Jane joined the IRB in July 2026 as a non-lay member, alongside two new lay members Marina Gibbs and Julie Hendry. She has more than 30 years’ experience in governance, audit and regulation, and has held leadership roles in firms ranging from KPMG and BDO to her own boutique forensic accounting business.

The IRB oversees ICAEW’s regulatory and disciplinary work, ensuring it’s carried out in the public interest and supports trust in the profession. Its role includes ensuring that the Professional Standards Department discharges its duties effectively, and that the regulatory and disciplinary committees carry out their functions efficiently and fairly.

“I’ve been involved in, and working with, ICAEW throughout my career, right from being a student trainee at KPMG,” says Jane. “So, I’m absolutely delighted to be taking up this role, supporting the IRB in strengthening trust in the profession and upholding high standards.”

“I love collaborating with people with common interests and common goals to really make a difference,” she emphasises. “And I’m looking forward to contributing the mix of skills and perspectives I've gained across large and small firms, as well as my regulatory and governance experience.”

Bringing the benefits of a varied career path to the IRB

Jane started her career as an auditor, and although accountancy wasn’t her first choice, it’s served her well. “I initially wanted to be a criminal barrister,” she explains. But Bar school was very expensive, so after studying law and politics at university, she started as a trainee at KPMG, where she later joined the technical training team in Basingstoke.

“Although I was audit based,” she explains, “I was writing the general accounting training courses, and I was training non-accountants within KPMG in areas such as corporate finance to understand the financial statements.” This was followed by a move to a smaller firm Littlejohn Frazer (now PKF) in Canary Wharf. “Here again, I was able to combine the technical with the training,” she says, “and I became a technical specialist on the most complex audits.”

She then joined another small firm as audit compliance partner. “I always enjoyed the tricker jobs,” she says, “acting as the second partner where there was a difficult client, maybe a dominant owner manager, or where there was a particular point that was problematic.”

This was followed by further senior compliance roles, first at Vantis, as Head of Risk and Compliance, and then at BDO, where she served as Director of Ethics and Regulatory Compliance. She also started her own forensic accounting business, Aquila Advisory, which specialised in fraud investigation and litigation support.

As well as her extensive compliance experience, Jane has held a range of regulatory and governance roles, including serving on the FRC’s Technical Advisory Committee and completing seven years as a member of ICAEW’s Practice Assurance Committee.

“I've had quite a varied career,” she says. “That’s probably because I’ve somehow always ended up saying ‘yes’ to the next opportunity that came along. And in doing that, I’ve gained a breadth of perspectives and experience that I hope I’ll bring to the IRB.”

Building on long-term respect for ICAEW

The IRB role came along at a point when Jane was looking for non-executive roles after taking early retirement. “I was really missing the regulatory side; the working parties and the task forces, and collaborating in a team of interesting people,” she explains. “So, when the IRB position popped up on LinkedIn, it seemed written for me.”

“I’ve been involved with ICAEW throughout my career,” she says. “Even when I was at KPMG as a student, and they were putting someone up as a consultant on training contracts, I was there with my hand up.”

“I was also on ICAEW’s Practice Assurance Committee for many years,” she adds. “So, I really respect it, not only as a member and fellow, but as someone who's worked with it too.”

Jane believes her background in large and small firms means she can appreciate how regulatory changes affect firms of different sizes and allows her to help the board ensure all member firms are considered.

“I’ve seen the difference in the effect of regulatory changes between a smaller firm and a big firm,” she says. “When I was working at BDO, audit became more complex and accounting standards became more complex; I saw what that meant to a larger firm. But I've also seen it from the small firm's perspective.”

“A lot of my responses to consultations, and my work with ICAEW, have reflected my view that: ‘Yes, the Big Four might be able to take this, but you've also got to consider that it needs to be proportional, so you don't block smaller firms in the market from doing regulated work.”

What are the main challenges facing the IRB and profession?

Looking ahead to the challenges facing the board and profession, Jane is particularly interested in the impact of AI on audit. “This is not just about what that means for firms in terms of audit products and staff,” she stresses, “but what it means for the regulator and how we’re going to maintain and check standards.”

“We need to be looking at those challenges, and we have to accept they’re coming,” she says. “But I like problems you can look at from all the various angles to see how to address and solve them, and I’m looking forward to learning more from the board’s new AI specialist.”

“I'm also incredibly interested in how AI could be used as a tool to level the market, so, rather than it just being those that have millions to spend on it that are going to sweep up the audits, instead we need to ask: Can it help level out the market and bring those smaller firms up to where they can also produce quality audits of larger organisations?”

“It’s so useful to have a sort of thinktank in the IRB where we consider these issues, talk to people with the necessary expertise, discuss the challenges,” she says, “and perhaps find a better solution than is possible without that.”

Recruiting the skills that match the IRB’s challenges ahead

She believes the IRB is well prepared for the future. “The board has clearly looked at what it thinks the challenges are going to be in its 2030 strategy, and decided: Okay, these are the skills we need. And then it’s been proactive in recruiting around those needs,” she says.

“I don't know whether we can be ahead of the curve on AI because the curve will move so quickly,” she adds. “But we’re setting ourselves up for success by looking at it early, seeing the challenges and opportunities, and bringing in the right people.”

As to what she’s looking forward to personally as she begins her new role, Jane is particularly delighted at the prospect of working again in a team of likeminded people. “I'm very people-focused,” she says. “I've run big teams before and I’ve been missing the intellectual challenge of working collaboratively to try to resolve difficult issues.”