Abu Dhabi, UAE, November 3, 2022: The Internal Audit community has been called upon to undertake a digital journey, fast transition to digitisation and consider data as an asset class as data volumes are predicted to rise above 100 zettabyes by 2025 and the challenges of data management compound, therefore data and analytics capabilities are now a must.
The 11th Chief Audit Executive (CAE) Conference, organized by the UAE Internal Auditors Association (UAE IAA) at Conrad Hotel, Etihad Towers, Abu Dhabi on November 2 and 3, 2022, was a venue to highlight the challenges and suggestion solutions to become agile in an era of technology disruption and fast changes in the world.
The 11th Chief Audit Executive Conference (CAE) organized by the UAE Internal Auditors Association (UAE IAA) at Conrad Hotel, Etihad Towers, Abu Dhabi on November 2 and 3, 2022 saw a broad-based participation by more than 350 internal audit professionals from across the world.
Abdulqader Obaid Ali, UAE IAA Chairman, said: “We are glad that this conference could focus on digital transformation, technology disruption, good governance and global best practices to keep our internal audit community abreast with the latest trends in internal audit processes and in line with our tagline “Agility, the New Norm’. In this era of transformation, let us undertake a digital journey to remain relevant and serve the businesses better.”
“Audit process cannot remain the same and should be agile, process need to change and undertake a digital journey, and consider data as an asset class and transit to digitization,” said two experts from PwC.
Dabeer Rasul, Partner, Risk, and Ziad Zogheib, Partner, PwC, in their presentation ‘Digitisation & Transformation of the Internal Audit’ said internal audit process need to be automated and data-driven.
“In an era of transformation, is data a luxury or a necessity? Internal audit process is necessitating continuous transition to digitization and automation as transition process is a continuous journey and not a destination. There is need for good audit strategy for digitization,” they said.
The participating 350 audit executives were told that cyber risk is becoming one of the biggest threats to business and therefore it is important for Chief Audit Executives to have an overview of what it is, what are the drivers and how to manage it.
Making a presentation on ‘What the CAE should know about the future of cybersecurity and controls to check’ , Dr Fene Osakwe, Global Cyber Security Leader, Africa’s most sought-after cybersecurity adviser, Forbes Technology Council Member, said : “In 2022, the average cost of a data breach has reached a record high of US$4.35 million, according to the 2022 cost of data breach report by IBM and the Ponemon Institute. Its findings are based on 550 breaches across 17 countries and 17 industries with data gathered from over 3,600 interviews. Kaspersky reported 17 per cent increase in malware attacks in the Middle East.
“As of now, the auditor is not being called upon when a breach happens; It is the CISO (Chief Information Security Officer) who is called upon. The CAE will soon be in the eye of the storm for what will become the biggest business risk.We should proactively start getting our teams ready to audit and recommend appropriate controls to ensure that our businesses are able to survive cyber threats and keep afloat,” he said.
He called upon the audit community to design a work program around
cybersecurity and do an assessment of where organisations are and start building from there.
Relevant experience, capabilities and a degree of accuracy are essential for internal audit practitioners to assess the risks and forewarn managements to take preventive steps on time, he added.
Nipun Srivastava, MENA Leader of Financial Crime and Regulatory Advisory Practice, and Anand Raj Sharma, Senior Manager, Financial Services Risk Advisory, Protivity, made a presentation on ‘Evolving role of Internal Audit in managing the Regulatory Compliance risks’.
“Internal auditors’ role is evolving in the context of financial crime compliance, trade finance settlements and in mitigating regulatory risks and challenges and corporate governance. They have to maintain the right amount of compliance as compliance functions are becoming important in view of new regulations are issued frequently,” they said.
Fadi Sidani, Group Chief Internal Audit Officer, Beeah, in his presentation ‘Agility in a Sustainable World’, said business agility enables a business to deliver value to a world characterized by ever-increasing volatility.
He cited the examples of Blockbuster, Nokia, Kodak and BlackBerry failures as a cost of lack of agility. “Agility is necessary for survival, for the purpose of serving a specified objective. Companies need to be fast in adopting changes and remain relevant,” he said.
KPMG experts gave a presentation on ‘Cryptocurrency, Emergence of China as aGlobal Super Power & Growing Maturity and Compliance in the Region.” They gave an overview of the UAE regulatory landscape, legislative reforms, cyber security laws to protect companies.
The strategic partners are Beeah, KPMG, Protiviti, PwC and Etihad as official carrier.
UAE IAA, a non-profit organization, was set up in 1995 along the lines of its parent body, the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA Global) which has 200,000 members from more than 190 countries and organizations. The UAE accounts for about 45% of the total number of internal auditors working in the region, estimated at about 7,000 auditors, of which 22% are Emiratis.
