Pivot point: Sandro Boeri calls for courage in defining internal audit’s future.

I believe the internal audit profession is at a pivot point. We stand at a crossroads and our future relevance to society and to the companies that employ us depends on what we do now. 

A key question is what we would like the epitaph of our profession to say about us. If we take a wrong turn now, we will be seen as the corporate police and as box-tickers. We will be overtaken by other assurance providers who better understand the big picture and strategy and we will become irrelevant. 

I do not believe this will happen. I believe we will take the right turning and will become more relevant. We will become strategic advisers with gravitas and influence who fully understand the business and can articulate risk consequences and opportunities in language that senior managers respond to.  

We will shape the future as a key player in society because we safeguard the public interest in public interest entities. 

But we cannot take this for granted. During my presidency, I was made redundant from my FS internal audit role, and the management used the money they saved from redundancies to invest in second-line assurance providers. I have seen the threats to our profession close up, and the only way forward is for internal audit to adapt. 

A chief pleasure in the past two years has been meeting many people with great talent and a passion for our profession. But I have also encountered conservative forces and too much complacency. If we follow this path, our profession will not survive. 

Taking the right turn now requires courage. We must constantly acquire new skills to develop our understanding of organisational behaviour, new technology and where it is taking us. We must remain independent and objective, while also increasing the ways in which we influence organisations.  

The power lies in our hands. 

I already know that once I am Immediate Past President I will not be put out to pasture. One of the aspects of my term as president that I most enjoyed was being involved in drafting the new Topical Requirement on organisational behaviour and I will continue to fight for internal audit to have greater impact and to make the business case for auditing culture and organisational behaviour. 

Being president of the Chartered IIA has been one of the greatest privileges of my life. I have huge faith in our new president Arleen McGichen, and I know she feels passionately about the profession and will help us to progress in the right direction. I wish her every success in this. 

One key issue we must address urgently is our role in public interest entities. I believe strongly that an independent internal audit function should exist in every public interest entity and that this should be required by law. We are not there yet. 

We have seen problems develop at some of our largest water boards over the past year and the Chartered IIA has campaigned to highlight that several do not have internal audit functions. It is a scandal that they are not required to. The potential for such crises is increasing as more organisations become public-interest entities – for example, internet service providers.   

The future of internal audit is as yet unwritten, but we must be its authors. We must renew our influence and focus on our purpose – using our courage and talent to make the world a better place.