Our Founder's Story
The story of Maria Tsennykh, how the idea for TSENU was first conceptualized at a kitchen table in Bronxville, NY, and came to be in 2024
From the beginning...
Maria Tsennykh was born near the Star City in 1984.
Star City was where the first Soviet cosmonauts lived, and Maria was told Yury Gagarin was a regular at her grandmother’s lunch table! Maria's family moved to Moscow when she was 6 years old. It was all set that she was to be a professional pianist at a very early age, however Maria had a passion for math and design and when the time came, chose a different path.
At the age of 15, Maria graduated high school as a Valedictorian (Class of 2000) and was invited to the Kremlin to celebrate at the Honorary ball of Valedictorians. Before the ball, however, she was told there had been an error - she was “too young to attend” and she must apply to university as a regular student without the benefits of being Valedictorian. This experience of being told “she does not belong” changed Maria. She knew just because something has been said, it does not necessarily make it true. This was the start of Maria’s passion for true Inclusion - not just for herself but for all - within DEI in later years.
By the age of 17 during her third year of University, Maria became a president of the class (at the Russian Plekhanov Academy, now University). And as a student at the Faculty of International Economic Relations, Maria launched a scientific research club organizing numerous roundtables devoted to global economic topics. For this she won a half a year study abroad semester at the Copenhagen Business School in Denmark.
Upon her return from Copenhagen, Maria started her professional career with internships at L’Oréal, Mars Inc. and PriceWaterhouseCooper (PwC) in 2004 followed by a full-time job as an Auditor with PwC in 2005.
She then spent a year with Lazard and Raiffeisen Investment JCA in Western and Eastern Europe, specifically Frankfurt, Vienna and Moscow and then re-joined PwC Moscow Valuation Team within Corporate Finance in 2009.
Maria Transferred to New York in August 2011, being one of the first international transferees to the Valuation Team in the US.
Being a Ph.D. Economist and a Chartered Certified Accountant (ACCA) in the United Kingdom, with significant global Valuation and Corporate Finance experience, Maria wanted to explore Dispute Advisory Services and in 2017 joined FTI Consulting. She was promoted in less than a year to a Senior Director and worked on high profile projects. One important milestone was being assigned to the high profile court case for war journalist Marie Colvin, who was assassinated in Syria in 2012. (More details here)
Being multilingual, Maria especially enjoys working on large FCPA matters and regularly flying across the globe. She has been focused on forensic accounting investigations over the last 7 years.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic and global lookdowns, Maria was selected to work as an internal officer reporting to the Chief Risk and Compliance Officer at FTI Consulting in 2020 which gave her a unique perspective on a role of Chief Risk and Compliance Officer of a public company with offices in more than 30 countries.
In 2022, Maria joined CliftonLarsenAllen (CLA) (a top 10 Accounting firm, according to the Accounting Today) as a principal in their New York office and within a few months she became a co-leader of its Valuation, Forensic, Litigation and Investigations (VFLI) national practice in the US going on to then lead the Global Industry for VFLI.
Being multilingual, Maria especially enjoys working on large FCPA matters and regularly flying across the globe. She has been focused on forensic accounting investigations over the last 7 years.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic and global lookdowns, Maria was selected to work as an internal officer reporting to the Chief Risk and Compliance Officer at FTI Consulting in 2020 which gave her a unique perspective on a role of Chief Risk and Compliance Officer of a public company with offices in more than 30 countries.
In 2022, Maria joined CliftonLarsenAllen (CLA) (a top 10 Accounting firm, according to the Accounting Today) as a principal in their New York office and within a few months she became a co-leader of its Valuation, Forensic, Litigation and Investigations (VFLI) national practice in the US going on to then lead the Global Industry for VFLI.
Additionally, in 2020 Maria also graduated from the Fashion Institute of Technology with a degree in Design pursuing her hobby. Since early 2021, Maria had started noticing how design applications could benefit certain forensic accounting investigation best practices. With this in mind Maria launched TSENU Consulting in 2024, while developing her own new Methodology, TSENU*[EW], where “Design meets forensic accounting investigation”.
Maria’s Ph.D. in Economics thesis advisor was Ruslan Khasbulatov, an acclaimed Russian economist and politician who became Acting Speaker of the Russian parliament in July 1991 and helped to defend the Russian White House during the coup attempt of that August. Mr. Khasbulatov had since consolidated his influence in the Parliament and had become one of the country's most powerful politicians of the time.
When Maria was graduating with her master’s degree in International Economic Relations, Mr. Khasbulatov stopped Maria in the hallway of the University and told her to consider applying to the Ph.D. program and that he would regularly mentor her, which he indeed did in the following years.
Mr. Khasbulatov and Maria spent many hours of discussions about international economic relations as well as shared experiences.
Maria learned from Ruslan Khasbulatov, how to always focus on the bigger picture first, how to go from “general to specific” and how to analyze the most complex global or local information in the most simple ways. Maria plans to apply these skills and profound experiences within TSENU.
Her ethics-based foundations are focused on best practices which honor the legacy of Mr. Khasbulatov’s global research and numerous books written in the fields of international economics and trade since 1970s.
