New York Federal Reserve Presi-dent William McDonough, who helped calm US financial markets after the biggest hedge-fund collapse in history, has been picked to lead a new board to restore faith in corporate audits.
McDonough, 68, the US central bank's liaison to Wall Street and the most influential Fed member after Chairman Alan Greenspan, won unanimous backing from the Securities and Exchange Commission to become chairman of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board.
The SEC chairman, William Donaldson, flanked by the four other commissioners, called McDonough the ideal choice to quiet investor fears after accounting scandals at Enron Corp, WorldCom Inc and other companies. McDonough said he will speed his planned Fed retirement so he can start his new job by late May.
"The task before us is to restore the confidence of the American people and others around the world that the accounting statements issued by public companies registered in our country, and certified by public accounting firms present a complete, true and timely report that can be trusted,'' McDonough said on Tuesday.
The oversight board, given the power to police the accounting profession, was the centerpiece of last year's Sarbanes-Oxley cor-porate-governance law.
McDonough's appointment -- praised by Wall Street executives, investor advocates and lawmakers -- could take the spotlight off the board itself, which has oper-ated in controversy since it was formed in October. The group has been without a chairman since former FBI director William Webster quit in November.
McDonough is ``a superstar with absolute integrity,'' said New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. "This will go a long way toward getting this organization going."
RSS