Frank J. Puzio: restoring trust in public accounting.

• Author: Bronikowski, Lynn
• Position: Executive Edge

NEVER IN HIS 32 YEARS IN PUBLIC ACCOUNTING HAS FRANK J. PUZIO faced the kinds of world changing challenges that he has in the past four years.

In 1999, the managing partner of PrideWaterhouseCoopers LLP in Denver helped captain the merger of Big Six accounting firms Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lv brand into a global powerhouse.

"We were a couple of years into the merger when 9/11 happened" said Puzio. "Our company had five people on those planes, which was very traumatic for us as an organization. They were not from the Denver office but their deaths touched us all.

And amid recovery from the World Trade Center tragedy came Enron, the accounting scandal that would rock Wall Street and rattle America's confidence in a long-revered profession. "The Enron scandal was so starting," Said Puzio, who had sat on the board of the Aspen Institute with then Enron CEO and Chairman Ken Lay. "What was most discouraging was that I sat in these panel meetings with him for 10 years and never had a hint of the situation, although I wasn't in his inner circle. He was very charming."

But Puzio, a New Jersey native and son of a mill supervisor. Isn't about to brush aside the scandals.

"This is a well-respeared profession," he said. "When I got into it you couldn't even come to work without a suit and tie. Now we've gotten ourselves into a position where we need to rebuild, to get out there and build public trust again. Our profession has become a commodity of less value, and the mistakes that were made are inexcusable."

Whenever he can, Puzio out about efforts to set an industry standard to change accounting principles, and...