Australian Government
Auditing and Assurance Standards Board
Thursday, September 21, 2023
On 20 September 2023, the Assistant Treasurer announced the appointment of Mr Doug Niven FCA as the full-time Chair and CEO of the Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (AUASB) for a period of 5 years. Doug has been Acting Chair since 31 July 2023.
Mr Niven has more than 40 years of experience in financial reporting and audit. He was previously Chief Accountant of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC). Further background information on Mr Niven appears below.
As the AUASB Chair, Mr Niven has also been appointed as a member of the Financial Reporting Council and will also be appointed as a member of the New Zealand Auditing and Assurance Standards Board.
We thank Mr Bill Edge who was AUASB Chair from 1 January 2021 to 30 June 2023 for his contribution to auditing and assurance standard setting. We continue to collaborate with Mr Edge in his continuing role as a member of the International Auditing and Assurance Board to 31 December 2024.
Background on Mr Niven
Mr Niven was previously Chief Accountant of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) where he was responsible for strategy and policy on financial reporting and audit, complex and technical accounting and audit matters and issues, external stakeholder liaison, and decisions on ASIC financial reporting and audit surveillance matters. He also had operational responsibility for ASIC’s financial reporting and audit surveillances from 2008 to 2021 and continued to have a key role in those programs.
Among other matters, Mr Niven was responsible for developing ASIC’s regulatory guidance on non-IFRS financial information, the operating and financial review, the role of directors in supporting audit quality, impairment guidance for directors and communicating ASIC audit findings to directors.
Mr Niven was a member of Committee 1 of the International Organisation of Securities Commissions on Accounting, Audit and Disclosure (IOSCO C1), the IOSCO Sustainability Technical Review Coordination Group, the IOSCO Sustainability Assurance Working Group, the IOSCO ISSB Protocols Working Group and the International Forum of Independent Audit Regulators (IFIAR).
Mr Niven was a member of the IFIAR Global Audit Quality Working Group which met with the largest six firms globally to discuss initiatives to improve audit quality. He was also a member of the IOSCO Auditing and Accounting Subcommittees, the IFIAR Board, the IFIAR Global Audit Quality Working Group, the IFIAR Standards Coordination Working Group, the IFIAR Enforcement Working Group, the IFIAR Inspection Survey Task Force and the IFIAR Sustainability Task Force. He represented IOSCO Committee 1 at the Monitoring Group during the development of the reforms of the international auditing and ethical standard setting arrangements.
Mr Niven was a past Chair of the IOSCO Auditing Subcommittee, the IOSCO IFRS Information Sharing Subcommittee and the IFIAR International Cooperation Working Group.
Mr Niven joined ASIC in 1998 and was at Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu from 1983 where he audited companies in the financial services sector and other industries.