Jennifer Joe, Whitney Family Professor of Accounting, Cohen Family Lerner Director of Diversity and Chief Diversity Advocate in the University of Delaware’s Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics, has been named to the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board’s (PCAOB) Investor Advisory Group (IAG) and Standards and Emerging Issues Advisory Group (SEIAG). Professor Joe, a Ph.D. and CPA, is the only academic appointed to serve on both of the PCAOB advisory groups.
“We are very grateful to the individuals who have stepped forward to serve on our advisory groups,” said PCAOB Chair Erica Y. Williams. “The extraordinary expertise, experience, and perspective of the members of both these advisory groups will aid us immensely as we pursue our mission to protect investors and further the public interest.”
Joe said she is “deeply honored to be asked to serve on the advisory groups with such accomplished professionals whose experience include financial regulation, management of multi-billion investment funds, and corporate board governance.”
The PCAOB is a nonprofit corporation established by Congress to oversee the audits of public companies in order to protect investors and further the public interest in the preparation of informative, accurate, and independent audit reports. The PCAOB also oversees the audits of brokers and dealers, including compliance reports filed pursuant to federal securities laws
Joe is an award-winning researcher whose work examines how key institutional factors impact the quality of corporate financial reporting including audit litigation, regulations, audit quality and data analytics tools, and the role of cognition in decisions using accounting information. She is actively engaged with the accounting profession and business community and is a frequent presenter and keynote speaker at corporate and academic events on accounting and diversity issues. Joe has significant experience teaching accounting, auditing, and internal controls at national universities and corporate professional education programs. She enjoys volunteering on academic and civic boards and advocating for inclusive excellence in higher education.
“I enjoyed a rewarding professional career in accounting prior to pursuing my doctoral education,” Joe said. “My varied responsibilities prior to earning my PhD – accounting analyst, banking professional, internal auditor, public accountant, and then later as a faculty fellow at global accounting firm have given me a breadth of institutional knowledge that fuels my curiosity and stimulates my research. My appointment to the PCAOB advisory boards is the perfect opportunity for me to harness my experience and research interests in service to society at large through our efforts to ensure the integrity of financial reporting by public companies. Service to society is a core value for me as an accounting academic and it is also a responsibility I share as a member of the American Accounting Association and Vice President of the Auditing Section of the American Accounting Association.
“My role as a faculty member, affords me the tremendous opportunity of remaining engaged with the accounting profession and to observe and analyze its ability to adapt to the ever-evolving challenges it faces (e.g., globalization, automation, socio-economic inequities, and human capital growth and retention),” Joe continued “I am also very fortunate that service opportunities like those provided by the PCAOB advisory groups, as well as my professional experience and academic research are so well aligned to inform my teaching. I take seriously the responsibility and opportunity to train and engage with students, our future business leaders, to challenge their thinking, and to be challenged by them.”
According to the PCAOB, the IAG advises on matters concerning the PCAOB’s mission to oversee the audit of companies that are subject to the securities laws, and related matters, in order to protect the interests of investors and further the public interest in the preparation of informative, accurate, and independent audit reports, including investors’ perspectives on key areas of concern and potential emerging issues related to the PCAOB’s oversight activities.
The SEIAG has been established by the PCAOB to advise on existing standards, proposed standards, potential new standards, and on matters other than standards, such as emerging issues, that are of significance to the PCAOB in order to protect the interests of investors and further the public interest in the preparation of informative, accurate, and independent audit reports.