If you want credibility and trust from management, your reports need not only to be accurate but also fair and balanced. Let me give you a real-life example from my time as a VP in IT at a large financial institution.
The UK Financial Conduct Authority has fined John Wood Group £12,993,700 after concluding the company published misleading financial information in several of its recent earnings announcements.
A brokerage firm owned by Goldman Sachs has agreed to pay a $1.3 million fine after regulators found the firm failed to properly review whether its customers were receiving the best available trade executions.
The UAE’s central bank is tightening its embrace of the internal audit profession, signing a cooperation agreement that positions auditors more squarely at the center of financial supervision and governance reform.
For several years, Archer-Daniels-Midland’s Nutrition business sat at the center of the company’s growth story. Investors were told the segment was delivering consistent, double-digit operating profit growth and helping power the agribusiness giant’s broader expansion.
In this article, Norman Marks reflects on a handful of recent and not-so-recent pieces that, taken together, offer a revealing snapshot of where internal audit is headed and where it may be at risk of losing its way. Drawing on insights from industry leaders, consultants, and former global audit officials, Marks contrasts the profession’s growing ambition around agility, insight, and relevance with an increasingly prescriptive standards environment that threatens creativity, judgment, and imagination. The result is both a cautious critique and a hopeful argument for an internal audit function that stays forward-looking, tailored to the business, and grounded in professional judgment rather than rigid process.
Organizations are very good at moving on. Leadership changes. Systems are replaced. Vendors rotate in and out. Strategic priorities shift with the market. What organizations are far less good at is remembering why things exist the way they do.