German, Austrians Get Top Exam Honors

Werner Ellmauer of Munich, Germany, won the Elijah Watt Sells gold medal by earning the highest overall score on the November 2000 Uniform CPA Examination, conducted by the AICPA. A total of 62,000 candidates took the exam.

Ellmauer, who graduated from Johannes Kepler University with a master’s degree in social and economic sciences, works in the audit practice division of PricewaterhouseCoopers in Munich.

Andreas Poelzelbauer and Erich Ploechl, both of Vienna, Austria, won the silver and bronze awards for taking second and third place, respectively.

Poelzelbauer, who has a master’s in business administration from the University of Economics and Business Administration in Vienna, works as a senior manager at Moore Stephens City Treuhand GMBH. Ploechl, who graduated with a master’s degree from the Vienna University of Economics, is an audit manager with Ernst & Young, Vienna.

The Sells award, created in 1923, recognizes the contributions to the accounting profession made by Elijah Watt Sells, a founding partner of Haskins & Sells (a predecessor to Deloitte & Touche). Sells, who was one of the first CPAs licensed under a New York state law enacted in 1896, was active in the establishment of the AICPA.

The two-day CPA exam, which has four sections, is given every May and November.