PCAOB Chairman Logothetis Speaks to ICGN’s Autumn Conference

Remarks as prepared for delivery

Good morning, everyone. Jen (Sisson), thank you for that kind introduction and the invitation to be here today, and most importantly, for the important role you play in our work at the PCAOB.

Jen serves on both our Investor Advisory Group (IAG) and our Inspections Modernization Council (IMC), and we are grateful for the time, experience, and investor perspective she brings to those conversations.

That kind of engagement is incredibly valuable to us. It helps ensure we are hearing directly from investors as we think about where the PCAOB needs to go and how our oversight can be more useful to the people we are here to serve.

Before I begin, please know that my remarks reflect my individual views as Chairman of the PCAOB and do not necessarily reflect the views of the full Board, my fellow Board Members, or the PCAOB’s dedicated staff.

It is particularly meaningful to speak with this group because investors are at the center of the PCAOB’s mission.

And I know that for many of you, audit quality is not an abstract regulatory issue. Reliable financial reporting informs investment decisions, supports effective stewardship, and gives investors greater confidence in the information they use to allocate capital.

And high quality, independent audits are an important part of making that system work.

That is why I believe our work at the PCAOB and your work as investors and stewards of capital are closely connected.

ICGN has long emphasized the importance of reliable reporting, effective governance, and investor stewardship in supporting strong markets and long-term value creation.

Those are objectives both of our organizations share.

And today, I want to talk about what the PCAOB is doing to strengthen that foundation and how we are working to become a more modern, responsive, and effective regulator.

Listening to Investors

Since becoming Chairman earlier this year, one of my priorities has been to listen.

I spend roughly a third of my time engaging directly with stakeholders, and investor engagement is particularly important to me.

Because if our mission is investor protection, investors need to have a meaningful voice in our work.

That doesn't mean we will always agree. And it doesn't mean every suggestion we receive will become policy. But it does mean we need to understand what investors need from us.

What information about audit quality is useful?

What information isn't?

Where are investors seeing risks developing?

And how can the PCAOB make its work more relevant and more useful to the people our mission is designed to protect?

Those conversations are helping shape the PCAOB’s 2026-2030 Strategic Plan.

This year, for the first time ever, we opened our strategic planning process to public input at multiple stages. We also sought feedback on our standard-setting, research, and rulemaking priorities.

I want to thank ICGN for engaging with us through that process. Your perspective is particularly useful because it is global. The capital markets don't stop at national borders, and neither does auditing.

We need to understand what investors are seeing across markets and jurisdictions, where regulatory approaches are working well, and where greater consistency or cooperation may benefit investors.

A More Modern Approach to Audit Quality

One of the most important changes underway at the PCAOB is our standard governing audit firms’ systems of quality control, QC 1000.

The basic idea is straightforward: we want firms to have strong systems that support high-quality audits consistently, not just mechanisms for fixing problems after they happen. That means looking more broadly at the environment in which audits are performed: leadership, culture, resources, independence, monitoring, and how firms identify and address risks to audit quality.

QC 1000 takes effect on December 15, 2026.

And as we prepared for implementation, we listened.

In September, the Board adopted targeted amendments designed to make the standard more workable and better aligned, where appropriate, with other quality management standards while maintaining its investor-protection objectives. The SEC approved this final standard earlier this week.

I think the principle behind that is important. Strong regulation doesn't mean regulation that never changes. We should be willing to look at our own work, consider the evidence, listen to stakeholders, and make improvements when improvements are warranted.

That is especially important in a global profession.

ICGN itself has emphasized the importance of standards that are practical, globally relevant, and capable of broad adoption, while preserving independence and the public-interest focus of standard setting.

I believe we should be looking for opportunities to reduce unnecessary differences across frameworks where doing so makes sense, while never losing sight of our statutory mission to protect investors.

Making Our Work More Transparent

Another thing we have consistently heard from stakeholders is the need for greater transparency around our priorities.

I agree.

Investors should be able to understand why we are pursuing a particular standard-setting project, what problem we are trying to solve, where that project stands, and what we expect it to accomplish.

That is one reason we took the unprecedented step this year of putting our standard-setting, research, and rulemaking agendas out for public comment—again, for the first time ever.

And now we are developing ways to bring more structure and transparency to those agendas going forward.

For me, transparency isn't simply about telling people what we are doing. It is also about creating accountability for whether what we are doing is achieving the intended result.

That distinction is important.

As regulators, we should not measure success simply by what we produce. We should measure success by the outcomes our work helps achieve.

For the PCAOB, the ultimate outcome is high-quality audits that investors can trust.

Technology and Super Intelligence

That brings me to technology.

I don't think any conversation about the future of auditing can avoid artificial intelligence or as we like to call it, “Super Intelligence.”

Technology is rapidly changing how audits are planned, performed, reviewed, and documented, which is creating tremendous opportunities.

Technology can allow auditors to analyze more information, identify patterns more efficiently, and focus their attention on areas of greater risk.

But it also raises important questions.

Are auditors appropriately testing the information produced by these tools?

Are they maintaining professional skepticism?

Do they understand the technology well enough to challenge its results?

And as auditors change how they work, do our standards still make sense?

Those are questions the PCAOB needs to understand before we rush to answer them.

Our role should not be to stand in the way of innovation. Our role is to understand innovation well enough to determine where our oversight needs to evolve.

I often describe auditing as part science and part art. Technology will increasingly assist with the science. It can analyze data. It can identify patterns. It can automate tasks.

But the art remains fundamentally human.

Professional judgment. Professional skepticism. Understanding context. Recognizing when something doesn't make sense. Having the confidence to ask another question.

Super Intelligence can augment those qualities, but it cannot replace them.

That is why we are bringing more current practice and technology experience directly into the PCAOB.

We recently welcomed our first two Audit Practitioner Fellows who are seasoned auditors working with our Office of the Chief Auditor to help ensure our thinking remains grounded in the realities of today's audits.

We also recently hired David Yancey as Special Advisor for Technology Modernization and Innovation to advise the Board as we consider how technology can improve both auditing and our own oversight.

The important point is this: we cannot effectively oversee tomorrow's audits using yesterday's understanding of technology.

We have to evolve, too.

Modernizing Inspections

That same thinking is driving our approach to inspections.

The PCAOB’s inspection program has contributed significantly to audit quality over the past two decades. But we should always be asking how it can be better.

As QC 1000 takes effect, we have an opportunity to look more broadly at the systems that produce audit quality within firms.

That is a meaningful shift.

If we can understand where risks to audit quality are emerging earlier, we should have a better opportunity to address those risks before they become broader problems.

That is where technology and better use of data can also make a real difference.

We want our inspectors to be able to identify patterns and make connections across audits, across firms, and over time. Ultimately, the goal is smarter oversight.

But there is another piece of inspections modernization that I think is especially relevant to this audience: What information should investors receive from us?

An inspection report may contain a great deal of information. But volume is not the same thing as usefulness. We need to think about whether our reporting helps investors understand what matters.

Does it provide sufficient context?

Does it help investors distinguish between different types of findings?

Does it illuminate broader issues of audit quality?

And does it help investors have more meaningful conversations with companies and their audit committees?

Those are questions we are actively considering.

This year, we created an Inspections Modernization Council to bring outside perspectives into that work. Its discussions have included a QC-informed approach to inspections, technology, inspection reporting, and remediation.

We have made discussion materials from that work publicly available. And I would encourage investors in this room to engage with us as this work moves forward.

My hope is that 2027 will be a transformation year and that in 2028 we will begin seeing the fuller benefits of these modernization efforts.

A Global Perspective

There is one other point I want to emphasize with this audience.

Audit quality is inherently global. Companies operate across borders. Investors allocate capital globally. Audits frequently involve firms and professionals working across multiple jurisdictions.

That means cooperation among regulators and standard setters matters. It also means unnecessary fragmentation can create complexity without necessarily producing better investor outcomes.

The PCAOB has a unique statutory mission, and there will be times when our standards or oversight appropriately reflect the particular requirements of the U.S. capital markets.

But where we can achieve greater alignment without compromising investor protection, I believe it deserves serious consideration.

That is part of being an effective regulator in a global capital market.

Keeping Investors at the Center

Let me close where I started: investors.

ICGN defines stewardship as the responsible allocation, management, and oversight of capital to protect and enhance long-term value for beneficiaries and clients.

There is an important connection between that responsibility and ours.

You need reliable information to make decisions. You need confidence that financial reporting has been subjected to a rigorous, independent audit. And you need confidence in the institutions responsible for overseeing that system.

Our responsibility at the PCAOB is to help earn and maintain that confidence.

So as we modernize our standards, rethink inspections, adapt to technology, and determine our priorities for the years ahead, we need investors at the table.

Tell us what information you need. Tell us what you find useful. Tell us what we can do better. And hold us accountable for whether the changes we make actually improve our effectiveness.

Because at the end of the day, standards, inspections, and enforcement are tools. The real measure of our success is whether our work contributes to higher quality audits, more reliable financial reporting, and greater confidence for investors.

That is the PCAOB I want us to continue building. One that listens broadly, adapts thoughtfully, recognizes the increasingly global and technological nature of the markets we oversee, and one that never loses sight of whom our mission is ultimately designed to serve: investors.

Thank you again for the opportunity to be with you today.

I look forward to our conversation.