Yes, Auditors have heard of COSO, but do they really know how to apply it in their audits?.  Using interactive social media examples, this practical and entertaining 1 day training session will use current events in business to demonstrate how to “See Risk through the COSO.”  

You can apply this new view in your risk assessments at an ERM and individual audit level.  You will even have better discussions with management on the impact of your work by tying your results to the Corporate Strategy. 

Abstract: This session will open the eyes of internal auditors to look at risk in a different manner. Most audit departments do consider risk, but are they seeing beyond the tip of the iceberg? 47% of CFOs say they could justify unethical behavior to help their organization survive the economic downturn. Nearly half of those surveyed stated that they would be willing to cut ethical corners to meet performance targets, particularly in the last four years… Moreover, the Pandemic, technology, downsizing, reorganization and globalization have contributed to ignorance of risk exposures. Organizations in industry and government have encouraged entrepreneurial spirit, increasing the potential for Risk and even Fraud. 

This is what audit departments are up against. Internal auditors use COSO, but do they really know how to apply it in their risk assessments? 

Learning Objectives:

• Provide a practical understanding and application of the COSO Framework and how to use it for risk considerations in the execution of planning, fieldwork and reporting
• Consider appropriate risk assessment activities and fraud risk identification processes in your industry
• Determine the types of business risk your company is susceptible to within specific business functions

Welcome to the 10th CAE Conference. Kindly register and mark your attendance.

Abdulqader Obaid Ali, Chairman of the Board of UAE IAA will formally welcome the dignitaries, speakers, delegates and guests to the event.

H.E. Sultan bin Saeed Al Mansoori, will address the conference delegates and formally inaugurate the conference.

The importance of ESG for businesses and governments across the globe is undoubtedly on the rise. Increased focus driven by regulators and investors is demanding organizations to assess their well-being not only against financial metrics but also to reflect their Environmental, Social and Governance commitments. On top of that, businesses are under pressure to make public their dedication to Sustainability and ESG related strategies while ensuring the metrics they hold themselves against are suitably accurate. However, with little categorical guidance on what could still be considered an immature space of reporting, top business executives are struggling to accept the concept all together. In this session, we will review the basics of ESG Reporting, further highlighting recent regional regulations alongside the associated key challenges facing organisations. More importantly, we will shed light on the role Chief Audit Executives have on this in order to support management with giving advice and driving assurance on ESG matters.

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Topic Brief

What capability enhancement should the internal auditors undertake to ensure the relevance and existence of their role?

Artificial intelligence, blockchain and data analytics are game changers for the Internal audit profession, transforming the roles of Internal auditors.

Advances in technology are changing the day-to-day business operations and transforming firms’ business models. There are clear benefits that technology can bring to organizations from operational efficiency and greater insights however, alongside these benefits comes a range of risks, many of which are yet to be understood.

Technology is changing the way business is conducted and data is analyzed and there is an increasing focus on data management. The advent of cloud computing and cloud storage has opened up the possibilities of collecting and analyzing data on a previously unimaginable scale.

Going beyond the confines of company data, allows Internal auditors to collect and analyze broader industry data sets that were previously inaccessible. This enables Internal auditors to better identify informational outliers and increases their ability to generate business insights and focus on business and financial reporting risk.

Disruptive technologies are also having a profound impact on the skills required of Internal auditors, which has implications for educators, recruitment policies and staff development needs.

This session explores the diverse range of opportunities, risks and challenges that technology brings to Internal audit function and the skill upgradation required thereof.

Culture in many ways is “what staff in your organization do when you are not watching them”. Risk culture, is therefore values-based and ethically driven rather than based on processes or formal governance. When the chips are down, experience has suggested that culture trumps process every time when it comes to determining whether risk management is successful.

 In the current era of global regulatory change, much focus has been directed towards the substantive and structural elements of risk management and regulatory compliance. Issues range from compliance oriented questions like solvency margin and capital sufficiency, governance structure focused, licensing & legislative requirements and Periodic Risk Assessment and the results. The often overlooked and underappreciated element is that of the Organizational Risk Culture and the impact it has on the company’s response to risk.

The conventional risk management focus has always been on the methods and practices of risk assessment without focusing much on the key element, Risk Culture. Culture sets the tone of the organization and defines how an organization views risks and converts them into opportunities.

An organization with a risk aware culture is one that is more resilient to external influences and better able to adapt. The benefit of a strong risk culture derives from agile decisions making in terms of the risk and reward of different opportunities. Less unenforced errors arise from a risk aware organization able to learn from previous events and mistakes and improve its processes in a timely manner.

The risk culture of an organization is likely to:

Determine the degree to which organizational policies are internalized by staff and exhibited into day-to-day behavior

Determine staff response to threats or situations that fall outside well prescribed operating guidelines

Influence the firm’s reputation with regulators, clients and the broader market.

3 top objectives of the session

• Identify and assess the value added by an effective Risk culture in the organization
• Challenges in establishing a robust Risk culture
• How to develop an effective Enterprise Risk Management framework with Risk culture at its core

Objectives of Session:

1. Understanding and demystifying Transformation
2. Key success factors of Digital Transformation

Auditors work hard to catch sophisticated criminals who have bilked often equally sophisticated victims out of large sums of money.  The harm is devastating.  Victims may sue defendants in a civil courtroom but the restitution remains elusive as the judgment is not worth the paper it is written on. This would not be the case if the defendant faced prosecution and the real prospect of jail or prison. So why do auditors’ cases almost never reach a criminal courtroom? Career prosecutor and five-time elected District Attorney Ben David will teach auditors how to overcome the barriers they face in getting their clients restitution while holding white-collar criminals fully. responsible for their crimes.

Auditors work hard to catch sophisticated criminals who have bilked often equally sophisticated victims out of large sums of money.  The harm is devastating.  Victims may sue defendants in a civil courtroom but the restitution remains elusive as the judgment is not worth the paper it is written on. This would not be the case if the defendant faced prosecution and the real prospect of jail or prison. So why do auditors’ cases almost never reach a criminal courtroom? Career prosecutor and five-time elected District Attorney Ben David will teach auditors how to overcome the barriers they face in getting their clients restitution while holding white-collar criminals fully responsible for their crimes.

Three Objectives. Using the case method developed over a twenty-five-year career, Mr. David will highlight the three challenges auditors face with getting their cases into a criminal courtroom and how to overcome them:

1. Understanding your audience: Prosecutors are elected by the people and represent governments, not individuals. They run on the mantra that if everything is a priority, then nothing is. Their focus is on violent criminals and career criminals. Mr. David will teach auditors to look for “other crimes evidence” that can lead to aggregating damages that not only leads to greater restitution but much more serious criminal charges that prosecutors are far more likely to adopt and bring into a courtroom.
2. Confronting common challenges: Many financial crimes involve under-reporting by victims. The evidence is frequently voluminous and complex for investigators, DAs, and jurors to understand. The cases are perpetrated by defendants who frequently flee the jurisdiction or were never there in the first place. Mr. David will talk about how these weaknesses can be turned into strengths and how auditors can embrace the “KISS principle” in having these criminals extradited to the scene of the crime to face justice.
3. Learning a common language.  Auditors know math and focus on numbers.  Prosecutors analyse cases based on evidence and the law.  Mr. David will teach auditors the “The FIRAC method for DAs” method that he developed to have everyone speaking the same language:  Knowing the five types of evidence, the five defences to any crime and how professionals can work together in a critical case review to understand each other to achieve a common goal.

Objectives of Session:

1. Latest and coming up technologies for F&A
2. Current RPA trends and future
3. Six Sigma and TQM tools digitalization

Bee’ah, the Middle East’s sustainability pioneer, is introducing sustainable initiatives across industries, driving zero-waste targets and supporting wider environmental agendas in the region. Drawing from successful strategies and projects at Bee’ah, Group CEO Khaled Al Huraimel will share insights on how companies can support a circular economy, while optimising operations and minimising ecological impact.

Bee’ah has businesses in Waste Management, Clean Energy, Environmental Consulting, Technology, Sustainable Transportation, and Training & Development. Drawing from his experience in these sectors, Khaled will also highlight how digital enablement is key to successful sustainability initiatives, driving better financial and ecological outcomes.

Emerging trends in supply chain finance talks about

1. How large organizations are using their supply chains to tightly manage their working capital.
2. How buyers, suppliers, lenders are benefitting from new trends in technology for SCF by connecting to the trade networks for collaboration and competition
3. The role federal trade credit insurance providers are playing to ensure SMEs are getting funded to remain in business given the pandemic. The role of governments to boost SME financing.
4. SCF model for Open account trades
5. How FinTechs are enabling supply chain financing in the pandemic situation to create a larger pool of suppliers and offering a wider array of financing options
6. Risks and controls to consider while ensuring a robust supply chain financing program

 3 main objectives for the session

1. Understand the importance of supply chain financing in managing working capital given pandemic
2. Understand the emerging trends in supply chain financing – role of TCI providers, lenders, fintechs in supply chain financing
3. Understand the Risks and controls to consider while ensuring a robust supply chain financing program

A brief about the session

Will look into the developments and progress of Fintech in MENA, which sectors are gaining momentum, where are opportunities for FinTech’s and what is the future outlook for Fintech sector and its relationship with banks

Challenges and 3 main objectives about the session

1. Regional Fintech developments
2. Opportunities for the sector
3. Challenges facing fintech companies and how to overcome these challenges

TBA

Topic Brief

Unified Digital Ecosystem and the Future of Audit & Risk Management

1. CAEs, disruption is not overrated: The consequences of the pandemic are multifaceted and will constrain the effectiveness of our responses to the core threats of the next decade and beyond.
2. Need for a Unified Digital Ecosystem: We have this need to bring elements of risk, compliance, controls, and analytics under a Unified Digital Ecosystem. There is this pain point to enable and empower AI, ML, and ultra-sophisticated neural networks to automate processes and tackle the containment issues raised by barriers on their own.
3. The shape of the things to come: We are, in fact, primed for a grand fusion of information, where clusters of ‘software-brains’ or ‘brainware’ communicate with each other aided by advanced AI and sophisticated ML applications churning out superior, dynamic insights as and when they matter.

Challenges and 3 main objectives about the session

1. Understand what digital transformation really is
2. Make corporate transformation a success, one process at a time
3. Learning from the best, common pitfalls and mitigations

The role of the auditor is critical in providing companies and individuals with credible reports. In these times due to considerable digital disruption & acceleration shifts are taking place globally and across various sectors, the auditor’s role has been thrust into the spotlight- and not always favorably. It is important to understand the changing role of the auditor and defining how it looks now and beyond.

Objectives of Session:

1. Understand the underlying trends disrupting the economy and jobs.
2. Understand the impact of the disruption process at the business model and workforce level.
3. Understand what audit professionals need to do to stay relevant and be future-ready.

The world economy could more than double in size by 2050, far outstripping population growth, due to continued technology-driven productivity improvements. Emerging markets (E7) could grow around twice as fast as advanced economies (G7) on average Six of the seven largest economies in the world are projected to be emerging economies in 2050 led by China (1st), India (2nd) and Indonesia (4th).

The USA could be down to third place in the global GDP rankings while the EU27’s share of world GDP could fall below 10% by 2050.

UK could be down to 10th place by 2050, France out of the top 10 and Italy out of the top 20 as they are overtaken by faster growing emerging economies like Mexico, Turkey and Vietnam respectively.

The Internal Audit Profession will be a community of problem solvers combining human ingenuity, experience, and rapid technology innovation to deliver sustained outcomes.  Automation, artificial intelligence, and robotics are changing the employment landscape across the country and around the world.  Let’s not forget what the Pandemic has taught us about the future.  We are already seeing many examples of companies accelerating purchases of new robotics that are cheaper, more flexible and safer than ever before. Is it not that far off that our analytical, compliance and writing skills could be replaced? The 20th Century adage that “Modern internal auditing, to be successful, must be grounded on management support and acceptance and on imaginative service to management.”  That will continue to guide us well into the future. This session will explore ways Auditors can mount a continuing campaign to sell their products to executive management and the products will be of the quality that will capture and keep management’s interest.  Audit work will move away from collecting data and pure compliance and towards more creative activities to take us to 2050 and beyond.

Are you taking the trip with us?

Topic Brief

Internal auditors are navigating a new landscape – How to capitalise on the potential of innovation to respond to the changes in technology and the business environment. This new landscape asks for internal auditors to have an agile internal audit response.

Objectives of Session:

1. Know the various concepts in the innovation space
2. Understand the anatomy of an effective innovation strategy
3. Learn to manoeuvre the risks of innovation towards required outcomes