Perspectives

Read Cindy Fornelli’s perspectives on audit-related issues

Cindy Fornelli is the Executive Director for the Center for Audit Quality (CAQ). The CAQ was founded to serve investors, public company auditors and the markets.

The Center is dedicated to enhancing investor confidence and public trust in the global capital markets by fostering high quality performance by public company auditors; convening and collaborating with other stakeholders to advance the discussion of critical issues requiring action and intervention; and advocating policies and standards that promote public company auditors’ objectivity, effectiveness and responsiveness to dynamic market conditions.

As the Executive Director, Fornelli is responsible for carrying out the mission and vision of the Center's Governing Board, which represents the public company auditing firms, the American Institute of CPAs and independent public members.

In 2009, she was honored by Directorship magazine as one of 100 most influential people on corporate governance and in the boardroom for the second consecutive year and Accounting Today named her to the list of the most influential people in accounting for the third year in a row. She served on the National Association of Corporate Directors’ 2009 Blue Ribbon Commission on Risk Governance and is a member of the Securities and Exchange Commission Historical Society’s Board of Advisors’ class of 2012.

A frequent guest speaker and panelist at prominent business community events, she has been interviewed or quoted by media outlets including Fox Business Channel, National Public Radio, USA Today, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, the Associated Press, Reuters, Dow Jones Newswires and Bloomberg News.

Prior to becoming the Center’s Executive Director, Fornelli was the Regulatory and Conflicts Management Executive at Bank of America. In that role, she was responsible for managing enterprise-wide conflicts that potentially could arise from the bank's delivery of multiple products and services across several business divisions, particularly as these conflicts related to securities regulation. Fornelli also had responsibility for coordinating enterprise regulatory relations with securities and banking regulators.

Before joining Bank of America, Fornelli was Deputy Director of the Division of Investment Management of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, where she was responsible for implementing SEC policy, rules and regulations in the investment company and investment advisory industries.