At a Washington event, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Paul Atkins said he is “excited” about the newly appointed Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) members and believes that they will bring the board “back to basics,” a regulatory philosophy that he has also been pursuing at the commission with efforts to reduce burdensome rules and promote capital formation.
As part of its oversight of the PCAOB, the SEC appoints the five voting members of the board and signs off on its annual budget and changes to its auditing standards.
His comments come as the SEC in late January appointed four new PCAOB members, including Chairman Demetrios Logothetis, a retired Ernst & Young LLP partner; Mark Calabria, an official at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB); Kyle Hauptman, chairman of the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA); and Steven Laughton, counsel to PCAOB member Christina Ho who decided last year not to seek reappointment. Board member George Botic, who was named to the role when Gary Gensler headed up the SEC, was retained for continuity.
Atkins was responding to a question about his thoughts on the PCAOB’s direction during an event hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on February 23, 2026.
The new members “have experience in all the right places. So from running an audit practice… worrying about quality assurance for an audit practice, to running big institutions, to having regulatory experience, and other public experience; so in not just the securities industry but in other sorts of key industries and financial services and elsewhere,” Atkins said. “So, I think that’s very important… I think we’ll be able to tap into that.”
Atkins then said that the PCAOB needs to address a lot of issues from 2003, referring to when the board was established after Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 following accounting scandals at companies like Enron and WorldCom.
In that vein, the PCAOB needs to “have a good focus on getting back to basics,” he said, “meaning quality assurance around audits, helping to focus on the rules that need to be followed by auditors and to make sure that we have integrity around the public company audit. So that’s the name of the game. And so I’m excited to see what we will be focusing on.”
In addition, “they have international issues as well. And so, it’s not just parochial U.S. concerns, but you know, I’ve addressed some of those concerns and other venues, but this will be, will be addressing those as well with them.”
‘Balanced With Expectations for Efficiency and Restraint’
Richard Chambers, a senior adviser for risk and audit at AuditBoard, previously said “the new leadership would appear to reflect a shift in regulatory philosophy for the agency.”
Atkins previously “described the new board as ushering in ‘sensible, efficient oversight of auditors’ and refocusing on core statutory mission,” Chambers said.
He said the mix of experiences of the new members is notable.
“Logothetis brings four decades of Big Four audit experience, primarily from Ernst & Young, increasing practitioner representation at the top of the PCAOB,” Chambers explained. “Calabria and Hauptman bring federal regulatory and policy experience outside traditional audit oversight roles. Laughton brings long government legal experience, including Treasury Department service.”
Importantly, Chambers said the appointment follows the departure of prior leadership associated with a different regulatory approach under the previous SEC leadership.
While Chambers did not explicitly say, the SEC and the PCAOB during the Biden administration pursued an ambitious, at times aggressive, regulatory agenda and rigorous enforcement activities that upset businesses and auditors.
Moreover, Chambers said that “a leadership group with deep industry roots and regulatory policy backgrounds is unlikely to pursue rapid expansion of new auditing standards” and “expect emphasis on clarity and practicality of standards rather than frequent, expansive rulemaking.”
In addition, he said the new leadership also means a different direction for inspections and enforcements.
“A board with audit industry veterans and government regulators may emphasize risk-targeted inspections and judicious enforcement rather than broad enforcement sweeps,” Chambers said.
However, there are also downsides to replacing four out of five board members as institutional memory will be reduced.
Still, “Botic’s continued presence provides some continuity, but most seats are filled with new members, accelerating cultural and strategic change,” he said.
Overall, “the PCAOB’s role as an independent watchdog will be balanced with expectations for efficiency and restraint,” Chambers added.
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