FASB Restructuring Results in Board Seat for Golden
FASB’s technical director, Russell Golden, will take a seat on the standard-setting board this fall when current Chairman Bob Herz steps down.
Golden’s appointment comes less than a month after the Financial Accounting Foundation (FAF) Board of Trustees announced Herz’s retirement and a restructuring that will expand FASB’s board from five to seven members. Herz’s term was scheduled to expire in mid-2012.
As FASB’s technical director, Golden held “primary responsibility for overseeing FASB staff work on all standards-setting projects, including major global and domestic projects and technical application and implementation of financial accounting and reporting standards,” FASB said in a press release. He also has been chair of FASB’s Emerging Issues Task Force.
Golden was named technical director of FASB in June 2008 after serving in various roles at the organization as a member of the senior staff. Prior to joining FASB, he was a partner at Deloitte & Touche LLP in the National Office Accounting Services department. He is a licensed CPA in the states of Washington and Connecticut.
When Herz departs Sept. 30, FASB board member Leslie Seidman will become acting chairman.
Details about FAF’s efforts to recruit candidates for the two additional seats and to select a new chairman are available in a Q&A on FASB’s website with FAF Chairman John Brennan.
FASB previously operated with seven board members from its inception in 1973 until 2008. The return to a seven-member board will happen as soon as board members can be recruited and seated. FAF expects that could happen in early 2011.
The changes come at a time when FASB and its international counterpart, the International Accounting Standards Board, are battling the clock on a series of standards convergence projects. IASB Chairman Sir David Tweedie has announced that he will retire when his term ends in June 2011.
It also comes against a backdrop of discussion about private company financial reporting. An 18-member blue-ribbon panel created by the AICPA, FAF and the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy is working to make recommendations by December about the future of standard setting for private companies.
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