Russell Golden named next FASB Chair

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23 Apr 2013

The Financial Accounting Foundation (FAF) has announced that the next Chair of the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) will be Russell G. Golden. Effective 1 July 2013, Mr Golden will be succeeding the current Chair Leslie F. Seidman.

Mr Golden’s first term as Chair will last until 30 June 2017, where he will be eligible for a second term lasting three years.

Mr Golden was a partner in Deloitte & Touche LLP prior to joining the FASB as a senior technical advisor in 2004. In July 2007, he was appointed director of technical application and implementation activities for the FASB. From 2008 to September 2010, he was the technical director of the FASB and chaired the FASB’s Emerging Issues Task Force. Since September 2010, Mr Golden has served as a FASB board member.

A press release on this announcement is available on the FAF website.

In a conference call held soon after the announcement, Mr Golden commented that his initial priorities will be completion of the four MOU projects with the IASB (financial instruments, revenue recognition, leases and insurance), and a focus on improving accounting for United States private companies.

In discussing convergence of accounting standards, Mr Golden noted the importance of the FASB and IASB remaining committed to converged solutions, including in the longer term. He pointed out that significant progress had been made in many areas over a number of years, notwithstanding a recent focus on differences in the IASB and FASB's proposals on financial instruments impairment.

Mr Golden further commented:

I believe convergence is extremely important, and I've been working on it here as a member of the FASB staff and a member of the FASB board. I'm looking forward to working with the IASB to try to arrive at improved converged conclusions. I think the fact that the FASB was invited to join the Accounting Standards Advisory Forum is a good thing. I think that participating in this is consistent with the FASB's long-term objective of promoting greater convergence in financial accounting standards, with the ultimate goal of achieving agreement and acceptance of those standards across the globe.

In response to a question about potential conflicts between globally converged outcomes and local constituent needs, Mr Golden stressed that "every attempt" should be made to develop converged solutions, but concluded "while it's important to consider convergence, what is most important in my mind is that we are developing improved solutions for our various stakeholders".

We are grateful to the United States Financial Accounting Foundation (FAF) for permission to post information from the FASB – New FASB Chair conference call.

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