The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has appointed Steven Richards as special adviser to Chairman James Doty, effective at the end of March. He will join the PCAOB with Samantha Ross, special counsel to the chairman.

Richards served at the Securities and Exchange Commission as assistant chief accountant in the Division of Enforcement from 2004 to 2008. He was responsible for investigating a variety of high profile matters involving complex technical accounting, financial reporting and disclosure issues, as well as the evaluation of the adequacy of procedures performed by independent auditors. 

He joins the PCAOB from the Washington, D.C., office of FTI Consulting, where he was a managing director in the forensic and litigation consulting segment. He assisted boards, special committees and trustees with complex, fact-finding accounting investigations, most involving SEC enforcement and financial reporting issues. Most recently, he was a key member of the forensic investigations team retained by the Trustee on the Bernard Madoff matter.