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  • Tom Seidenstein

    Job Title

    Chair*, IAASB and Co-CEO, International Foundation for Ethics and Audit

    Country

    United States of America

    Tom Seidenstein is the chair of the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board and the co-CEO of the International Foundation for Ethics and Audit, the recently created organization that houses the IAASB and the International Ethics Standards Board for Accountants (IESBA). Since the beginning of 2023, he has served as co-CEO with IESBA Chair Gabriela Figueiredo Dias.

    Mr. Seidenstein was initially appointed chair in July 2019 and reappointed to a three-year term in June 2022. In this role, and now as co-CEO, he has overseen significant revisions of existing audit standards aimed at enhancing public trust, the initiation of a new workstream aimed at creating a global assurance standard for sustainability, and an updated strategy aimed at increasing the responsiveness of standard setting.

    Mr. Seidenstein’s career has spanned both the private sector and international standard setting. Prior to joining the IAASB, Mr. Seidenstein held senior strategic leadership positions at the Federal National Mortgage Association, commonly known as Fannie Mae (Senior Vice President, Strategy, Innovation & Capital Management: 2012-19), and the IFRS Foundation (Chief Operating Officer: 2000-2011).

    Additionally, Mr. Seidenstein has served at a consulting organization for not-for-profits, CCS Fundraising (Executive Director: 1999-2000), and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (Special Assistant to the Managing Director: 1995-1997). He has also served as a Trustee of the International Valuation Standards Council (IVSC) and on XBRL International’s Board of Advisors.

    A strong believer in volunteer service, Mr. Seidenstein has held or holds volunteer leadership positions serving school education the USA and the Make-A-Wish Foundation (both UK and international boards). He holds a Master’s in Public Policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and an undergraduate degree (cum laude) from the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University.

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  • IAASB June 2019 Meeting

    New York, NY
    English
    Highlights from the June 17-21, 2019 meeting in New York, NY.

    • 00:00 to 02:18 Introduction – Willie Botha, Technical Director
    • 02:19 to 06:48 ISA 315 (Revised) – Fiona Campbell, Deputy Director and Task Force Chair
    • 07:01 to 11:49 ISA 600 – Len Jui, Board Member and Task Force Chair
    • 12:03 to 15:15 Agreed-upon Procedures – Eric Turner, Board Member and Task Force Chair
    • 15:31 to 21:09 Audit Evidence, Extended External Reporting, Professional Skepticism, IASB Update, IESBA Coordination, Auditor Reporting – Willie Botha, Technical Director
    • 21:26 to 22:29 Outgoing Chairman’s Overview – Arnold Schilder, Outgoing Chair
    • 22:30 to 23:30 Incoming Chairman’s Overview – Tom Seidenstein, Incoming Chair
    • 23:32 to 26:19 Closing remarks and next meeting – Willie Botha, Technical Director
    Meeting Highlights Listen & Subscribe in iTunes
    IAASB June 2019 Meeting Highlights
  • IAASB & IESBA Increase Collaboration with National Standards Setters

    English

    Dear Stakeholder,

    We write to share a brief update on our latest initiative to support global standard setting and to better leverage the coordination opportunities between our two boards.

    With global regulatory fragmentation risk on the rise, and greater international collaboration on the forthcoming G20 agenda, it is a pleasure to advise that last month we convened a meeting in Paris with national audit and ethics standard-setting organizations representing 17 jurisdictions.

    We spontaneously dubbed this four-way dialogue (IAASB + IESBA + national audit & assurance + ethics standards setters) a “quadrilogue”. The name has stuck—along with the goodwill the event created!

    The discussions marked the beginning of an exploratory and evolutionary process for the IAASB and IESBA to work with national standard setters, and for national standard setters to work with each other, to consider new ideas in pursuit of mutually shared objectives.

    The meeting advanced already-significant IAASB and IESBA coordination efforts, which acknowledge the importance of audit and ethics standards to audit quality. The meeting facilitated further collaboration between a number of national audit & assurance standard setters and the IAASB, as well as identifying ways national standard setters can work more effectively together in the interests of international standard setting.

    Some important themes emerged from the “quadrilogue”:

    • The value of continued IAASB and IESBA coordination, the significant advances made to-date, and how it serves as a catalyst for national coordination;
    • The importance of early coordination between our two boards, and increased stakeholder communications about it;
    • Recognition that it is important to identify the areas where four-way engagement makes most sense; and
    • Quality management within accountancy firms, implications of technology developments, stakeholder engagement, and enhanced implementations activities are possible topics for further exploration.


    Yours sincerely,

    Arnold Schilder and Stavros Thomadakis
    IAASB and IESBA Chairs