Contact: Bill Caldwell, Office of Public Information, Pace University, 212-346-1597, wcaldwell@pace.edu

Notes: This event is by invitation only. Members of the media must RSVP to attend. One-on-one interviews with the speakers may be possible. Email wcaldwell@pace.edu.

What Should the SEC Do About Accounting?

Conrad W. Hewitt and Lynn E. Turner, former chief accountants at U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, to discuss SEC role in accounting with NY Times Floyd Norris at Pace University Lubin Breakfast, Wednesday, March 4

Contentious issues in transition to international rules to be examined

New York, NY – February 9, 2009 – As the accounting world moves toward the biggest changes in decades with global acceptance of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), Conrad W. Hewitt and Lynn E. Turner, former chief accountants at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, will address specific topics of interest to a group of invited practitioners at Pace University’s second Lubin Breakfast on Contemporary Accounting Issues.

Hewitt and Turner will be interviewed by Floyd Norris, Chief Financial Correspondent of The New York Times.

Before the Obama administration took over, the SEC had proposed that all U.S. companies be required to switch to IFRS beginning in 2014.

The discussion will focus on the SEC’s role in accounting and where it should go from here, providing insights into the challenges confronting the new SEC chairman and President Barack Obama as they strive to lead the country out of the current financial crisis.

The event takes place Wednesday, March 4, 8:00 a.m. - 9:30 a.m. at Ernst & Young, 22nd Floor Café, 5 Times Square (Seventh Avenue between 41st and 42nd Streets), New York City.

It is part of Lubin’s ongoing effort to prepare students and leaders of international business to deal with the increasing worldwide use of the IFRS. The school’s annual Lubin Forum on Contemporary Accounting Issues, on April 30, will feature, among other notables, Robert Herz, Chairman of the Financial Accounting Standards Board and Tom Jones, Vice Chairman of the International Accounting Standards Board discussing the IFRS on the theme of “Going from the Talk to Doing the Walk.” More information is at http://www.pace.edu/lubin/accountingconference.

At the breakfast, contentious issues and challenges will be raised:

• Given the lack of uniformity in reporting across the globe, how concerned should the SEC be with the quality of financial statements issued under IFRS?

• Should U.S. companies be able to choose to report using either IFRS or U.S. GAAP? What are some capital market implications of this action?

• What should the SEC have done differently to mitigate or even prevent the financial crisis we now face?

• Should acceptance of IFRS be contingent on convergence of U.S. and IFRS standards?

• Should the new SEC chairman implement the road map laid out by former chairman Christopher Cox wherein all U.S. companies may be required to switch to IFRS beginning in 2014?

Media admission by press card. RSVP to wcaldwell@pace.edu. Phone: 212-346-1597.

BACKGROUND: Conrad W. Hewitt was the Chief Accountant of the SEC from 2006 to January 2009 -- the principal advisor to the Commission on accounting and auditing. Hewitt also was responsible for formulating and administering the accounting and auditing programs and policies of the Commission, and for the Commission’s oversight of FASB (Financial Accounting Standards Board) and the PCAOB (Public Company Accounting Oversight Board).

Before joining the SEC, Hewitt had over 30 years experience as a leader of one of the world’s largest accounting firms (Ernst & Young), as a financial institution regulator, as Chairman of 10 audit committees (four public companies) as a corporate director and as trustee of two pension plans and a charitable foundation.

From 1995 to 1998, Hewitt was the California Superintendent of Banking and Commissioner of the California Department of Financial Institutions, a department he created and served as its first Commissioner.

Hewitt began his career as an auditor in the U.S. Air Force at Strategic Air Command Headquarters, Omaha. He held the rank of Captain.

Lynn E. Turner was the Chief Accountant of the SEC from July 1998 to August 2001 and actively involved in the legislative process leading up to passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. In 2007, Treasury Secretary Paulson appointed him to the Treasury Committee on the Auditing Profession.

Since its inception, Turner has served on the Standards Advisory Group of the Public Companies Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), and he is a member of Financial Accounting Standards Board Investor Technical Advisory Committee. Previously he served as the SEC Observer to the FASB Emerging Issues Task Force and Financial Accounting Standards Advisory Council.

Turner serves as a senior advisor to Kroll, Inc., is on the board and audit committee of the Colorado Public Employees Retirement Association (COPERA), and is a trustee and chair of the audit committee of a mutual fund.

From 2003 to 2007, he was the managing director of research and officer of Glass Lewis & Co., an internationally recognized proxy and financial research firm, and was a professor of accounting at Colorado State University from 2001 to 2003. From 1996 to 1998, he was the Chief Financial Officer and Vice President of Symbios, Inc., an international semiconductor and storage manufacturer, after having been responsible for the high technology audit practice at the international audit firm now known as PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC).

Floyd Norris is the chief financial correspondent of The New York Times and the International Herald Tribune. His column appears in both papers on Fridays, and a weekly analysis of financial data, called “Off the Charts,” appears on Saturdays. His blog also appears on the New York Times web site, at http://norris.blogs.nytimes.com/.

Norris has worked for The Times since 1988, and spent 18 months in 2004-2005 based in Paris at the offices of the International Herald Tribune.

He has been a financial columnist for most of his career at The Times, although he spent more than a year in 1998 and 1999 as a member of The Editorial Board of The Times.

Before joining The Times, Norris had been with Barron’s National Business and Financial Weekly since December 1982, where he wrote “The Trader’’ column on the stock market.

Norris was the 2003 recipient of the Loeb Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award for exceptional career achievements in the field of business, financial and economic news. In 2001 he received the Gerald Loeb award for distinguished Business and Financial Journalism for his insightful columns educating investors about the complexities of Wall Street. In 1998, he was cited by the Financial Writers Association of New York for outstanding lifetime achievement. In 2008, he received the lifetime achievement award of the Society of American Business Editors and Writers.

The Lubin School of Business is accredited for both business and accounting by AACSB International, an elite distinction shared by fewer than 3 percent of business schools worldwide. With a tradition of practice-oriented curricula, the school has achieved national recognition for both its graduate and undergraduate programs in U.S.News & World Report and other media. Approximately 4,000 students are enrolled in Lubin’s undergraduate, graduate and professional degree programs in Downtown and Midtown New York City, and Pleasantville and White Plains in Westchester. Prominent alumni include Melvin Karmazin, CEO, Sirius Satellite Radio; James Quinn, president, Tiffany & Co.; Ivan Seidenberg, chairman and CEO, Verizon; Marie Toulantis, former-CEO, Barnes&Noble.com; and Richard Zannino, former-CEO, Dow Jones & Company. www.pace.edu/lubin.

For 102 years Pace University has produced thinking professionals by providing high quality professional education resting on a firm base of liberal learning, amid the advantages of the New York metropolitan area. A private university, Pace has campuses in New York City and Westchester County, New York, enrolling nearly 13,000 students in bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral programs in its Lubin School of Business, Dyson College of Arts and Sciences, Lienhard School of Nursing, School of Education, School of Law, and Seidenberg School of Computer Science and Information Systems. www.pace.edu

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