Newsroom
The New Decade: Fresh Start or More of the Same?
by Financial Executive magazine (Free registration required to view full article)
January 5, 2010
The January 10th Financial Executive magazine cover story takes a look back at tumultuous first decade of the millennium and quotes various accounting and capital market experts about the defining moments of the past 10 years. Among those interviewed was CAQ Executive Director Cindy Fornelli, who notes that the passage of Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 [SOX], the law has had “a profound effect not just on the (auditing) profession — in the form of a new regulatory oversight body (Public Company Accounting Oversight Board), the adoption of strict auditor independence rules and major cultural changes in auditing firms — but also on investor confidence and the marketplace. If you look at where investor confidence was in the days right after Enron to this year, even in the midst of the financial crisis, I think you’ll see that it is significantly higher.”
The article continues, “To Fornelli, the decade’s most important development ‘has been the empowerment of audit committees by SOX.’”
As the article turns from a look back, Fornelli shares her thoughts on what will be important in the coming decade. “Fornelli believes the economic crisis, in particular, has illuminated the importance of risk management and corporate governance — those are the issues, she says, that will focus the profession and its marketplace stakeholders in the years ahead as the global economy recovers.”
