Alumni Profile: David Zweighaft ‘84

Thanks to David Zweighaft ‘84  for answering our survey! We asked him where life since Georgia Tech has taken him, and the best lessons learned from ZBT. Here’s what he had to say:

Where has life taken you since you graduated? Give us a brief recap up to this point including career and family highlights.  

A brief recap of the past 33 years is a tall ask, but here’s my best synopsis: I left Atlanta in 1984, returning to NYC for a career on Wall St in trading government securities. The bond market was a fun place to be working back then, until the party stopped in 1987 with the first major market correction in over a generation. I was married, had a mortgage, and was looking to start a family, so I went back to grad school, graduating from Pace University with a Master’s in Accounting, and worked for a local CPA firm, ultimately going to work for one of their clients – the real estate and hotel empire Helmsley Enterprises. After I graduated, I was recruited by one of the Big 4 CPA firms, auditing and consulting with financial services clients. By the early 1990s I was living in Forest Hills, Queens, I had two young sons, and was looking to get away from the episodic insanity of public accounting known as “busy season.” I transitioned my career to Litigation Consulting and Forensic Accounting, and led investigations alongside the SEC, the Holocauset Asset Recovery Committee, and law firms in hundreds of other disputes. After 11 years in global professional services, I joined a regional firm where I was a Principal, fact-finding and testifying to damages in a variety of cases including mink coats, machine parts, Native American tobacco sales, and Supermodel divorces. In 2008 I started my own practice and began working with the US Department of Justice, first as a consultant and later as a contractor, calculating the financial impact of unlawful activity by criminal enterprises. Just to make things interesting, I was an Adjunct Professor, teaching Forensic Accounting at NYU. Fast forward to today, and I’m living with my partner Alison on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, my sons are thriving (one is in grad school and the other is doing A/V and security systems design at an engineering firm), and I’m the managing Partner of a forensic services and litigation consulting firm. I chair the Fraud Task Force for the AICPA and write Practice Standards for CPAs who provide forensic accounting services. When we’re not in pandemic lockdown, I ski, bike and backpack, and we go to museums and concerts. My last big trip was going up Mt. Kilimanjaro in 2019. 

What are the most important lessons you learned because of Zeta Beta Tau – Phi Epsilon Pi?  

Fraternity life taught me lessons about coming together as a team, sharing a common goal, and achieving that goal. You learn that sometimes our differences can lead to discovering our greatest strengths, and that often results in the team achieving a higher level of accomplishment and success. Our House was composed of brothers from different backgrounds, from different parts of the country, and possessing different skills and abilities. Learning to work together and get along with one another was a life skill that I still rely on today.  

Anything else you’d like to add?  

To My Brothers: Thank you for all the great material you have provided for my storytelling, and for all those times when I have to insist that “it’s all true!” I remember that we always had each other’s back. Thank you. To the Current Class of Brothers: Attending university is a maturation process that develops character and tested us when we were in your shoes. Given the greater complexity and more and different academic and social pressures to which you are subject, I have a world of respect and admiration for you for all the hard work you ‘re putting in to get your degree at Tech. Have fun and stay safe!