Beyene joins CohnReznick as renewable energy tax partner
New York, NY – December 1, 2021 – CohnReznick LLP, one of the leading advisory, assurance, and tax firms in the United States, today announced that Sasibeh (Sas) Senay Beyene, CPA, has joined the firm as a tax partner in its Renewable Energy practice. Based in Dallas, Beyene has deep tax expertise in diversified industries such as real estate and telecommunications including more than 15 years of global and domestic experience as a tax and accounting senior executive.
Beyene’s tax experience comprises REIT structuring, modeling, diligence, and integration related to merger, acquisition, and divestiture transactions. He has been a key advisor to large publicly-traded and private REIT clients, managing a variety of technical tax and tax outsourcing issues in India and other countries. He has led extensive research initiatives related to complex tax issues for real estate partnerships.
“The tax expertise and related skill sets that Sas brings to our renewable energy practice will be a major asset to our clients in navigating the tax and tax equity landscape and structuring their businesses for success,” notes Anton Cohen, CohnReznick’s Renewable Energy Practice Leader. “Having someone with Sas’ knowledge of mergers and acquisitions and tax structuring for large companies is especially important given the highly transactional nature of renewables and the synergies with other industries. I look forward to his contributions to our clients’ growth objectives as we continue to navigate the evolving clean energy landscape.”
Before joining CohnReznick, Beyene was Senior Vice President, Tax, for a major publicly traded telecommunications REIT. In this role, he led all tax-related matters for more than 15 mergers, acquisitions, and divestiture transactions totaling more than $4.5 billion. He was responsible for quarterly updates on tax matters to the Audit Committee of the company’s board of directors and managed all tax compliance (income, property, and sales/use). Prior to that, he served as a Tax Senior Manager for a major advisory, assurance, and tax firm where he had varying levels of increased responsibility. This included working on one of the firm’s largest tax clients as well as performing a 2.5-year rotation in the National Tax office in Washington D.C. Sas was also seconded to Bangalore, India and Buenos Aires, Argentina to develop the teams in each respective location.
Beyene earned a BS in Accountancy, summa cum laude, and an MS in Accountancy from the University of Houston. He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, Texas Society of Certified Public Accountants, Tax Executive Institute, and NAREIT.