Change at the top: PCAOB will feature new chair, 3 new board members

The PCAOB has a new chair and set of board members.

Demetrios “Jim” Logothetis, who retired in 2019 following 40 years with EY, will replace George Botic, a current PCAOB board member who has served as acting chair since Erica Williams departed in July, the SEC announced Friday.

Botic will be joined on the new board by Mark Calabria, Kyle Hauptman, and Steven Laughton, the SEC said in a news release.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 established the PCAOB to oversee the audits of public companies and broker-dealers and assigned oversight of the board to the SEC. Proposed legislation last summer that would have folded PCAOB operations into the SEC didn’t make it to a vote.

The PCAOB appointments will cut short the tenures of board members Kara Stein and Anthony Thompson. In December, Christina Ho announced plans to leave the board.

“I am confident that this new board will usher in a new day at the PCAOB — one of sensible, efficient oversight of auditors,” SEC Chair Paul Atkins said in a statement. “I look forward to working with this board as it refocuses on the PCAOB’s core statutory mission — protecting investors and furthering the public interest in the preparation of informative, accurate, and independent audit reports.”

Atkins, who became SEC chair in April, signaled at the AICPA Conference on Current SEC and PCAOB Developments in December a “back to basics” approach for the SEC and the PCAOB under his leadership.

— To comment on this article or to suggest an idea for another article, contact Bryan Strickland at Bryan.Strickland@aicpa-cima.com.