Emily Lucas, CPA

Emily Lucas, CPA, is Senior Director, Professional Practice at the Center for Audit Quality. She joined the CAQ in 2023 and advocates for stakeholders in the audits of public companies.

As an in-house expert and resource on auditing and accounting practice issues, Emily leads task forces comprised of audit partners and technical experts from the public company audit profession related to proposed standards and other current issues facing the profession. Areas of focus have included: analyzing inspection trends to understand what they could mean for the public company audit profession; analyzing the fraud risk landscape at U.S. public companies to understand the impact on potential regulatory changes; and developing the 14^th Annual Public Company Audit Fee Study Report (co-developed with Financial Education & Research Foundation) and The Role of the Auditor: Assessing and Responding to Fraud Risk (co-developed with the Anti-Fraud Collaboration), among other publications. Emily has facilitated responses to proposed standards and regulations related to NOCLAR, fraud, audit evidence, and the general responsibilities of the auditor.

Before becoming a Senior Director on the Professional Practice Team, Emily served as the CAQ’s Professional Practice Fellow for two years. Prior to joining the CAQ, Emily spent 20 years at PwC consulting with audit teams and supervising/delivering audits of both publicly traded and private companies across many industry sectors, with a focus on the energy and technology industries. In her most recent role as Managing Director within PwC’s National Quality Organization, Emily helped lead the firm’s Chief Auditor Network, which supports audit teams in enhancing audit quality and efficiency and provides firm leadership with insights on the practice environment and overall audit quality trends.

A holder of a Bachelor of Arts degree in Spanish from the University of Virginia and a Masters of Accountancy degree from the University of Georgia, Emily is licensed as a CPA in Louisiana and Georgia.