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