Internal auditors are trained to ask questions. So why do governance failures still occur in organizations with mature internal audit functions, established control frameworks, experienced auditors, risk registers, audit committees, and well-documented assurance processes? The conventional answer is that risks were missed. My research suggests something more uncomfortable. In many Read More
Environmental, social, and governance issues might have dropped down internal audit’s list of priorities as regulators in the United States have backed away from some of the more ambitious ESG initiatives of recent years. But if the regulatory pressures have eased, and the ESG headlines have faded, the underlying risks Read More
Fairness in artificial intelligence has moved from a technical topic to a governance responsibility. Regulators and investors now expect boards to identify who owns algorithmic risk, to understand how high‑impact models make decisions, and to show that monitoring is continuous. Internal audit is not expected to rebuild models. Its job Read More
Few things motivate salespeople like a well-designed incentive plan. Commissions, bonuses, accelerators, sales contests, and President’s Club trips have been driving sales performance for decades. Done well, incentive programs align employee behavior with company strategy, reward high performers, and fuel growth. Done poorly, they can encourage questionable sales practices, create Read More
Shadow IT has challenged internal auditors for more than a decade. Shadow AI is the same phenomenon, but accelerated, more opaque, and materially riskier. It refers to employees using generative and agentic AI tools without the knowledge or approval of IT, compliance, or risk management. Attorneys pasting contracts into public Read More
Summer is just about in full swing and at many internal audit offices across the nation the summer internship program is getting underway. Fresh-faced young adults are learning the basics of internal audit and kicking off what, for some, will be an exciting career in the profession. It was 2015 Read More
From the moment a customer places an order to the point cash is collected and revenue is recognized, the order-to-cash (O2C) cycle is one of the most complex and consequential processes in any organization. Despite being well understood in theory, it consistently produces significant control failures in practice. The handoffs Read More
Many multinational organizations believe their compliance programs are standardized across regions. Yet internal audit teams are increasingly discovering the opposite. Internal audit executives are increasingly operating in a landscape where regions no longer have a single compliance structure. They are experiencing diverging demands from individual countries for regulation, employee mandates, Read More
GUEST BLOG POST Let me start with a real-life story. When I worked at Solectron, the former CFO, Kiran Patel, held an all-finance meeting in one of our manufacturing plants in Milpitas, California. At the end of the meeting, a lady who had been with the company for many years Read More
Recurring audit findings are a familiar challenge for most internal audit functions. Year after year, the audit is completed, the report is issued, and management commits to remediation. Yet, when the next audit begins, the same findings reemerge. Different year, same weakness, same conversation. After twenty years in internal audit Read More
