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William Powers

Deputy Director (Retired)
PCAOB
Mr. Powers is a retired Deputy Director in the Division of Registration and Inspection of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB). During his 17 years of experience at the PCAOB, Mr. Powers designed, implemented, and managed the Information Systems Audit Inspection team. During his tenure with the PCAOB, Mr. Powers co-led the implementation of Auditing Standard No. 5, _An Audit of Internal Control Over Financial Reporting That is Integrated with an Audit of Financial Statements_ (now AS 2201). In this role, he trained the PCAOB Inspection staff and worked closely with public accounting firms on their audit methodologies related to their implementation of AS No. 5. He has conducted many inspections of smaller and mid-sized accounting firm audits performed under AS No. 5, and has significant experience and expertise related to audit risk assessments, effective design and operation of internal controls, and evaluating managements' testing of internal controls. Prior to his career at the PCAOB, Mr. Powers was a partner and National Director of IS Audit at BDO Seidman, LLP. In this role, he developed and implemented an IS Audit team that supported audits of financial statements. He was instrumental in integrating IS audit activities into audits of financial statements. The IS audit team tested the design and operating effectiveness of internal controls in the IS environment to improve audit efficiency and audit quality. Before joining BDO Seidman, LLP, Mr. Powers worked for Coopers & Lybrand, LLP. He worked with prominent audit partners to develop and implement methodologies for IS auditors to identify and evaluate general IT controls and information-processing controls. Mr. Powers began his career at IBM, working as a systems engineer and a systems engineering manager. In those roles he assisted clients to select and implement information systems that provided effective solutions in a variety of industries and business environments. He is a graduate of Adelphi University with a BA in Mathematics.