My thanks and congratulations to Alexander Ruehle for his post this week on LinkedIn: Internal audit has just been audited by internal auditors.
Why do I ask whether the profession and the IIA are at a crisis point?
Consider that according to the IIA’s own Vision 2035 (and his post):
- 48% still view Internal Auditors as the organization’s police
- 21% describe us as boring
- Only 13% think we’re dynamic
- Just 11% see us as tech/data experts
- And a mere 14% describe us as curious learners
The report was based on a survey of about 6,500 respondents from 155 countries between 2023 and 2024. 80% were internal auditors, of which 30% were CAEs, 11% were internal audit directors, and 25% managers or senior managers.
That means that the opinions expressed above are from the people who run internal audit functions around the world!
Complacency??
The IIA report has this damning comment:
If the profession chooses not to confront its challenges and focuses exclusively on its traditional responsibilities or progresses slowly without keeping pace with a fast changing global landscape, the internal audit profession will become irrelevant.
Yes!!!!!
The report’s six Key Steps for the Future include these three, which I cannot stress enough:
- Shifting internal auditors’ mindsets.
- Acknowledging and preparing for…
