Erica Williams was sworn in by the Securities and Exchange Commission for her second term as chair of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board on Oct. 24.
Her new five-year term officially begins today and lasts through Oct. 24, 2029.
“I am honored and excited for the opportunity to continue working alongside my fellow board members and the talented and committed PCAOB staff to protect investors. I am proud of our work together and eager to continue executing our mission on behalf of investors who depend on U.S. capital markets to build their American dream,” Williams said in a statement. “I want to again thank [SEC] Chair [Gary] Gensler and Commissioners [Hester] Peirce, [Caroline] Crenshaw, [Mark] Uyeda, and [Jaime] Lizárraga for this incredible responsibility, and I look forward to continuing this important work.”
The SEC reappointed Williams to her current role last June.
A lawyer by trade, Williams was appointed chair of the PCAOB in November 2021 and was sworn in on Jan. 10, 2022, becoming the first woman chair of the PCAOB and the first person of color to lead the audit regulator. She succeeded William Duhnke, who was ousted in June 2021 before completing his first term as chair.
During her tenure as PCAOB chair, Williams has taken a tougher enforcement approach than her predecessor, including conducting sweeps, which allows the board to collect information on potential auditing violations from several accounting firms at the same time, while also updating outdated auditing standards and making inspection reports more transparent to investors.
“I thank Erica for her leadership and am pleased that she will continue to serve as chairperson of the PCAOB,” Gensler said in a statement on June 11, following her reappointment. “I also thank the PCAOB staff and the board for their diligent work to ensure that public company financial disclosures can be trusted by investors.”
Prior to joining the PCAOB, Williams was a litigation partner with the law firm Kirkland & Ellis. She previously spent more than a decade in various roles at the SEC, including as deputy chief of staff to three former SEC chairs and assistant chief litigation counsel in the SEC’s Division of Enforcement trial unit. After leaving the SEC, Williams served as special assistant and associate counsel to President Barack Obama with a focus on financial and economic policy issues.
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Tags: Accounting, Auditing, PCAOB, SEC
