The Institute of Internal Auditors Qatar chapter (IIA Qatar) has organised fortnightly knowledge sharing sessions focusing on preparedness during pandemic and the new reality that may emerge.
The last session on ‘Post pandemic: Is internal audit relevance at risk’ was presented by Hal Garyn (pictured), Managing Director at the Audit Executive Advisory Services from the USA. Hal’s over 30 years of professional experience has been predominately on the disciplines of risk management, internal audit, strategic planning, mergers and acquisitions, investor relations, and corporate governance.
Internal audit has historically struggled at times with making sure it is relevant at the moment, and adding value to the organisation. Given global pandemics, increased levels of working remotely, economic pressures, and increased risk, internal audit is more challenged to ensuring its relevance. Hal started his presentation with the question “Is it a tag of war or collaborative partnership’ between various business functions when it comes to survival since it is uncertain whether the changes during the last six months is temporary or permanent. The first concern is, has internal audits relevance been helped or hurt?” The session also discussed the four aspects in defining the relevance for internal audit.
“Hal dealt with very pertinent research on what every auditor should be familiar and consciously equip themselves. The virus will go away, but what does it mean if an optimistic scenario doesn’t happen need to be pondered. The relevance related going-forward challenges such as relationship sustaining, culture audit, ways to enhance relevance footprint were very insightful that yielded substantial wisdom to auditors,” said Sundaresan Rajeswar, Board Member at IIA and coordinator of the event.
Adel Al Hashmi, President of the IIA Qatar, welcomed the attendees from different parts of the world. He added: “The Question-Answer session post the presentation was very pertinent that further brought clarity to many compelling doubts about the relevance or even existential crisis of the profession as a value-add to the business. The IIA Qatar chapter aims to get people of high calibre to share their expertise that will in turn help in for promoting internal audit profession”.
The virtual session was also attended by Fahad Al Marri, Senior Vice President, Chapter Board members Muralikrishnan, Murtaza, Girish Jain, and Rajeswar who handled the Q&A segment. The next event on ‘Fraud risk’ is scheduled on August 30, 2020 and will feature two renowned academicians and practitioners.
