Anyone involved in the financial reporting process deals daily with the hard realities of complexity and rapid change — whether you are a preparer of financial statements, a board or audit committee member, an investor, an independent or internal auditor, a counselor, or a regulator.

Commercial activity is increasingly global. Some financial instruments and transactions are bafflingly complex with values that can only be estimated. Standard setters in the United States and abroad are moving away from historical cost accounting toward fair value accounting, requiring difficult estimates. There is a plethora of new rules and requirements growing out of the Dodd-Frank and JOBS acts in the United States, and all of this is happening in what since 2008 has been the most difficult global economic environment since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Much as we struggle with these rapid changes and their complexity, regulators also struggle to see around the curve, to be prepared for what is coming tomorrow, and to have tools in their toolbox that will be appropriate for those challenges. In the next session of today’s conference, I will discuss a number of specific initiatives the PCAOB is undertaking to deal with some of these challenges, but in this address I want to focus on one specific area, the challenge of globalization and cross-border financial reporting, auditing and audit oversight.

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