The institute looked at details of the lead engagement partners on 409 of the S&P 500 companies, using newly available data which has been published as a result of changes to regulators’ requirements.

Only 11% of lead engagement partners of the S&P 100 were female, and women make up only 15% of lead engagement partners of the S&P 500.

Overall, the percentages of female lead engagement partners by S&P 500 firms were Deloitte (20.8%), PwC (16.3%), EY (12.9%), and KPMG (10.6%). The study also shows 30% of the S&P 500 were audited by PwC, 31% by EY, 20% by Deloitte, and 19% by KPMG.

This means that although PwC has the greatest number of S&P 500 clients, only 16.3% of them are serviced by female lead engagement partners, behind Deloitte’s 20.8%.

EY, with nearly the same number of S&P 500 clients as PwC, is at 12.9% female lead engagement partners.

The study found no female partners among the 36 longest tenured engagements (those over 75 years) in the S&P 500, and there were only six female partners in the 107 companies with auditor relationships exceeding 40 years.

The CFA Institute’s research in based on data which was required from early 2017 as a result of the Security and Exchange Commission’s audit participants standard and the new audit reporting standard released by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB). These make it possible to identify the audit firm issuing the opinion, and also the partner assigned to the engagement and to what degree other auditors were used by the primary auditor in reaching its conclusion on the financial statements.

With this being the first year of information, the institute describes its initial work as ‘foundational’ but says it plans to explore the data in more detail in future periods.

Report by Pat Sweet