Francine McKenna is an American investigative journalist, educator, blogger, and commentator focused on the accounting industry, specifically the Big Four global accounting firms. She has documented these firms' failures to identify problems in the accounting of international financial corporations. A registered

Certified Public Accountant Certified Public Accountant (CPA) is the title of qualified accountants in numerous countries in the English-speaking world. It is generally equivalent to the title of chartered accountant in other English-speaking countries. In the United Sta ...

in Illinois, McKenna is a full-tim
lecturer in financial accounting
at the

Wharton School The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania ( ; also known as Wharton Business School, the Wharton School, Penn Wharton, and Wharton) is the business school of the University of Pennsylvania, a private Ivy League research university in ...

and writes and issues the

Substack Substack is an American online platform that provides publishing, payment, analytics, and design infrastructure to support subscription newsletters. It allows writers to send digital newsletters directly to subscribers. Founded in 2017, Substack ...

newsletter
The Dig
', where she scrutinizes accounting, audit and

corporate governance Corporate governance is defined, described or delineated in diverse ways, depending on the writer's purpose. Writers focused on a disciplinary interest or context (such as accounting, finance, law, or management) often adopt narrow definitions ...

issues at public and pre-IPO companies. McKenna's work has been featured in ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'', ''

Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Nik ...

'',
Time
',
American Banker
', ''

Accountancy Age ''Accountancy Age'' is an online trade publication for accountants and financial staff in the United Kingdom. After running from 1969 to 2011 with a circulation of over 60,000 in print, it changed with effect from May 2011 to an online-only publ ...

'', '' Barron’s'', ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also r ...

'', and ''Accountancy'' magazine (UK). Prior to joining the Wharton School, McKenna was the Financial Transparency reporter for Dow Jones/

MarketWatch MarketWatch is a website that provides financial information, business news, analysis, and stock market data. Along with ''The Wall Street Journal'' and '' Barron's'', it is a subsidiary of Dow Jones & Company, a property of News Corp. Histo ...

. Prior to her appointment at Wharton, McKenna taught International Business in the MBA program at

American University The American University (AU or American) is a private federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C. Its main campus spans 90 acres (36 ha) on Ward Circle, mostly in the Spring Valley neighborhood of Northwest D.C. AU was cha ...

’s Kogod School of Business in Washington DC, taught graduate courses in

Accounting Ethics Accounting ethics is primarily a field of applied ethics and is part of business ethics and human ethics, the study of moral values and judgments as they apply to accountancy. It is an example of professional ethics. Accounting was introduced by ...

the Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publi ...

Fisher College of Business The Max M. Fisher College of Business is the business school of The Ohio State University, a public research university in Columbus, Ohio. Fisher's campus is located on the northern part of the university within a partially enclosed business ...

, and taught a course in reporting on corporate fraud at

Baylor University Baylor University is a private Baptist Christian research university in Waco, Texas. Baylor was chartered in 1845 by the last Congress of the Republic of Texas. Baylor is the oldest continuously operating university in Texas and one of th ...

. She has twice been a finalist for the Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Financial Journalism. In 2006, McKenna founded her first blog
RetheAuditors.com
', which the author of a business ethics textbook considers "should be on every corporate accountant and CPAs watchlist." Before turning to journalism and academia, McKenna spent more than 20 years in public accounting, internal audit, and consulting.

Education

McKenna earned her undergraduate degree in Management, Accounting and Economics at

Purdue University Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and ...

and her Master's in Liberal Arts at the University of Chicago. She holds a Certificate in Executive Education from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...

in leading professional services firms.

Career

McKenna began her career as an internal auditor at Continental Illinois National Bank and Trust in Chicago, and as an accounting manager, financial reporting manager and controller in private industry. She then moved into the professional services sector at

KPMG Consulting KPMG International Limited (or simply KPMG) is a multinational professional services network, and one of the Big Four accounting organizations. Headquartered in Amstelveen, Netherlands, although incorporated in London, England, KPMG is a netw ...

. She directed the project to address the

Y2K The year 2000 problem, also known as the Y2K problem, Y2K scare, millennium bug, Y2K bug, Y2K glitch, Y2K error, or simply Y2K refers to potential computer errors related to the formatting and storage of calendar data for dates in and after ...

for

JP Morgan JPMorgan Chase & Co. is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Investment banking, investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered in City of New York, New York City and Delaware General Corporation Law, inco ...

in Latin America and was the Managing Director for

BearingPoint BearingPoint (parent company: BearingPoint Europe Holdings B.V.) is an independent multinational management and technology consulting firm with 41 offices across 23 countries and around 4,300 employees. In 2021, the firm delivered 1,298 projects ...

in Latin America, responsible for the Industrial, Automotive and Transportation practice. She also worked for KPMG as a managing director in Latin America, for Jefferson Wells as a regional vice president and as a director for

PWC PricewaterhouseCoopers is an international professional services brand of firms, operating as partnerships under the PwC brand. It is the second-largest professional services network in the world and is considered one of the Big Four accounti ...

. McKenna's investigative journalism career began in 2006 with her blog ''RetheAuditors.com'', which monitored and reported on public accounting firms. Her blog was a finalist for the

Gerald Loeb Award The Gerald Loeb Award, also referred to as the Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism, is a recognition of excellence in journalism, especially in the fields of business, finance and the economy. The award was estab ...

for Online Commentary and Blogging in 2010, the first year of that category; as a Reuters journalist noted, McKenna was "the only full-time blogger on the list, and she’s also the only one of the nominees who is truly independent: her nomination, uniquely of the four, was not submitted on her behalf by an established print publication." McKenna later wrote a column at Forbes.com under the heading “Accounting Watchdog”, where, in 2011, she documented

's failure to identify problems with the bankrupt global commodities brokerage firm

MF Global MF Global, formerly known as Man Financial, was a major global financial derivatives broker, or commodities brokerage firm that went bankrupt in 2011. MF Global provided exchange-traded derivatives, such as futures and options as well as over ...

. She was a columnist at American Banker, “Accountable”, from October 2011 to October 2012, where she also wrote about auditing firms' failures to thoroughly audit financial organisations. She currently works as the transparency reporter at

in addition to her blogging work with ''re: TheAuditors.com'', and also teaches at

Career timeline

* 2006–''present'': ''re: TheAuditors.com'' editor * 2010–2015: ''

'' contributor * 2011–2012: ''

American Banker ''American Banker'' is a Manhattan-based trade publication covering the financial services industry. Originally a daily newspaper, the print edition ceased publication in 2016, with an online edition continuing to be updated. The first issue of ...

'' columnist * 2015–2019: ''

'' reporter * 2017–''present'':

adjunct professor

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:McKenna, Francine American bloggers Living people Writers from Chicago 20th-century American journalists 21st-century American journalists Purdue University alumni Year of birth missing (living people)