Final answer:
A Certified Public Accountant (CPA) is the professional private companies may hire to perform a compilation or review engagement when an audit is not required. The CPA plays a key role in corporate governance, which includes ensuring accurate financial reporting.
Step-by-step explanation:
Private companies, who are not required to have an audit, may hire a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) to perform a compilation or review engagement. The role of a CPA is critical to corporate governance and is often associated with providing high-quality services to ensure the integrity and reliability of financial information. A CPA can offer a compilation service, which involves assembling financial statements without providing assurance to their accuracy, or a review engagement, which provides a limited assurance that no material modifications need to be made to the financial statements.
The board of directors, as the first line of corporate governance, alongside auditing firms and outside investors, such as those with large mutual funds or pension funds, are integral to safeguarding the interests of shareholders. In the case of Lehman Brothers, these mechanisms of corporate governance failed, leading to misinformation about the firm's operations to investors.