James H. Quigley '74 is a fan of quarterback Tom Brady of the New England Patriots, but not for the obvious reasons. He likes to cite Brady's management style as an instructive metaphor for companies beset by the chaos of constant change.
"As the pocket collapses around him, Brady keeps his head up and maintains his poise," said Quigley, chief executive of Deloitte's U.S., $7-billion public accountancy operation, during a fall lecture on campus.

Quigley, a USU accounting graduate and Harvard MBA holder, was invited back for the College of Business' CEO convocation.

Over the past 15 years, Quigley's firm has withstood change on an almost biblical scale. On September 11, 2001, Quigley saw the first plane hit the World Trade Center across the street. Sixty employees were trapped in the inferno. All but one escaped. Twenty-four hours later the New York City office was back in business, serving clients from home work stations. Two years later Quigley's partners elected him CEO of Deloitte's U.S. operation in the midst of a Securities Exchange Commission investigation into alleged improprieties in the industry. The dot.com collapse and disclosure of widespread financial reporting irregularities had shaken investor confidence in the stock market, contributing to the downturn in 2002, and in the most sweeping reforms since the Depression of the 1930s Congress mandated stricter, more independent oversight of corporate governance and auditing procedures.

Before the 2002 crash, the U.S. public accountancy industry was dominated by the Big 8. Since then, the field has shrunk to four. One of the survivors is Deloitte, now ranked second in the world in revenues and number of employees. The company has 120,000 employees in more than 150 countries, who provide audit, tax, consulting and financial advisory services for more than half of the world's largest companies. Half of the Fortune 500 are clients of Quigley's branch. more