Trent Russell reflects on the Internal Audit Conference 2025
Trent Russell, Founder of Greenskies Analytics, who chaired the Chartered IIA’s Internal Audit Conference 2025, explains what he is taking away with him (and why this surprises him).
“I wasn’t sure what to expect from the conference because I hadn’t attended it before,” Trent Russell admits. “But I came away feeling that it was one of the best conferences I’ve ever attended.”
This is some accolade from a man who has attended many conferences. What’s more, given that he usually focuses on the AI and technology topics closest to his interests, he was astonished that the session that made him think most was a panel on professional courage.
“I’m an AI tech guy, so I wasn’t initially excited to be asked to chair a session on courage, but I was really impressed by the different perspectives and ideas that the panel and audience provided,” he says. “It made me realise that we absolutely do need to call out the people who sweep problems under the carpet, or hush problems up, and this isn’t easy.”
It gave him a new view on the challenges facing Chief Audit Executives (CAEs). “The panel did a great job addressing the audience’s questions, but it made me realise that most people had stories about calling on a mentor, a former CAE, the audit committee chair or professional networks for support and advice. It’s hard being courageous in this kind of role when you go at it alone.”
He believes that more executives should be aware of the value of courage and the problems facing CAEs who raise unwelcome messages. This should be raised at more roundtables or in discussion sessions with boards, he suggests.
He also came away thinking about what we need to be to thrive in an AI future. “I am more interested now in looking at how important human skills help us to operate better alongside AI capabilities,” he muses.
Facing the fear
One important issue is to address AI anxiety, which Russell believes affects many people and can limit their ability to embrace the opportunities technology offers. “I have had it myself,” he admits. “I have seen new functionality appear and thought ‘oh no, what does that mean for my role?’ But the way to fix this was to talk to people and to be better educated about what the new functionality does and what it can’t do.”
This is essential because internal auditors in every team need to address how AI is going to affect their roles. “The future of internal audit depends on it. Even if you are not yet using AI to monitor and test controls, others are. It’s here,” he says.
“You need to think about it and have a strategy and a roadmap for AI. We also all need to think about talent – what experience and human capability will we lose if AI does more testing, and where will future skills come from? Something needs to change and I don’t think we have the answers yet – but we can’t sit back and hope someone else comes up with them.”
Problems shared and aired
In addition, the conference provided Russell with valuable opportunities to talk about sessions and ideas and to meet existing contacts as well as new faces. “I’m not an extravert, but at the conference I was the guy in the elevator wanting to talk to everyone,” he says.
“There’s a big difference between attending an online conference to learn about a specific tech innovation and attending an event in-person. Both have their uses, but it was great to sit in a session and then talk about it to the people around me and find out how they are dealing with familiar problems.”
The test of any good conference must be the people you meet and the things you come away thinking about. Many attendees will have come out discussing the ideas and questions that Russell raised about AI and their future role. In return, he came out excited about human skills and courage.
“A test of a good conference is what people say about the sessions afterwards,” Russell says. “Everyone I spoke to said their sessions were excellent and came out with lots to discuss – which was what I experienced in the ones I attended. This is what made it a great event.”