Expert Voices features interviews and guest contributions from former insiders, whistleblowers, academics, regulators and experienced practitioners. The series examines the structures, incentives and professional cultures behind events at Deloitte, PwC, EY and KPMG.
Contributors explore issues including audit liability, professional scepticism, regulatory gaps and the pressures that shape decision-making inside the Big Four. The aim is to move beyond surface-level reporting by drawing on direct experience and specialist insight into how these firms operate—and where their systems can fail.
Burnout, long hours and the Big Four people model
Former Deloitte Malta HR Manager Mikela Fenech Pace talks to Claudine Cassar about workplace culture, staff turnover, career progression & whether the traditional Big Four people model needs to change
Mauro Botta on PwC, PCAOB Inspections and the Audit File Problem
Mauro Botta speaks to Claudine Cassar about what an audit file may fail to reveal, the pressure surrounding material-weakness findings, and what PCAOB inspectors can realistically discover from the workpapers.
Pav Gill on Wirecard, Confide, and why whistleblowing hotlines are not enough
Pav Gill is a former Magic Circle lawyer and fintech general counsel, entrepreneur and keynote speaker, best known as the whistleblower who helped expose the fraud at Wirecard, one of Europe’s largest corporate scandals.
The whistleblower’s paradox: when professional services firms protect the wrong people
A guest essay by Josef Pilger, a former EY Global Pension and Retirement Leader with more than 30 years of international experience across governance, risk, pensions and retirement.
Dennis Beresford on the stock-options battle that tested FASB’s independence
The battle over how American companies accounted for employee stock options was one of the defining tests of independent accounting standard-setting in the 1990s.
AI Governance in Audit: Wayne Banks on What Firms Must Do to Protect Trust
Chartered accountant and former global CFO Wayne Banks talks to Claudine Cassar about Big Four AI adoption, board accountability, client data and the standards needed before AI influences audit work.
Capital and Consent in the Modern Partnership
A guest post by Peter Barta CA, a former Deloitte Principal and senior finance and commercial strategy executive with more than 25 years of global experience
Why Big Four liability caps undermine audit quality and fair competition
Professor Brendan Lyon speaks to Claudine Cassar about why he believes the CA ANZ Professional Standards Scheme weakens accountability and gives major firms an unfair competitive advantage
Why boards and Big Four firms often miss what’s really going on
In this interview, Christopher Bennett speaks with Claudine about the deeper questions behind corporate governance: who governance is really for, why formal structures can fail, and how independent directors should navigate the terrain of power, incentives, relationships and information control.
KPMG’s audits of three failed banks: what the 2025 minority Senate report reveals about whistleblower protections
A guest post by Abdelhamid Taha, member of the Secretariat of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Investment Fraud & Fairer Financial Services (writing in a personal capacity).
Big Four whistleblowers and the architecture of silence
A guest post by Abdelhamid Taha, a financial regulation specialist with over a decade of operational experience in AML and compliance at HSBC, including during the bank’s US Deferred Prosecution Agreement period. He is a Member of the Secretariat Committee of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Investment Fraud & Fairer Financial Services.
Whistleblowers, surveillance and silence: Andy Schmulow on the KPMG Australia scandal
Associate Professor Andy Schmulow is an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Wollongong, specialising in banking and financial regulation, conduct risk, and corporate governance. He has emerged as one of the most consistent and outspoken critics of practices within KPMG Australia.