The spring conference season is upon us and I’ll be joining the final panel of Lexis Nexis’ Corporate Governance & Compliance Conference.  The panel will be discussing Corporate Social Responsibility & Governance and will include Greg Dooley, Managing Director – Investor Services, Computershare and Dr. Leeora Black , Managing Director, Australian Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility as well as myself.

Information can be found at Lexis Nexis’ website.

I hope to see you there.

Todd

The Leading by Learning Series is a great initiative by Trinity College in Western Australia. It aims to bring together alumni and a broad section of leaders and innovators to talk about real issues and a the future of WA.

The format is to have a speaker from outside WA deliver a keynote which draws on their particular expertise / world-view.  This aims to stimulate a some different perspectives and is followed by a discussion amongst community and local leaders – most of whom are doing amazing things.

I’m really privileged to have been asked to be this session’s provocatuer, and join an outstanding panel – Keith MacQueen from Bendigo Bank, Melodie Potts from Teach for Australia, Irina Catalini from WACOSS as well as the moderators from the Trinity team.

If you’re going to be in Perth, and have an interest in strategy and what the future holds for you as a leader, I’d encourage you to come along.

Information can be found at Trinity’s website.

I hope to see you there.

Todd

Lexis Nexis is holding their annual risk management conference in Sydney on August 10 & 11.  The line up looks impressive.

I’ll be moderating a discussion on Embedding Risk Culture from around 11:20 on the Tuesday the 10th.

The panel will include:

• Kerry Stubbs, CEO and General Manager, Northcott Disability Services
• Jodie McKeon, Senior Operational Risk and Compliance Manager, AMP
• Vaughn Wilkinson, Group Risk Manager, Mirvac
• Graeme Alexander, Head of Compliance and Ethics, American Express

For more information, go to the Lexis Nexis website.

Discussion about risk culture is always insightful and I hope to see you there.
Todd

I’m pleased to be chairing a discussion panel at Australasia’s leading internal audit conference on leading practice and models for risk management, internal audit and audit committees in the public sector.

Given the major reforms in Queensland and New South Wales in the past 18 months, we will  have a focus on their changes, which are both interesting in their own right.  Queensland has moved to a principles-based approach in a range of respects, while New South Wales is implementing what I believe to be one of the most comprehensive and best thought through approaches to these matters anywhere in the world.  Both will be watched with great interest by other jurisdictions.

On the panel with me will be policy makers NSW and Queensland as well as practitioners at the audit committee and chief auditor level in both states who will be sharing their experiences and viewpoints as they implement the new policy frameworks of approach.  We’ll also be drawing comparisons from the IIA’s policy agenda which was launched by Lindsay Tanner earlier this year as well as canvassing the different jurisdictions in the room (Commonwealth, and state and local government from each state and territory in Australia, New Zealand and abroad).

Building on last year’s debate, this session will be of great interest for those charged with leading governance within government departments and organisations, or charged with policy setting — both to get a sense of where we could / should be going, as well as hearing from those who are already doing it and some of the lessons learned from these.

I’ve promised to make the session “more Jennie Brockie than Tony Jones”  so please pose a question during the session (Tuesday May 11 from 11:15am – sessions 6D & 7D) or come and say hello over the course of the ACIIA/SOPAC Conference.

Looking forward to seeing you there.

Todd

In the course of my work with various clients and committees, the nature of internal audit opinions continues to be a misunderstood area. Even with carefully defined scopes, roles and responsibilities there appears to be a regular expectation gap between the level of assurance given by internal audit teams, and that understood by those relying on them.

Disclaimers and caveats in audit reports and engagement letters are often brushed over, until something goes wrong, and then can cause great tension between those providing the internal audit assurance, and those relying on their work. Rightly or wrongly, the classic “where were the auditors” line is begging to be pulled out, and is often the first response.

In my experience, issues usually arise as a result of expectations gaps around the nature of audit opinions rather than negligence, but this takes time to disentangle after the fact. The better option of course, is to get this squared away up front.

As part of my work in helping the market to get more sophisticated about the nature and level of assurance commissioned and provided, I’ll be leading an on-line masterclass for the Institute of Internal Auditors in Australia on Tuesday May 4 from 1:00pm AEST.

Through structured discussion and practical exercises, this course will take participants through a framework for providing internal audit opinions, including being clear on when to use them, how to use them, legal implications, how to navigate overlaps between different assurance standards and frameworks and an appreciation of the IIA’s official guidance in this area.

While this is targeted towards internal auditors in particular, this course will also be relevant for anyone who regularly relies on internal audit reports such as the senior finance team, C-Suite and audit committee members.

For more information and registration, please got to the Institute of Internal Auditors’ Australian website.

After two years working with the Institute of Internal Auditors as their national Technical and Policy Director in Australia, I’ve had a lot of inquiries on why I was moving on, and what’s next.

Risk Magazine Magazine (Australia) published an interview with me this week – Davies Leaves on a High - which covers this in the context of the IIA.

Given that articles can only contain so much, for those who are interested in the full story, our media statement gives a bit more insight into how the last two years of focused effort fits into a long term program of structural change for the the internal audit profession for the betterment of directors, boards, shareholders and the general public.  This is available for download at the link below.

Media Statement – Todd Davies departure from IIA (pdf , 336kB)

For more information, please feel free to contact me directly.

Todd Davies FCA CIA FIIA(Aust) MAICD
(02) 9043  1719

Strategic risk capability is one of the key capabilities of our time.

As part of their ongoing roles, Directors and CEOs need to have a deep understanding of the strategic risks and opportunties facing their organisations.  Increasingly they are looking to their internal audit team for a view on whether their company’s risk management systems are adequate, and complete which needs an understanding of strategic risk as well as traditional areas of compliance, reporting and operations.

Strategic risk management is an area which is vital to the long term prosperity and performance of any organisation, yet it is an area which is not well understood or applied.  While auditors and managers are often comfortable with operational, reporting and compliance risk, it is often strategic risk that leads to material and irreversible business disruption. Internal audit teams are now expected to have an understanding of strategic risk and evaluate their organisation’s capabilities in this area as emphasised in Principle 7 of the ASX Corporate Governance Principles & Recommendations.

As part of the Institute of Internal Auditors ongoing work to enhance the capabilities of their members they have engaged TDA to facilitate a series of half-day public courses on strategic risk.   The course covers strategic risk as a distinct segment on the COSO framework, sources of strategic risk, strategic risk capability and a range of concepts to help understand and assess strategic risk.

Developed for Chief Audit Executives, by the end of this course, participants should be able to:

• Differentiate strategic risk from other risk types in the overall risk universe
• Recognise how strategic risk manifests itself
• Assess their organisation’s ability to identify, assess and manage strategic risk
• Identify areas of strategic risk vulnerability in their organisation
• Interact confidently with those responsible for leadership in this area.

Dates for the rest of the year are:

Melbourne: Thursday, September 10 2009

Perth: Friday, September 25 2009

Sydney: Friday, November 6 2009

For more information go to the Education & Events section of www.iia.org.au or call the IIA on (02) 9267 9155.

If you are not an internal auditor and would like a briefing session for your organisation, please contact us at info[at]todddavies.com.au or contact Todd on (0) 422 000 913.

Todd has just been booked to facilitate a session at SOPAC – the premier internal audit & governance event in the South Pacific.

The session will be co-chaired with Jon Isaacs, an Audit Committee Chair of a number of government agencies where they will facilitate a discussion relevant to all sectors on what makes a good Audit Committee.

The session will be held on Tuesday March 4, 2008 at 11:15am at the Sydney Convention Centre in Sunny downtown Pyrmont.  For more information on the conference, click here.

Todd has just been booked to speak to the Canberra Chapter of the Institute of Internal Auditors on the recent updated release of the ASX Corporate Governance Council’s Corporate Governance Principles and Recommendations.

Todd was intimately involved with the ASX Corporate Governance Council between their first release in 2003 and their latest release in 2007, with particular emphasis on Principle 7 – Recognise and Manage Risk.

For more information on this event, or to RSVP, please go to the IIA’s website here: http://www.iia.org.au/bwWebsite/calendar.aspx?linkid=1115&description=Members%20Meeting&PageID=4011