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A Businessman Who Keeps the Books
(By Adam Rountree -- Bloomberg News)
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Hewitt's public speaking style resembles the direct, rhetoric-free patter of the Air Force captain he once was, not the policymaker who deftly balances competing interests.
Hewitt rankled investor groups and even officials inside his agency this year when he appeared to support granting accountants greater legal protection from shareholder lawsuits. He later asserted that only Congress had the authority to impose monetary caps on such cases. "Congress needs to take a hard look" at reforms, Hewitt said.
Beresford counts the flap over the litigation issue as a lesson learned. "I suspect he'll be more careful with things over time, the professor said, "which is unfortunate because you want people to say what they mean."
What Hewitt says matters. He controls the work of more than 60 accountants, oversees pressing questions posed by businesses and their auditors and passes judgment on the accounting that underlies the SEC's cases against executives and companies. His deputies, former Deloitte & Touche partner James Kroeker, former University of Southern California professor Zoe-Vonna Palmrose, and Joseph B. Ucuzoglu, a former senior manager at Deloitte & Touche, handle a substantial amount of the technical details.
Broad efforts to make U.S. accounting policies compatible with foreign counterparts, as well as scores of enforcement cases that involve executives tampering with stock option dates, are also part of their agenda.
Historically, the chief accountant also speaks to students and trade groups around the country, meets with supplicants on various issues and oversees the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, which regulates the audit industry.
Hewitt, his friends say, leaves little to chance. When he remarried two years ago he faxed a proposed wedding toast to his best man, saying only that he thought it would help.
He's approaching his job as a regulator in the same way. Asked whether he intends to stay at the SEC through the presidential election in 2008, Hewitt said with a smile, "I plan to be here. It'll take me that long to get everything halfway done."
