How our Independent Audit Quality Committee strengthens our focus on audit quality

The Independent Audit Quality Committee (IAQC) provides essential guidance as Ernst & Young LLP (EY US) advances its bold vision for the future of audit with quality at the center. Drawing on the independent perspectives of the IAQC, we are continually innovating and investing in new technologies and talent to strengthen audit quality and build trust in the capital markets.

The IAQC offers independent counsel to EY US senior leadership on audit quality and audit practice related matters, including feedback and advice on operations, culture, governance, and risk management of the Firm’s audit business. The committee is composed of four external leaders whose diverse knowledge is highly relevant as EY US continues to innovate and enhance the audit experience for clients and professionals.

We are honored to have Carol Anthony (John) Davidson, Dina Dublon, Jeanette Franzel and Sharon Virag serving as IAQC members. Each brings a breadth of experience and a unique perspective that guides our ongoing efforts to strengthen audit quality across the firm.

Audit quality depends on a robust financial reporting ecosystem, including auditors, issuers, investors, regulators, audit committees and governance stewards. We believe that collaboration among these stakeholders is essential to promote audit quality and sustain strong capital markets and investor confidence.

In 2025, EY US announced that its transformation efforts have delivered a significant positive impact on audit quality. The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) inspection findings rate is expected to fall below 10%, which is among the best results the US firm has ever achieved. This improvement reflects our ongoing investments in technology, including innovative artificial intelligence (AI) tools, and our commitment to continuous improvement. Our journey continues with further investments designed to enhance the experience for our clients and our people.

In today’s dynamic environment, the IAQC’s independent advice is central to advancing EY US’s commitment to audit quality.

About the IAQC members:

Carol Anthony (John) Davidson

Davidson is Chair of the Board of Directors of TE Connectivity and a director of FMC Corporation. Previously, he was a director of International Flavors & Fragrances Inc., Pentair Ltd., Legg Mason, Inc., DaVita Inc. and Allergan Plc. Davidson also served on the board of governors of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) for more than five years and was a trustee and Vice Chair for the Financial Accounting Foundation. He is a certified public accountant and began his career in public accounting.

Davidson had a decades-long career as a financial executive. From January 2004 to September 2012, he was part of the new leadership team of Tyco International, a provider of diversified industrial products and services, serving as Senior Vice President, Controller and Chief Accounting Officer. Prior to Tyco International, Davidson held several executive roles at Dell Inc., including Vice President of Audit, Risk and Compliance, and Vice President and Corporate Controller.

Today, Davidson is a trusted emeritus for the University of Rochester, where he earned his MBA. Earlier, he served as a trustee for St. John Fisher University, where he graduated with a BS in Accounting.

Dina Dublon

Dublon is a member of the Board of Directors of PepsiCo and serves on the sustainability and public policy and compensation committees. She previously chaired the sustainability and public policy and audit committees. She is also a member of the board of T. Rowe Price Group, where she chairs the audit committee (as of May 2026) and is a member of the executive compensation and management development committee. In 2021, she joined the board of Motive Capital Corp II and served as chair of the audit committee.

Previously, Dublon was a director of Microsoft as the chair of compensation and an audit committee member, Accenture’s chair of Finance and a compensation committee member, and Deutsche Bank’s chair of the risk committee, as well as serving on the faculty of Harvard Business School. She was the Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at JPMorgan Chase & Co. where she held numerous positions, including Corporate Treasurer, Managing Director of the Financial Institutions Division and Head of Asset Liability Management.

Dublon chairs the Board of Advisors of Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and is on the board of the Hastings Center for Bioethics and the Westchester Land Trust.

Dublon received a bachelor’s degree in Economics and Math from Hebrew University, Jerusalem, and an MS from Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business.

Jeanette Franzel

Franzel is Vice Chair of the Independent Audit Advisory Committee (IAAC) of the United Nations. She is also a board member of the North Carolina CPA Foundation, and she is a member of the Center for Audit Excellence at the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), providing strategic and technical assistance to national government audit offices around the world.

Franzel was previously a member of the PCAOB, where she provided strategic oversight for all PCAOB mission programs to oversee the audits of public companies and brokers and dealers that file with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Franzel brought extensive audit experience to the PCAOB after a distinguished career at the U.S. GAO. She ended her tenure as Managing Director, overseeing all aspects of GAO’s financial audits of the U.S. federal government. During and after the financial crisis, Franzel’s team provided oversight of the U.S. government’s efforts to stabilize the financial markets and promote economic recovery. Franzel has testified numerous times before congressional committees and subcommittees on governance and accountability issues.

Franzel has a BA in Accounting and Spanish from the College of Saint Teresa and an MBA from George Mason University. She also completed the Senior Executive Fellows program at Harvard University. She is a certified public accountant and a certified internal auditor.

Sharon Virag

Virag is a seasoned finance and accounting executive with deep experience in audit quality, financial reporting and regulatory oversight. She has held senior leadership roles, including Chief Accounting Officer, Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice President of Finance and Operations at global and Fortune 50 companies, such as Aetna, AES Corporation, NeoGenomics and Genesys Cloud, as well as finance leadership roles at General Electric and General Motors.

Across these roles, she worked in multiple industries and gained extensive global leadership experience in Europe and Asia. She led complex financial reporting organizations, oversaw SOX compliance and internal control programs, managed IPO readiness and secondary offerings, and remediated material weaknesses and restatements, working closely with audit committees, independent directors and external auditors.

Virag also brings a distinctive regulatory perspective from her prior service at the PCAOB, where she served as Associate and Assistant Chief Auditor and Director of Technical Policy Implementation and played a key role in drafting and implementing Auditing Standard No. 5 (currently known as AS 2201) for internal control over financial reporting audits. She has also served on the Financial Accounting Standards Advisory Council (FASAC), the SEC Regulations Committee of the Center for Audit Quality and the Financial Executives International (FCI) Committee on Corporate Reporting (CCR).

She is a licensed certified public accountant in Arizona and a graduate of California State University, where she earned her bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and Accounting. She spent her early career in public accounting as an auditor with Deloitte and Grant Thornton.