About Francine McKenna

The Roman satirist Juvenal asked, “Sed, quis custodiet ipsos custodes?”

But who guards the guardians?

Unprecedented changes in the accounting profession, and professional services in general, mean the current approach to safeguarding shareholder interests, as well as the other stakeholders of the modern publicly traded global enterprise, is no longer efficient nor effective.

Francine McKenna (@retheauditors on Twitter) is a freelance writer with credits in the Financial Times, Forbes.com, American Banker, Accountancy Age, Accountancy Magazine, The Columbia Journalism Review, Boston Review, the FEI Blog, and various financial,media, and technology blogs. She has a column at Forbes.com under the heading “Accounting Watchdog” and at American Banker as “Accountable”.  McKenna had a weekly column at GoingConcern.com from July 2009 to July 2010.

re: The Auditors is her specialized news site about the business of the Big 4 audit firms. Stories explore the role, responsibility and regulation of the audit/accounting industry in the global capital markets in an independent, objective, and usually critical way.

Ms. McKenna was recently named a finalist for the Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Financial and Business Journalism in the online commentary and blogging category.

McKenna has been quoted in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, Financial Times, Forbes, BusinessWeek, The Deal, The Times of London, the Guardian, and the Financial Chronicle (India) amongst many others. She has been profiled by accounting and social marketing/media sites. Her public speaking credits include private training, university teaching, and speeches for the New York County Lawyers Association, the New York State Society of CPAS, the American Accounting Association, the Institute of Internal Auditors, the Information Systems Audit and Control Association, and the Maryland Association of CPAs.

Ms. McKenna has more than twenty-five years of experience in a range of industries in the consulting and professional services environment. McKenna directed the Y2K PMO for JP Morgan in Latin America and was the first female Managing Director for BearingPoint in Latin America, responsible for the Industrial, Automotive and Transportation practice. She was a RVP for Jefferson Wells/Manpower and a Director for PricewaterhouseCoopers LLC, auditing the PwC the firm itself. She held various positions in accounting and financial management prior to her career in professional services and began her career as an internal auditor at Continental Illinois National Bank and Trust in Chicago.

She is fluent in Spanish, as well as her native English, and can provide services in either language. Her firm, McKenna Partners LLC, is a specialized consultancy that advises other professional services firms. These services include consulting on litigation involving the audit firms, in particular if there are complaints alleged related to member firms outside of the United States.

Litigation Consulting, Media and Other Requests:

McKenna provides specialized consulting to plaintiff’s attorneys in cases involving the audit firms, in particular when they have a global reach.  Her knowledge of the internal operations of the firms especially on independence,  legal and regulatory compliance, risk and quality management, internal systems/processes and global network legal and regulatory issues is unprecedented and rarely available outside the firms in an independent and objective form.
Media Requests:
McKenna is available to provide commentary as a subject matter expert or a featured writer for those writing about the Big 4 audit firms, the professional services industry, and corporate governance topics, in particular when they have a Chicago or Mexico/Latin America focus.

Please contact her at fmckenna@mckennapartners.com or 312-730-4884 for information about consulting, writing, speaking or teaching/training opportunities as well as media requests.


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