Blog: One Mistake Internal Audit Cannot Afford to Make in 2020

In his blog, IIA President and CEO Richard Chambers, CIA, QIAL, CGAP, CCSA, CRMA, shares his personal reflections and insights on the internal audit profession. Here’s an excerpt from his latest post:

One of the 2020 resolutions I wrote about at the beginning of the month addressed the need for internal audit to communicate its value. This should always be front of mind for internal audit leaders, as failure to do so can prove disastrous during economic downturns.

Now in my fifth decade in the internal audit profession, I have experienced economic recessions in the 1970s, ’80s, ’90s, 2000s and the 2010s. While the cause and extent of each recession was fundamentally different, each had a similar impact on our profession: Internal audit bore a disproportionate reduction in its ranks, because it was often seen as only a convenient “bill payer.” Our stakeholders, who were under pressure to reduce costs and shore up the bottom line, didn’t fully comprehend the value that internal audit delivered before the onset of the economic downturn.

Read the full InternalAuditor.org blog post from IIA President and CEO Richard Chambers.