Jenny Decker recently became the CFO of corporate travel platform Engine. Previously, she served as CFO of customer service platform Front and held numerous finance positions at Atlassian, the company that owns Jira, Trello, and Confluence.

A two-sided marketplace, Engine serves both buyers, such as companies, and suppliers, such as hotels, rental car companies, and airlines. Decker spoke with CFO Brew about positioning a company for rapid growth and shared her advice for advancing to the CFO role.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What advice would you give someone who aspires to a CFO role?

Take the long view on your career. Rather than trying to go for title and compensation, accumulate knowledge…At Atlassian, I was the head of business partnerships, and then from there, I added corporate and moved on to G&A and sales and marketing. And by the end, I had experienced business partnership and corporate and was running that. While people would [say I] could have continued to rise in R&D, I said I needed to accumulate different experiences so that I could be very well-rounded as a CFO.

For more on how Decker is ramping up for growth, click here.—CV

Who says cheating doesn’t pay?

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) announced a $2.75 million disciplinary settlement with PwC Israel for test cheating that lasted for five years.

According to a PCAOB news release, the firm violated “quality control standards related to integrity and personnel management.” PwC Israel, also known as Kesselman & Kesselman CPAs, “failed to detect or prevent extensive, improper answer sharing on tests for mandatory internal training courses” between 2017 and 2022, the board alleged.

Hundreds of employees during that period improperly shared or received access to test questions or answers. The training courses were “related to the firm’s US auditing curriculum, professional independence, and professional ethics.”

As part of the sanction agreement, PwC Israel did not admit or deny any wrongdoing. In addition to the fine, the firm is required to “review and improve” its QC policies and procedures and report that it’s made those changes to the board within 150 days.

“Integrity is fundamental to effective auditing,” Robert Rice, director of the PCAOB’s enforcement and investigations division, said in a statement. “Investors must be able to trust that auditors will act with integrity when performing their professional duties.”

For more on the PCAOB fine, click here.—AZ

Remember that universal lesson from your childhood days: You are the company you keep. And officials at FinCEN added two more to the list of countries in which financial institutions should practice extra caution.

FinCEN’s Financial Action Task Force (FATF) added two countries, Laos and Nepal, to its list of “jurisdictions with strategic…deficiencies” in countering money laundering, terrorism financing, and the financing of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, according to a news release. The task force also removed the Philippines from its list.

More specifically, the two nations are now on FATF’s list of “jurisdictions under increasing monitoring.” Its other list, called “high-risk jurisdictions subject to a call for action,” remains the same, FinCEN noted. That second list includes Iran, North Korea, and Myanmar.

In the release, FinCEN reminded financial institutions doing business in countries falling under its increased-monitoring list “to comply with the due diligence obligations” as outlined by statutes.

Keep reading here.—AZ