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Which firms have the most Madoff-related claims? Which audit firm locations are named most often? Which filings do not name an audit firm and why? How many name the international audit network umbrella firm? Shouldn’t they all?
Leadership: One Man’s Perspective by Tenacious Truman
At re: The Auditors we spend a lot of time talking about leadership—mostly the lack of it. We bemoan the “auditor” mentality, the substitution of management for leadership, and the lack of accountability.
Sarbanes-Oxley (SOx) made law what is best practice for all public companies or companies that issue public debt. That includes “smaller” companies.
When Doug Chia of Johnson & Johnson told me he would be at the Directorship Boardroom Leaders Forum in NYC, I knew I had to cover both the FEI CFRI and Directorship’s conference.
On December 31st, 2009 live racing will cease at Dairyland Greyhound Park bringing the end of an era to Wisconsin dog tracks. What does that mean for GPA-Wisconsin? Well, it means we’ll need to continue doing exactly what we have been doing for the past 20 years, but just more of it. That is, finding homes for ex-racing greyhounds.
You may have been cut from one of the audit firms in the past several months. You may still be working but feeling a bit insecure. The cuts have been well documented here. Regardless of how much the firms and their cheerleaders try to diminish the significance of any individual action they’ve taken, they all add [...]
I’ve just wrapped up two days of conference attendance here in New York City – The FEI Current Issues in Financial Reporting Conference and the Directorship Boardroom Leaders Forum.The Directorship BLF started with a dinner on Monday night which I was unable to attend but that featured what I heard was a great speech by “pay czar” Kenneth Feinberg. The BLF conference itself didn’t kickoff until later Tuesday morning. In the meantime, on Monday I attended several sessions at the FEI CFRI conference.
I’m off to NYC next week to cover FEI’s Annual Current Financial Reporting Issues Conference.
The events of last week, including those that occurred in the world around us, have prompted me to formalize my Comments Policy and Privacy Policy/Terms of Use. These policies, to be honest, were always my standard operating procedure, but given the heightened and constant nature of the threats all around us, it’s time to commit them to print. I want you to know what they are, so you can act accordingly both on and off the site.
I think about the “one-firm firm” concept frequently. It’s an ideal that I can safely say all the Big 4 audit firms aspire to. And David Maister was the guru when I started in consulting in 1993 at KPMG Consulting. Later my mentor gave me his book, Managing Professional Services Firms, and I was hooked on the theory of professional services as well as the practice. So much has changed even in my professional life, which only goes back to the early 80’s. Front and center are the threats to the global network of all the firms and the focus on aggressive growth while diluting the partnership culture of the firms by perverting their compensation structure. Partner performance assessment has become a short-term, self-serving tool to throw disproportionate wealth to a small group of senior leadership.
 Francine McKenna (@retheauditors) has more than twenty-five years of experience in consulting and professional services including tenure at two Big 4 firms, both in the US and abroad. Look for my column, "Accounting Watchdog" at Forbes.com and "Accountable" at American Banker. For more information, click "About" at the bottom of this page. Your firm can sponsor this specialized news site. For more information contact Francine McKenna, fmckenna@mckennapartners.com |
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