leveraging her skills from her career in the industry. Her research interests and publications include performance analysis, economic impact analysis, and assessing financial and internal controls and ethics and compliance initiatives across hospitality and tourism entities.
Dr. Yost has vast business experience in the areas of internal and external audit, ethics and compliance, and accounting and finance for hospitality and real estate companies. She holds a Ph.D. in Hospitality Education/Management and a Master’s Degree in Accounting (M.S.A) from UCF, and a Bachelor of Science in Finance from the University of Florida. Dr. Yost is a Certified Hospitality Accountant Executive.
Prior to her career in academia, Dr. Yost was an associate and senior associate with the Assurance practice of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP in Atlanta and Orlando, where she performed external financial reporting and internal control audits of companies primarily in the real estate and hospitality industries.
More recently, Dr. Yost was the Manager of Ethics and Compliance for Darden Restaurants, one of the world’s largest full-service restaurant operating companies with annual sales of more than $10 billion. In this role, Dr. Yost primarily focused on corporate compliance efforts by creating and maintaining the governance framework necessary for complying with the standards set forth in the Department of Justice’s Federal Sentencing Guidelines as well as building a culture of integrity. Major focal points to support this mission included facilitation of training on the Code of Conduct, monitoring and assessing the risk of third-party relationships, conducting due diligence and developing company compliance and regulatory policies, procedures and controls. She also served as a Senior Financial Internal Auditor for the company, focusing on evaluating internal controls to maintain compliance with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.