2022: A Year in Review

Evolving the Profession's Standards

Our volunteers and staff made great progress this year on the IPPF Evolution project, which seeks to reexamine and reimagine the Standards and other foundational elements that make up the International Professional Practices Framework (IPPF). I eagerly look forward to sharing an exposure draft of the new Standards late in the first quarter of 2023.

In addition to input from internal audit practitioners — including the leadership of 90 different national affiliates — we made unprecedented efforts to solicit feedback from stakeholders such as regulators, corporate directors, and standard-setting bodies around the world. This helps ensure the final product reflects the needs of the profession, while serving the public interest.

We're not only updating the content of the Standards, though. We are also re-branding to a new name that more clearly explains what the Standards are. Moving forward, the International Standards for the Professional Practice of Internal Auditing will be known as the Global Internal Audit Standards™.

These changes — Standards that better meet the needs of the profession today, developed with global feedback from stakeholders important to the profession, and a name that is precise and clear — will help our profession continue to flourish and evolve as an indispensable part of effective governance.

Advocating for Our Members and the Profession

While the branding of the profession is important, so is advancing and protecting it. Communicating the profession's value and positioning The IIA to deliver that message to regulators and legislators was the motivation for another significant accomplishment in 2022: the evolution of our new global public policy advocacy team. The team, which includes an expanded presence in Washington, D.C. and Canada, will amplify the voices and interests of The IIA and the profession.

An integral part of that effort was the creation of The IIA's first political action committee. The IIA PAC will be bipartisan and focus on supporting U.S. federally elected officials and candidates for office who advocate on behalf of the internal auditing profession. The PAC will help communicate key messaging about the profession, improve access to influential stakeholders, and help us support those who support us. As a U.S.-based initiative, contributions to the PAC are limited to U.S. citizens and corporations.

While the new PAC is aimed at U.S. legislators and regulators, I should note that similar advocacy work is carried out by our affiliates around the world.

While these efforts highlight our advocacy work in the United States, we continue to grow such efforts globally. I am excited about the opportunities and work we will undertake in Canada, the Caribbean, and with our affiliates in 2023.

Strengthening Member Value in Canada

As part of our commitment to enhancing our advocacy efforts in Canada, we hired an advocacy director who will focus on issues within our neighbor to the north. We're also seeking to better support our Canadian chapters by creating a new chapter engagement position based there.

Another initiative we are launching is an effort to translate more IIA content and resources into Canadian French. We've looked at what materials Canadian members and chapters most frequently request and are prioritizing those for translation in early 2023. This includes documents and resources such as our Certification Handbook, CIA Practice Questions, webpages and content, the IPPF exposure draft, and more.

Strengthening Member Value Globally

As a global profession and organization, we are committed to enhancing the member value for all IIA members worldwide.

We proudly welcomed four new affiliates in 2022 – Bolivia, Honduras, Senegal and Vietnam!

Additionally, in support of our #OneIIA approach, we made tremendous progress this year on updating our Global Operating Model. We brought together 45 affiliates to start working with headquarters staff to develop products and services that modernize and enhance your IIA experience.

We also made significant progress on several objectives in our new global strategic plan, which you can read more about in our 2021 Annual Report. Most of these objectives are two-to-three-year projects, yet I'm incredibly proud to share that in the first full year, we achieved at least a 50% completion rate on 10 different objectives. Our success in these areas is the result of strong collaboration across our teams; strong partnerships with chapters, affiliates, and volunteers; and — again — an embrace of the #OneIIA mentality. 

Part of our strategic plan focuses on expanding our network and opportunities for our members — both current and potential future members. To that end, last month, we entered into a new education partnership with the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners. The ACFE partnership is designed to help both of our organizations' members enhance their competencies in fraud auditing and investigation, while bringing together the power of auditing, detection, and investigation to help organizations tackle fraud risks and challenges. This partnership includes various collaborative opportunities, including joint research projects, impactful thought leadership, working together on conference and event programs, as well as a new joint-webcast series — "Fraud Perspectives," which will cover important fraud-related topics.

This year also saw the development of an impressive collection of world-class research reports on emerging risks and topics from DEI to ESG.

Supporting the Next Generation of Practitioners

Another part of our strategic plan focuses on growing the profession by building a robust pipeline of future leaders. To help accomplish this goal, we introduced free IIA membership to all college students in North America in August, and we are working closely with affiliate leaders to expand free student membership globally.

What's more, we awarded $60,000 in grants through the Internal Audit Foundation this year, providing nine universities with resources to support curriculum development, student recruitment, mentorship initiatives, teaching assistants, and scholarships.

Rebranding The IIA

Early this year, we launched the new IIA website, a redesign of Internal Auditor magazine, and new global branding. While these updates are the most public-facing aspects, we also revamped our customer service platform, updated our chapter and affiliate portals, and much more, as part of a robust digital transformation.

This work was the culmination of a multi-year project to enhance our digital presence and member services, and we aren't done yet. We know we still have improvements to make to fully realize the promise and potential of the upgrades and investments we've made. We will continue refining and improving processes until these systems are streamlined and operating smoothly, providing our affiliates, chapters, and members with the best possible user experience.

This significant investment reflects our commitment to deliver our products and member services efficiently, securely, and conveniently, keeping you — our members — at the heart of everything we do.

It's clear from these highlights that we have a lot to celebrate. And we're just getting started. As we look ahead to what I know will be another successful year for The IIA and our profession, I encourage each of you to take full advantage of the tools, resources, and events that make your membership not only a worthwhile investment, but a tremendous value. We're proud to be your professional organization and remain dedicated to providing you the surest path to professional success.

I wish you a happy, healthy, and productive new year.