Anne-Marie Vitale has been appointed as the new chair of the IAESB and, effective 1 January 2016, will succeed outgoing chair Chris Austin, who has served in the role for four year.
Vitale will continue in her role as chair of the International Accountancy Education Advisory Group. She is currently an audit partner in PwC’s Office of the General Counsel, in a forensic capacity.
Previously, she was a learning and development leader for the firm’s assurance practice, having worked there for more than 27 years. Vitale is a member of the American Institute of CPAs the California Society of CPAs, a certified global management consultant, and on the board of directors of non-profit organisation Silicon Valley Directors’ Exchange.
Richard Houston has been appointed as the new chief executive of Deloitte North West Europe (NWE) and UK and will replace David Sproul, effective 1 June 2019.
Houston is currently managing partner for the firm's NWE and UK consulting business after taking up the role in 2015. He is also a senior partner within the financial services consulting team, having been made partner in 2002. Sproul has more than 20 years' experience in consulting, and started his career at HSBC and Royal Bank of Scotland, later joining Arthur Andersen in 1996 and becoming partner in 1998.
Megan Zeitsman has been named as the new chief auditor of the Public Company Accounting Oversights Board (PCAOB) and is expected to take up the role early next year. Zeitsman will replace PCAOB deputy chief auditor Barbara Vanich, who has been acting chief auditor for the past six months.
Zeitsman has more than 30 years’ experience within audit and is currently deputy chair of the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board, which she has served on since 2014. She also served on the American institute of Certified Public Accountants’ Auditing Standards Board between 2007 and 2011. She is a certified public accountant is currently a partner in Deloitte’s professional practice network, having been with the Big Four firm since joining Deloitte South Africa in 1989. She later moved to New York and joined the firm’s international operations group in 1994 and the transactions services group in 1998.
The appointment comes more than six months after Martin Baumann, who had been in the role since 2009, announced he was quitting among an exodus of senior staff from the accounting watchdog in the wake of a new board being appointed.
Andy Agg has been appointed as CFO of the UK energy provider and as of 1 January 2019 will become executive director and a member of the Finance Committee as well as continuing as a member of the Group Executive Committee.
Agg has been interim CFO of the company since July this year. He became group tax and treasury director in 2016 and previously was UK CFO.
Lindsay Dixon has been appointed as CFO of the Scottish media company and in Q2 of next year will replace outgoing CFO George Watt’s, who has announced his intention to step down from the role.
Dixon, a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants Scotland, is currently group financial controller at premium spirits company William Grant & Sons and was previously group finance controller at global engineering company the Weir Group. She spent more than four years as group head of finance at media group Johnston Press – which last month entered into administration – and prior to this was a senior audit manager at Big Four firm Deloitte.
Nick Stone has been appointed as the new finance director of the marine industry services company and will take up the role upon leaving his current job expected in Q2 2019.
Stone, ACA, is currently CFO at travel and event management company the Appointment Group, where he has been for two years. Previously he was interim CFO of fund manager Crown Agency, and group finance director at hobby and toy company Hornby Hobbies. He has held a number of other senior finance roles and was operations and finance director at KBC Advanced technologies, interim CFO at Accidentcare group and UK FD of Lambert Fenchurch Group. Stone spent four years at Lybrand & Cooper (now PwC) where he trained as a chartered accountant.