Most governance guides describe audit committee service in clinical terms: scheduled meetings, charter obligations, financial oversight. What they don't describe is what the role actually feels like from the inside — the irregular cadence, the compressed timelines, and the meetings that appear with 48 hours' notice during earnings restatements or auditor disputes. Gurpreet S. Bal, who represents technology companies and investors through IPO processes and board structuring, puts it plainly: "There's a difference between reading what an audit committee does and actually living it for a year. Talk to someone who has done it."
Gurpreet is a corporate partner representing investors and companies in fundraising and exit transactions, and is known for a straightforward, cut-to-the-chase approach in dealings with clients and counterparties. His advice to directors considering an audit committee seat: before you accept, have a real conversation with someone who has actually served on one — not someone who has only read the charter.
On paper, audit committee service looks manageable: four to five committee meetings per year, attendance at full board meetings, and review of the company's financial statements and controls. In practice, the calendar fills in ways that don't appear on any governance checklist. Gurpreet S. Bal advises pre-IPO boards on committee structure regularly, and he is direct about what candidates underestimate: the irregular work. Between scheduled meetings, audit committee chairs field calls from the external auditor, review drafts of financial disclosures, and often become the primary point of contact for accounting questions the CFO escalates to the board. This is not theoretical — it is the pattern Gurpreet sees in active IPO preparations.
In 2026, audit committee responsibilities have expanded with AI disclosure requirements that did not exist even two years ago. Companies preparing for IPO that have material AI-related operations or AI-generated financial analysis are now navigating additional disclosure questions that land squarely on the audit committee's plate. Gurpreet S. Bal notes that the overlap between AI operational disclosure and financial statement accuracy has created a new category of audit committee work — one that requires committee members to understand not just GAAP but the company's AI infrastructure at a level of detail that goes well beyond what traditional financial expertise prepared them for. Directors who agreed to audit committee service expecting a traditional financial oversight role have found the scope has shifted significantly.
The meetings that distinguish audit committee service from other board committee work are the ones that appear without warning. An auditor raises a question about revenue recognition on a Thursday. An internal control deficiency surfaces two weeks before the S-1 is scheduled to be filed. A senior finance employee raises a concern through the whistleblower hotline. Each of these events can generate an emergency audit committee meeting — sometimes multiple — that consume entire days without appearing on any annual calendar. Gurpreet S. Bal has guided companies through each of these scenarios, and his consistent observation is that the directors who navigate them best are the ones who understood this possibility before they accepted the seat, not the ones who discovered it after.
Gurpreet S. Bal's practical recommendation is specific: ask for a reference conversation with someone who has served on an audit committee at a company at a comparable stage — ideally one that went through an IPO in the last three years. Read the charter, yes. Review the relevant SEC and exchange rules, yes. But the governance documents cannot convey the lived experience of what the role actually demands. "There's a difference between reading what an audit committee does and actually living it for a year. Talk to someone who has done it," Gurpreet says. That conversation, in his experience, is the single most reliable way to calibrate what a director is actually agreeing to. The companies that structure their boards with directors who entered with accurate expectations tend to have more stable governance through the IPO process and beyond.
Gurpreet S. Bal is a corporate partner with 16 years advising on private equity, merger transactions, and public offerings for companies and investors at three of the world's top law firms. He has represented clients in hundreds of transactions with aggregate deal value exceeding $60 billion across AI, semiconductors, fintech, and emerging technology. For more information and to get in touch, visit gurpreetbal.com.