FRC appoints John Kellas as Interim Chairman of the Professional Oversight Board
News types: Staff/Board Announcements
Published: 14 June 2011
The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) today announces the appointment John Kellas as Interim Chairman of the Professional Oversight Board (POB) and an executive director of the FRC.
The appointment follows the sad death of Dame Barbara Mills who served as Chair of the POB since October 2008.
Commenting on John Kellas’ appointment, FRC Chairman Baroness Hogg, said:
“We were very fortunate to have someone of John’s experience and expertise on the Professional Oversight Board able to take over the chairmanship in such difficult circumstances following Barbara’s death.
“John will be a strong and independent advocate of audit quality. He brings a deep technical understanding of auditing issues as well as recent experience of leading the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB). His international perspective will be hugely valuable to us as we respond to current regulatory proposals, in particular the European Commission’s audit green paper”.
John Kellas will take up his role as Interim Chairman of the Professional Oversight Board with immediate effect.
Notes to Editors
- The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) is the UK’s independent regulator responsible for promoting high quality corporate governance and reporting to foster investment.
- The Professional Oversight Board contributes to the achievement of the Financial Reporting Council’s overall aims and has four main responsibilities:
- a statutory obligation to oversee the regulation of auditors by the recognised accountancy bodies;
- the monitoring of the quality of major audits;
- independent oversight of the regulation of the accountancy profession by the professional accountancy bodies;
- independent oversight of the regulation of the actuarial profession by the professional actuarial bodies.
- The Professional Oversight Board is independent of the accountancy and actuarial professions. Its members have wide experience of business and the professions, the public sector, accountancy, auditing and actuarial work.
- John Kellas, MA, FCA, was Chairman of the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board for the five years to December 2008. Prior to this he had a professional career of some thirty years with KPMG and its predecessor firms, of which he became a partner in 1982. He was the UK senior technical partner from 1990 to 2004. While with KPMG he served for many years on the Auditing Practices Board. In 2009, he was appointed to the Professional Oversight Board and the Supervisory Board of the European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG). In that year he was also awarded the CBE.