Francine McKenna

Francine McKenna is an independent journalist who authors the newsletter, The Dig, covering accounting, audit and corporate governance issues at public and pre-IPO companies. She was previously the Transparency reporter at MarketWatch, a leading online financial news outlet published by Dow Jones & Co., where she covered financial regulation and legislation beginning in 2015. Her work has been featured frequently in The Wall Street Journal and Barron’s; her reporting and commentary have also been featured in the Financial Times, Accountancy Age, Accountancy Magazine, the University of Chicago Booth School of Business Chicago Booth Review magazine, and various other financial, media, and technology publications. She previously authored regular columns on corporate accounting issues for Forbes and on the intersection of financial services and professional services for American Banker. McKenna was a Journalist in Residence at the Stigler Center at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business in 2017. McKenna is an adjunct professor in international business in the MBA program at American University’s Kogod School of Business. Her perspective as an financial journalist and commentator is informed by more than 25 years of experience in executive roles in professional services, financial services, and manufacturing firms. In 2006, McKenna created the blog re: The Auditors to explore in an independent, objective, and often critical way the role, responsibility, and regulation of the audit and accounting industry in the global capital markets, and in particular, the business of the Big Four audit firms. Prior to transitioning to journalism beginning in 2006, McKenna was a director in PwC’s internal audit and governance advisory services group, where she audited PwC’s post-Sarbanes-Oxley response to heightened compliance and regulatory scrutiny. Before that, she was regional vice president for the Midwest at Jefferson Wells (a subsidiary of Manpower); led the industrial, automotive, and transportation practice as BearingPoint’s (formerly KPMG Consulting) first female managing director in Latin America; and directed the Y2K project management office for JPMorgan Chase’s Latin America operations.

Elon Musk Wants to Get Paid. He Will Get His 2019 Bonus Thanks to an Accounting Magic

In March 2018, Tesla’s Board of Directors granted Musk a potential bonus of 20,264,042 stock option awards under a  plan that uses “adjusted EBITDA” as one...

How Regulators and PwC Fooled Reporters—Again

Is the PCAOB really investigating PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) for its role in the Mattel auditing mess? I may be wrong, but I seriously doubt it....

Big Four Audit Firms Enjoy a “Too Few to Fail” Regulatory Hall Pass

The failure of Enron and subsequent demise of Arthur Andersen led to significant changes for public reporting and auditing but not much change in...

Will PwC Throw the Red Card on its Swiss Firm Over FIFA?

PwC took over as auditor of the corruption-plagued global football body last year, with the intention of  reforming it. So how is it that...

How the Global Audit Firms, Led by Deloitte, Are Using Their Lobbying Clout to Dilute Sarbanes-Oxley Reforms

A look at the Big Four’s congressional lobbying activity shows the auditors and their trade association taking advantage of the “Trump” window to roll...

Latest news

The Kroger-Albertsons Merger Threatens Smaller Upstream Suppliers

Much of the conversation of the proposed Kroger-Albertsons merger has focused on the risks to consumers. However, the merger also poses serious implications for the grocers’ upstream suppliers, particularly smaller regional firms.

Why Have Uninsured Depositors Become De Facto Insured?

Due to a change in how the FDIC resolves failed banks, uninsured deposits have become de facto insured. Not only is this dangerous for risk in the banking system, it is not what Congress intends the FDIC to do, writes Michael Ohlrogge.

Merger Law Reaches Acquirer Incentives and Private Equity Strategies

Steven C. Salop argues that Section 7 of the Clayton Act prohibits mergers in which the acquiring firm’s unilateral incentives and business strategy are likely to lessen market competition.

Tim Wu Responds to Letter by Former Agency Chief Economists

Former special assistant to the president for technology and competition policy Tim Wu responds to the November 27 letter signed by former chief economists at the Federal Trade Commission and Justice Department Antitrust Division calling for a separation of the legal and economic analysis in the draft Merger Guidelines.

Can the Public Moderate Social Media?

ProMarket student editor Surya Gowda reviews the arguments made by Paul Gowder in his new book, The Networked Leviathan: For Democratic Platforms.

Uninhibited Campaign Donations Risks Creating Oligarchy

In new research, Valentino Larcinese and Alberto Parmigiani find that the 1986 Reagan tax cuts led to greater campaign spending from wealthy individuals, who benefited the most from this policy. The authors argue that a very permissive system of political finance, combined with the erosion of tax progressivity, created the conditions for the mutual reinforcement of economic and political disparities. The result was an inequality spiral hardly compatible with democratic ideals.

Did the Meme Stock Revolution Actually Change Anything?

Many financial commentators thought that the surge of retail investors participating in the stock market, the most notable of whom boosted “meme stocks” like GameStop, would democratize corporate governance and improve prosocial firm behavior, including the promotion of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals. In new research, Dhruv Aggarwal, Albert H. Choi, and Yoon-Ho Alex Lee find evidence that the exact opposite took place.