SEC names George Botic as acting chair of PCAOB

The Securities and Exchange Commission has tapped George Botic as acting chair of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, effective July 23, 2025, after Erica Williams steps down.

Williams was asked to resign last week by the new SEC chair Paul Atkins and her last day is Tuesday, July 22. She told Accounting Today in an interview about her hopes for the PCAOB to continue its work and its accomplishments.

"I thank Erica Williams for her dedicated service on the Board, and I look forward to working with George Botic as Acting Chair," Atkins said in a statement Monday.

"I am honored to work with the SEC and the staff of the PCAOB as Acting Chair to ensure that we meet the mission established by Congress," said Mr. Botic.

Botic is a CPA and became a PCAOB board member on Oct. 25, 2023. He has considerable experience on the board. Prior to joining the PCAOB, he served as director of the PCAOB's Division of Registration and Inspections, where he oversaw the registration and inspection of all domestic and foreign accounting firms that audit public companies whose securities trade in the U.S., as well as all broker-dealer audits. 

Botic previously served in various roles at the PCAOB, including as its director of the Office of International Affairs, special advisor to former PCAOB chairperson James R. Doty, and deputy director of the Registration and Inspections Division. Earlier in his career, Botic was a senior manager with PricewaterhouseCoopers. He is a graduate of Shepherd University and received a Master of Accountancy from Virginia Tech.

The leadership and membership of the PCAOB changed dramatically in both the first Trump administration and the Biden administration, when Williams was appointed chair in 2022. "This wasn't a surprise, and was the third time in a row that it's happened," said Steve Soter, former head of SEC reporting at Overstock and currently a vice president at the financial reporting technology company Workiva. "The real takeaway is that the fast-swinging pendulum of PCAOB rulemaking and enforcement inevitably comes back. With years-long workpaper retention requirements, there will be significant risk for auditors and their clients who don't stay focused on accounting and audit quality under the misperception that there's now an open window to relax."

He doubts that a CPA will remain in charge of the PCAOB. "PCAOB rules prohibit practicing CPAs from serving as chair, plus the reasons and optics for such a change would seem to favor an outsider," said Soter. "It seems likely that the future board will shift their current focus and be led by an industry outsider."

Richard Chambers, former president and CEO of The Institute of Internal Auditors and now senior advisor at AuditBoard, pointed to the history of the PCAOB as well as legislative changes. 

"We saw this happen shortly after Trump came in, and we saw it shortly after Biden took office," he said. "I think if there's any surprise, it's that it didn't happen sooner. But there was a lot of uncertainty about the legislative future of the PCAOB." 

Last month, the Senate Parliamentarian rejected a provision in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that would have folded the PCAOB and handed its responsibilities to the SEC, although it was part of the version of the bill passed by the House. 

"This is conjecture, but perhaps they were holding off until they could figure out what was going to happen with the proposal to dissolve the PCAOB," said Chambers. "I guess when that ended up not happening, thanks to the Senate Parliamentarian saying that couldn't be considered in the reconciliation bill, perhaps that's when the SEC chair decided that he would move forward, but it's certainly not unprecedented in terms of what's happened."

He is unsure how much the rest of the board will change. "What typically ends up happening is that the changes made with the chair, perhaps other board members, although I think it appears to be limited to the chair at this point, those changes are designed to ensure that the PCAOB is sort of operating within the regulatory philosophy of the SEC, which, of course, is operating within the regulatory philosophy of the administration," said Chambers. "If you look back at the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the way it's set up, the governance structure over the PCAOB sort of ensured this kind of connection over the long term between the regulatory philosophy and the SEC would be reflected in the PCAOB. I don't think we saw the direct connection as much as we have maybe in the last few years. Certainly we didn't see it as much in the early years of the SEC-PCAOB relationship. But I think we now see that they're very closely linked."

In keeping with the Trump administration's deregulatory priorities, the PCAOB is likely to emphasize regulation less under its next permanent leader. "My instincts tell me we'll see it be less aggressive from a regulatory standpoint in the next couple of years than we might have seen over the last couple of years from Chairman Williams, and other members of the board," said Chambers. "It remains to be seen how that's going to change, but I do believe that we'll see a much different approach. That's got to be raising questions within the firms and and within the broader community of listed companies whose audits are subject to PCAOB oversight\. That's where people are going to need to reflect on what could a change mean, and what should their response be?"