Teresa S. Polley is stepping down as president and CEO of the Financial Accounting Foundation.
The Norwalk-based nonprofit is responsible for the oversight of the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB), and their advisory councils.
Polley joined the organization in 1987 as a technical associate for the FASB and became controller at the FAF in 1990. She returned to the FASB as executive director of advisory groups in 1999 before being named the foundation”™s president in 2008 and CEO in 2010.
In a 2017 interview with the Business Journal, Polley noted that the U.S. example of having accounting standards set by a nongovernmental entity instead of a federal agency is an exception to the approach taken by other countries, but U.S. law requires that most entities follow these standards.
“For companies that list on public exchanges, they are mandatory,” Polley said of the standards. “If they want to have audited financial statements that indicate their statements are prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles, they are mandatory. The ones that don”™t necessarily have to follow GAAP are private companies, but they may have another basis of accounting because their bank lender doesn”™t require GAAP financial statements.”
FAF Vice President and General Counsel John W. Auchincloss will serve as acting president at the conclusion of Polley”™s tenure until a permanent replacement is named.
