Barry Melancon is in many respects the great survivor of the US accounting profession. As the president and chief executive of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, he has spent the past three years reshaping the profession’s main representative body, whose most important regulatory function was stripped away by after lawmakers stripped the AICPA of its most important regulatory function following Congress after accounting scandals, such as at Enron and WorldCom.

At the same time he fended off attacks on his own position. Some of the big four accounting firms – Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers PwC – pressed called for his resignation after the scandals because they thought new leadership at the AICPA would help efforts to restore the profession’s battered reputation. But last year the AICPA’s board, which is dominated by accountants who do not work for the big fourfirms, voted to give Mr Melancon a third five-year term of office.