How could financial reporting be different? How could it be made better, and less complex?

In August, the Securities and Exchange Commission's Committee on Improvements to Financial Reporting (CIFR) wrapped up its year-long project to answer these questions.

CFO.com will sit down with MFS Investment Management chairman Robert Pozen, who served as the chairman of CIFR, for a one-on-one discussion about the profound effect this report will have on the way companies collect, compile and report their financial information.

The SEC established the Advisory Committee on Improvements to Financial Reporting, known as CIFR or the "Complexity Committee," last July. It comprises 17 experts from academia, banking, law, Wall Street, and Corporate America. The group has been asked to make recommendations on everything from the relative merits of rules-based versus principles-based accounting systems to "current systems" for delivering financial information to the manner in which accounting and reporting standards are set and whether any current standards could be deemed unnecessarily complex or costly -- or unnecessary altogether.

"Financial statements should do a good job for both preparers and users," says Pozen. "There are a lot of people who are trying to get it right, and yet [the high incidence of misstatements indicates that] something isn't working here."

Join Tim Reason, editorial director of CFO.com, for this exclusive interview with Robert Pozen, for a preview of the future of financial reporting.

Speaker:

• Robert Pozen, Chairman of MFS Investment Management and chairman of the SEC's Committee to Improve Financial Reporting