Instructor Biographies

Sona Akmakjian	Sona Akmakjian is the Director of Training at ADP Taxware, responsible for managing the operations of the National Training Program. She has over 13 years of experience consulting with clients around transactional taxes. Before joining ADP Taxware, Sona was a Senior Manager at Deloitte where she functioned as a Consultant, Project Manager and Service Line Leader. She managed and implemented automated global transactional tax solutions by leveraging technologies and improving business processes in a number of different environments including SAP and Oracle. She also worked in Deloitte’s Multistate Tax Services Practice where she assisted clients in identifying areas of sales and use tax savings and exposure. She further assisted clients in sales tax planning and audit controversy services. Prior to joining Deloitte, Sona was both an auditor and tax collector for the California State Board of Equalization. Sona is a California Certified Public Accountant and earned her Undergraduate Degree from the University of Southern California in Business Administration, Finance.
Will Hodgson	William R. Hodgson III is a Senior Client Trainer and has been a member of the training department since September, 2002. Will authors and maintains various software training courses for ADP Taxware and also functions as a primary instructor, teaching ADP Taxware customers, partners, and employees. Will was a featured session speaker at the Taxware Summit in 2003 as well as facilitated training sessions in following Summits. He also works closely with the Enterprise Solutions Group and has assisted several ADP Taxware customers with their installation and configuration projects. Will has also earned the CTT+ (Certified Technical Trainer) certification from CompTIA. He has nearly seven years of professional experience in technical support as well as five years of experience in instructional design and software training.
Nada Lewis	Nada H. Lewis is a Client Trainer who brings over ten years of client services experience to her current role. Prior to joining ADP Taxware, Nada functioned as a service quality specialist where she focused on driving change and improving process by focusing on training, project management and process documentation. Nada has years of experience training users in various software applications. As a member of the training department Nada teaches regional, client site and web based classes. Nada holds a Bachelors of Arts Degree from Framingham State College in Framingham MA. and is working towards a Masters of Adult Education from the University of Missouri St. Louis. Nada has also earned the CTT+ (Certified Technical Trainer) certification from CompTIA.
Antonio Di Benedetto	Antonio Di Benedetto is a Senior Research Lead in the Tax & Government Affairs Department of Taxware, LP. He supervises a group of research attorneys and associates in research efforts relating to all Taxware products and service offerings. Di Benedetto has been in the Tax & Government Affairs Department for almost four years. He is an attorney, with his J.D. from Suffolk University Law School where he graduated with honors and his B.A. from Boston College. Di Benedetto is working toward his LL.M. in Taxation at Boston University Law School. He is licensed to practice law in Massachusetts and is a member of the Massachusetts Bar Association and the Institute for Professionals in Taxation (IPT). In addition, he is licensed to practice in front of the United States District Court for the district of Massachusetts, and the United States Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit.
Matthew S. Walsh	Matthew S. Walsh is Director of Tax Research for Taxware. He is responsible for overseeing all domestic and international tax law content within the Taxware Systems. In addition, he provides advice on tax issues to Taxware clients and internal tax matters. Walsh has been with Taxware since 2000. Prior to joining us he worked at John Hancock Financial Services and for the Attorneys General for the State of Vermont. He is a graduate of the New England School of Law in Boston and is licensed to practice law in Massachusetts, Vermont and the United States Federal District Court in the District of Massachusetts.