Francine McKenna: "You Cannot Restrain The Heartless Except Via Enforcement."

Welcome to the Boardroom Governance Podcast. I’m your host, Evan Epstein. In this episode, I talk with Francine McKenna, a Lecturer at the Wharton Business School and a writer and commentator on the accounting, audit, and corporate governance issues affecting public and pre-IPO private companies. Francine spent more than 20 years in public accounting and consulting, including for KPMG/BearingPoint in the U.S. and Latin America, and at PwC. Since 2006, she has been an investigative reporter and feature writer. At MarketWatch she monitored and reported on public company accounting, fraud and financial investigations, and the financial reporting practices of pre-IPO companies. In this podcast, we talk about her personal and professional background, the recent $100 million settlement between Ernst & Young and the SEC, the $50 million fine to KPMG by the SEC in 2019, plus other conflicts involving the Big 4 audit firms. We also discuss frauds in public and private companies, the regulatory landscape for unicorns and crypto, the state of IPOs and some of the latest ESG trends. If you like this show, please consider subscribing, leaving a review or sharing this podcast on social media. You can find all the show notes on the website boardroom-governance.com and please feel free to subscribe to the Boardroom Governance Newsletter at evanepstein.substack.com