I.T. execs are hopeful that President Bush's picks for the new Securities and Exchange Commission chairman and Treasury secretary will be good for business. "My gut feeling is it's a positive thing," says Jim Ensell, VP of business development and CIO at custom chipmaker eSilicon Corp. "Anything that helps the economy is a good thing. We needed a spark."

The nominations of John Snow, CEO of railroad holding company CSX Corp., for Treasury secretary and Wall Street veteran William Donaldson as SEC head don't elicit "quick initial reactions" from IT execs since they aren't well known in technology sectors, says Stuart Robbins, executive director of the CIO Collective, a nonprofit group that includes CIOs at 70 companies. However, Snow has a reputation for "being someone who understands what IT can do to support and change business," Robbins says. He serves on the board of a company that uses software to manage its corporate governance. That shows that Snow understands the important role IT can play in this area, Robbins says.

Wall Street veteran Donaldson is SEC head

The Donaldson appointment is unlikely to alter the course the SEC has set since the corporate scandals involving Enron, WorldCom, and others, requiring more corporate oversight and certification of financial audits, says Dennis Hernreich, senior VP and CFO for Casual Male Retail Group Inc. Business will pay for new regulations, he adds, noting that Casual Male will spend $100,000 to $150,000 extra to meet the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 requirement that an auditing committee, rather than the company CEO and CFO, oversee outside audit firms. "We have to sell, in order to get that back, another 40,000 to 50,000 pairs of pants," Hernreich says. "And that's what is so shameful about this whole thing."

The Enrons of the world are rare. Accounting at most companies, including Casual Male, is on the up and up, Hernreich says. Such is the case at Kinko's Inc., according to chief technology officer Allen Dickason, who says the privately held company follows the same accounting rigors as public companies. Kinko's has high standards, Dickason says. "We make sure our board, our auditors, and our financial people know what we're doing. We think it's good practice."

Reg Maton, CIO at Scholastic Inc., has a different take. "The SEC needs a strong person with strong governance experience. There's a need for better reporting requirements."