Over the years, people have complained — myself included — that PCAOB inspection reports were not exactly useful documents. Sixty-odd pages of audit and legalese don’t exactly make for riveting content.
However! In the new EY and PwC inspection reports that were released today, you’ll note executive summaries that list tables for the “Effects of Audit Deficiencies on Audit Opinions,” “Most Frequently Identified Audit Deficiencies” and “Areas in which Audit Deficiencies Were Most Frequently Identified.” It’s a decent snapshot of the firm’s performance of these audits, what kind of audit problems occurred and where they occurred within the financial statements.
This is particularly exciting because I mentioned the lack of executive summaries not that long ago. I’m not saying you have me to thank, but I’ve heard that my writings do get passed around PCAOB HQ (if only after being scrubbed for colorful language).
Now all we need are for the users to be identified, letter grades for audit quality, a tl;dr section, and you’ll see these inspection reports in every Hudson News.
I overheard – and by that I mean someone sent us the gchat – the following conversation that occurred earlier today regarding friendly get-togethers that will be going down at 300 Madison starting next Thursday.
[Someone at PwC]: From my good friend [Someone else at PwC] [Someone at PwC, quoting an email]: Take a break. Unwind. Catch up with your coach or colleagues. Enjoy refreshments. Play a game. Right here in 300 Madison at our new Post work Connections. Designed to show appreciation for everything you do — and to provide a place for you and your colleagues — to meet and get to know people. It’s a place to just have fun! Post work Connections will be open every other Thursday, from 5:00-8:00 p.m., in 300 Madison’s deck/cafeteria, from March 24 – June 16. We look forward to seeing you at our grand opening on March 24. Give it a try. There will be beer, wine, soda, snacks, games — and raffles for prizes! Get caught in the act of having fun at work! Hope to see you there! [Someone at PwC]: Note that post work connections starts with PwC [Someone who knows someone at PwC]: Good lord [Someone who knows someone at PwC]: That’s epic [Someone who knows someone at PwC]: Is the “post work connections starts with..” comment theirs or yourts [Someone at PwC]: Mine [Someone who knows someone at PwC]: Love it.
Personally, I’m mostly curious about the “games” aspect of these events. Are we talking Risk™? Beer pong? Scrabble™? Or we talking an Angry Birds round-robin tournament? Regardless, we’ll be interested to hear how these Thursday ragers will go. Keep us in the loop.
This morning we learned from a couple of sources that the big guy will be calling it a career officially on June 30, 2013 and the firm will announce a new CEO-elect at some point in early 2012.
Here’s JT’s message to the troops:
I have written to all our partners to let them know about my plans to retire from Ernst & Young on 30 June 2013.
Every year, our Global Executive (GE) considers the priorities and initiatives we feel Ernst & Young should focus on in the upcoming year, and these priorities are then approved by our Global Advisory Council (GAC), the top governance body of Ernst & Young.
Periodically, we also take a longer look at our strategy and vision, and involve the GAC in this as well. In July, we informed our partners that we were beginning such a long-term strategic review. The GE and I believe that our new strategy and leadership-succession plans are inextricably linked, and we agreed that June 2013 would be the right time for me to retire.
This is a normal process and the timing has worked out perfectly. I will be 58 years old, which is the normal early retirement age for many of our partners. By then, we will be implementing our new strategy and it’s right that a new leader should steer this implementation.
We are starting a robust process to identify the man or woman who will succeed me, in accordance with our regulations. We intend to identify a new Chairman and CEO elect during the first part of 2012. What I feel very good about is that we’re the type of organization that continually develops large numbers of great leaders, so I see many men and women who could lead Ernst & Young successfully into the future.
This is not a retirement letter or speech to you all, as there is much to do before June 2013. However, I wanted to be very open with you about our plans. Thank you for your continued support as we continue both our strategy and succession-planning process.
James S. Turley
Chairman and CEO
UPDATE: Ernst & Young provided us with the following statement:
In a communication to all Ernst & Young partners worldwide on 10 November 2011, James S. Turley, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Ernst & Young confirmed that he will retire as planned, aged 58, on 30 June 2013. The succession process to decide a new Chairman and CEO-elect is now underway and will conclude in early 2012, no later than April.
So after riding out Lehman, handing out a lot of trophies, and inspiring the greatest lyric in the history of Big 4 employee produced videos, (I’m sure there are other accomplishments too) Jimbo will ride off into the Black and Yellow sunset. This seems like an appropriate tribute:
Feel free to leave other well wishes below.
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