Sarbanes-Oxley Expert to Speak at UB School of Management

By Jacqueline Molik Ghosen

BUFFALO, N.Y. – Mary M. Sjoquist of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) will speak at the University at Buffalo School of Management on “PCAOB Regulation in a Challenging Global Environment.”

The lecture will be held at 5 p.m. on March 18 in 106 Jacobs Management Center, on the UB’s North (Amherst) Campus.

The (PCAOB) is a private, nonprofit corporation created by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 to oversee the auditors of public companies. It was created to protect investors and the public interest by promoting informative, fair and independent audit reports.

Sjoquist is special counsel to PCAOB board member Bill Gradison. She works with the board and the staff of the PCAOB in formulating the rules required by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, new and revised auditing standards and other policies affecting registered public accounting firms.

Prior to joining the PCAOB, Sjoquist was a partner at Patton Boggs LLP, a large national law firm, where she was chair of the firm’s Business Practice Group. She has been a securities practitioner for more than 25 years and has focused her practice on securities offering, mergers and acquisitions, representation of public companies reporting to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), crisis management and corporate governance. She also has spent four years with the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance.

Sjoquist has spoken nationally and internationally on PCAOB matters, corporate governance, crisis management and securities regulation. She has a JD from the Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law, and a bachelor’s from the University of Waterloo, Canada.

Reservations are required by March 4 for this free lecture and can be made by contacting Janet Kiefer at 716-645-3290.

Sjoquist’s visit will be sponsored by the “Helen and Oscar Sufrin Lectureship in Accounting and Finance,” which brings distinguished business professionals to the UB School of Management to speak in the areas of accounting, finance, financial economics or financial management.

Funding for the lectureship is provided through the generous support of Leslie Sufrin, C.P.A., and Gerald Sufrin, M.D., a long-time UB professor, in honor of their late parents.

The Wall Street Journal has ranked the UB School of Management No. 9 in the nation among schools with strong regional recruiting bases. In addition, BusinessWeek has ranked the school as one of the country's top 5 business schools for the fastest return on MBA investment, and Forbes cited it as one of the best business schools in the U.S. for the return on investment it provides MBA graduates. For more information about the UB School of Management, visit mgt.buffalo.edu.

The University at Buffalo is a premier research-intensive public university, a flagship institution in the State University of New York system that is its largest and most comprehensive campus. UB’s more than 28,000 students pursue their academic interests through more than 300 undergraduate, graduate and professional degree programs. Founded in 1846, the University at Buffalo is a member of the Association of American Universities.