As the year draws to a close, I find myself engaged in the familiar practice of looking back on the year and reflecting upon the major news stories and pivotal moments of 2013 — those that are shaping the internal audit profession and undoubtedly will have a lasting effect on the way internal auditing is practiced in the future. Not only is it interesting to see how the profession has evolved and how far we’ve come in just a 12-month timespan, but recapping the year also is a beneficial exercise in that each of these stories holds important lessons for us all.…
In a speech that I delivered last spring, I discussed the various roles that an internal auditor can play across what I called the “ethics continuum.” I noted that on rare occasions, when internal auditors become embroiled in a fraud or conduct, they are an “accomplice.” On other occasions, I noted, the internal auditor isn’t an accomplice. Instead, he or she simply sits on the sidelines and does not call out inefficiency, waste, fraud, or mismanagement. I called these internal auditors the “spectators.”
I also noted that from my experience, the most frequent role that internal auditors play is that of a “referee.”…
I started this year with a blog post detailing what I thought auditors should be focused on in 2013. As the year draws to a close, I wanted to focus on the year ahead — the outlook for internal auditing and what’s on the radar for chief audit executives (CAEs), as measured by the Audit Executive Center’s recent North American Pulse of the Profession report, “Defining Our Role in a Changing Landscape” (PDF). While I recognize that this survey is somewhat North America-centric, my recent global travels lead me to believe that many of these trends will be observed around the world.…