WASHINGTON—The Securities and Exchange Commission moved to complete its overhaul of the federal audit watchdog Monday, naming four new members to the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board.

The SEC appointed Erica Y. Williams, an attorney with Kirkland & Ellis LLP, to serve as the PCAOB’s chair. It also tapped Christina Ho, Kara Stein and Anthony C. Thompson to serve as members of the board, which the SEC oversees.

The...

WASHINGTON—The Securities and Exchange Commission moved to complete its overhaul of the federal audit watchdog Monday, naming four new members to the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board.

The SEC appointed Erica Y. Williams, an attorney with Kirkland & Ellis LLP, to serve as the PCAOB’s chair. It also tapped Christina Ho, Kara Stein and Anthony C. Thompson to serve as members of the board, which the SEC oversees.

The PCAOB regulates the audits of publicly traded companies. It was established under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 after accounting scandals at Enron Corp. and other now-defunct firms.

Ms. Williams, Ms. Ho and Mr. Thompson will be the first people of color to serve on the five-person board since its founding, the SEC said.

SEC Chairman Gary Gensler, speaking in Washington in September, has moved to overhaul the federal audit watchdog.

Photo: Evelyn Hockstein/Bloomberg News

SEC Chairman Gary Gensler’s overhaul of the PCAOB sparked accusations earlier this year from Republicans that he was moving to politicize the body. In June, less than two months after taking office, he fired former PCAOB Chairman William Duhnke, a longtime aide to Sen. Richard Shelby (R., Ala.) and said he was seeking candidates for all five of the PCAOB’s seats.

Those moves followed a letter from Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) urging the SEC to overhaul the board. They said the Trump administration had taken deliberate steps to erode the PCAOB’s independence and expertise, leading the watchdog to weaken auditor-independence rules and exclude investors from participating in its policy-making process.

Mr. Gensler said he ousted Mr. Duhnke because the watchdog wasn’t adequately fulfilling its mission of “auditing the auditors.”

The SEC’s two Republican commissioners, Hester Peirce and Elad Roisman, said Monday that they “remain concerned about the commission’s actions in June but nevertheless support this new board.”

“The five members are as the statute requires, ‘prominent individuals of integrity and reputation who have a demonstrated commitment to the interests of investors and the public, and an understanding of the responsibilities for and nature of the financial disclosures required of issuers, brokers, and dealers under the securities laws,’” the two Republican commissioners said in a joint statement.

Ms. Williams, who is Black, spent 11 years at the SEC, serving as deputy chief of staff to Democratic chairs Mary Schapiro, Elisse Walter and Mary Jo White, before going to the private sector.

Ms. Stein served as a Democratic SEC commissioner from 2013 to 2019. Ms. Ho is a former Treasury Department official who most recently worked at Elder Research. Mr. Thompson is currently chief administrative officer of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Write to Paul Kiernan at paul.kiernan@wsj.com