SEC’s Cox Gets a “C”

SEC Chief Chris Cox gets tough grades from accounting – professor – turned – tech – entrepreneur Thomas I. Selling (left).

“Cox has presided without nary a whimper over budget and staff cuts (even in the wake of Enron); and worse, a partisan effort has taken place to move any investor protection agenda stage left,” Selling says at The Accounting Onion. “Front and center are the interests of financial institutions and those who serve them: in part by relaxing rules that threaten their market dominance, but also, in part, by doing nothing or too little about shareholders’ access to the proxy, registration of hedge funds, and the independence and competence of credit rating agencies.”

Irish Accountants See Global Demand

As if more proof were required, but U.S. accountants need not wonder whether they compete in a global market for talent and services.

The Irish Association of Chartered Certified Accountants reports the demand for trained accountants has never been greater, nor have firms and employers encountered such difficulty in finding and keeping them.

The top trends will be familiar to every U.S. CPA, including:

  1. The finance role is becoming more strategic
  2. A war for specialist talent is raging, and
  3. Demand for finance professionals is surging.

[Reported in Ireland here and in Borneo here.]

FREE DOWNLOAD: Get the ACCA report, “A Changing Profession? The Evolution of Accounting Roles, Skills and Career Aspirations,” here (32 pages, PDF).