Agents of Change: Internal Auditors in the Era of Permacrisis

By Richard F Chambers

Embark on a journey through the tumultuous landscape of the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond in the 2nd edition of Agents of Change. As the world grapples with unprecedented disruption, Richard Chambers introduces the concept of "permacrisis," defining our era as a relentless churn of upheaval. Within this chaos, internal auditors

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fina Press
• Release date: Apr 15, 2024
• ISBN: 9781963998016

Richard F Chambers

Richard F. Chambers, CIA, CFE, QIAL, is an influential thought leader in the internal audit field with almost 50 years of experience. Former president and CEO of The Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA), he now serves as Senior Internal Audit Advisor for AuditBoard and runs his consultancy, Richard F. Chambers and Associates, LLC. Chambers, an acclaimed blogger and speaker has authored three award-winning books. He is currently based in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, and shares life with his wife, Kim, and their three daughters: Natalie, Christina, and Allison.

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Copyright © 2021, 2024 by Richard F. Chambers & Associates. All rights reserved.

Published by Fina Press, an imprint of Wow Media Publishing Consultants, LLC

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The IIA’s International Professional Practices Framework (IPPF) comprises the full range of existing and developing practice guidance for the profession. The IPPF provides guidance to internal auditors globally and paves the way to world-class internal auditing.

The 2024 edition of this book is sponsored by AuditBoard.

AuditBoard is the leading cloud-based platform in transforming audit, risk, compliance, and ESG management. Nearly 50% of the Fortune 500 leverage AuditBoard to move their businesses forward with greater clarity and agility.

Print: 978-1-963998-00-9

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Acknowledgments

W riting the 2nd edition of this book has been another rewarding experience in my journey to inform and inspire the global profession of internal auditing. Once again, it would not have been possible without the encouragement and support of so many family members, friends, and colleagues.

I must first acknowledge the extraordinary efforts of my writing partner, Robert Pérez. His vision, energy, and tireless dedication to both the original edition and this 2nd edition were critical to its success. Robert helped me find my voice in my articles, blogs, and books for the last 7 years I was IIA President and CEO. He was the first person I asked to assist me with the first edition of this book, and I would not have undertaken this edition had he not said yes to reprising his role.

My wife, Kim, has been a vital partner who has been inspiring me to be a change agent for more than 30 years. She is a source of encouragement and support each time I write a book. Her words of advice, reassurance, patience, and understanding were vital to undertaking such demanding projects. My talented and beautiful daughters, Natalie McElwee, Christina Morton, and Allison Chambers have always been unwavering in their affection and support. As I grow older, I am also motivated by my three grandchildren, Kennedy, MacKenzie, and Luke. They help me maintain a healthy perspective on life.

Thank you to AuditBoard, Inc., for sponsoring this edition and for their unwavering support over the past three years. Thanks to Scott Garner and Lucio Peralta for their extraordinary work on the cover design of this edition. Thanks also to Scott Arnold for the kind words he shared in the foreword to this edition.

Agents of Change: Internal Auditors in an Era of Disruption was the last book I authored as president and CEO of The IIA, In that edition, I thanked all of the men and women in volunteer leadership roles during my years of service who modeled the change agent attributes explored in this book. I am particularly grateful for the unwavering support I have received from the 13 men and women who chaired The IIA’s Board of Directors during my 12-year tenure: Patty Miller, 2008–2009; Rod Winters, 2009–2010; Gunther Meggeneder, 2010–2011; Denny Beran, 2011–2012; Phil Tarling, 2012–2013; Paul Sobel, 2013–2014; Anton van Wyk, 2014–2015; Larry Harrington, 2015–2016; Angela Witzany, 2016–2017; Mike Peppers, 2017–2018; Naohiro Mouri (Mouri-san), 2018–2019; Mike Joyce, 2019–2020; and Jenitha John, 2020–2021.

About the Authors

Richard F. Chambers, CIA, CFE, QIAL, is one of the leading voices and thought leaders in the internal audit profession. He has spent almost 50 years serving and supporting the internal audit profession, including more than 12 years as president and CEO of The Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA). He currently works as Senior Internal Audit Advisor for AuditBoard and heads his own internal audit advisory and training firm, Richard F. Chambers and Associates, LLC.

Prior to leading The IIA, Richard was national practice leader of Internal Audit Advisory Services at PwC; inspector general of the Tennessee Valley Authority; deputy inspector general of the U.S. Postal Service; and director of the U.S. Army Worldwide Internal Review Organization at the Pentagon.

An award-winning blogger and highly sought after speaker, Richard has authored three award-winning books: Trusted Advisors: Key Attributes of Outstanding Internal Auditors (2017), The Speed of Risk: Lessons Learned on the Audit Trail, 2nd Edition (2019), and Agents of Change: Internal Auditors in an Era of Disruption (2021).

Richard and his wife, Kim, reside in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, and have three daughters, Natalie, Christina, and Allison.

Robert Pérez is an award-winning writer who has spent more than four decades as a professional journalist, editor, and strategic communicator. A former director of content development and delivery at The IIA, Robert helped shape communication strategy and thought leadership to support internal audit practitioners globally. He was part of IIA teams that produced the annual North American Pulse of Internal Audit report, OnRisk guide, and the American Corporate Governance Index. He helped create and launch The IIA’s award-winning All Things Internal Audit podcast, as well as other video and audio content for the organization.

Prior to joining The IIA in 2014, Robert was vice president of CBR Public Relations. Earlier in his career, he spent more than 25 years as a journalist at several newspapers, including the Orlando Sentinel, the Dallas Times Herald, and The Wall Street Journal.

Robert and his wife, Barbara, reside in the Orlando, Florida, area.

Foreword

I am honored to introduce the second edition of Richard Chambers’ latest book, Agents of Change: Internal Auditors in the Era of Permacrisis. I first met Richard as he was leaving his role as President and CEO of The Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) after twelve years of significant change. Initially, we connected over a shared passion for technology and its ability to enable value in organizations. What became crystal clear to me was Richard’s deep passion to elevate the profession and his desire to collaborate with like-minded organizations. Our partnership seemed destined and, soon enough, we had joined forces with AuditBoard sponsoring the first edition of Agents of Change.

In the three short years since our partnership began, I have marveled at Richard’s true passion to live as an agent of change. He has spent countless hours engaging with professionals across audit, risk management, and compliance roles listening to their challenges and encouraging them to be bold, to take risks, and to set the bar higher for themselves and their teams. He does this in powerful, yet simple ways — being available for questions after a keynote, signing books and taking pictures with those who admire his work, and personally sharing his deep experience and challenges. He also magnifies their voices through video series and other media, even as he speaks clearly with his own. He challenges every practitioner to take the next right step in embracing change as an opportunity to enhance their strategic impact.

This revelatory update of Agents of Change comes at a compelling moment in time — during a shift from the era of post-COVID disruption that characterized the first edition into a period of persistent crisis, a permacrisis as Richard has coined it. Today’s risks are more complex, interdependent, and growing at an exponential rate as both the volume and velocity of risk explode. Unfortunately, most organizations are not able to grow resources to keep pace, even as the cost of risk events grows seemingly unbounded. The resulting frustration and challenge for professionals is one that Richard feels deeply and is working to help solve.

Throughout his storied career, Richard has continued to challenge himself, learn, and elevate his thinking even as he has become perhaps the most recognized voice for audit on the planet. Richard’s first two books, Lessons Learned on the Audit Trail and Trusted Advisors: Key Attributes of Outstanding Internal Auditors, share Richard’s extensive experience and provide a practical guide to honing the practice of audit for individuals and their teams while modernizing audit approaches for today’s dynamic organizations. In these pages, Richard builds on those ideas to challenge all practitioners to accept change across every dimension of their work as inevitable and an opportunity to embrace innovation, leverage new technology, and envision the big picture in fresh and impactful ways. In so doing, a practitioner can become an agent of change.

No one embodies the spirit of this conviction and change better than Richard Chambers as he demonstrates through the numerous practical suggestions contained herein. He also shares a cautionary warning that auditors who remain behind the barriers of independence and objectivity, unwilling to accept the new reality, risk losing relevance in their organizations. With challenges such as rapid digital transformation, geopolitical conflicts, expansion of third-party risks, and the commercialization of new technologies including generative AI, business leaders need internal auditors more than ever for assurance and guidance to make risk-informed strategic decisions.

For internal auditors especially, this moment represents an exciting opportunity to prove their value as trusted advisors to be sure, but also as a vanguard of change agents with fresh perspectives, clear strategic insights, and the ability to leverage technology as a powerful force-multiplier. This is where I see Richard’s heart most clearly, and his passion is on full display as he helps empower a generation of audit, risk, and compliance leaders to accept this challenge.

As Richard champions the message of uniting audit, risk, and compliance professionals in collaboration across their organizations, this second edition of Agents of Change: Internal Auditors in the Era of Permacrisis is a must read for anyone seeking to elevate their impact and the profession. I can’t wait for you to read it.

Scott Arnold

President and CEO, AuditBoard

Contents

Acknowledgments

About the Authors

Foreword

Introduction

Part 1: A Legacy of Change

Chapter 1: The Imperative for Change

Chapter 2: Responding to Risk in Permacrisis

Chapter 3: Independence Doesn’t Imply Isolation

Part Two: Enacting the Change

Chapter 4: Agent Change Thyself

Chapter 5: Driving Change

Chapter 6: Leveraging Enabling Technology

Chapter 7: Agents of Change Aren’t Secret Agents

Part Three: The Right Stuff

Chapter 8: Business Acumen

Chapter 9: The Strategic Internal Auditor

Chapter 10: On Being Relationship Centric

Chapter 11: The Innovative Mindset

Conclusion: Agents of the Future

Notes

Introduction

R obert Pérez and I collaborated on the first edition of this book (Agents of Change: Internal Auditors in an Era of Disruption) during the dark and uncertain year following the onset of the COVID pandemic. We made a number of references to the unprecedented disruption being wrought by the pandemic as it was unfolding. However, neither of us would fully come to appreciate the transformational change the pandemic itself would have until after the book was published.

Agents of Change was my third original manuscript, and in each edition, I have been able to reflect on the dynamic nature of internal audit and the evolution the profession has undergone.

Lessons Learned on the Audit Trail (first edition) was a semi-autobiographical book about my experiences over nearly 40 years in the internal audit profession. I wanted to impart a bit of wisdom based on my exposure to hundreds, if not thousands, of audits and internal auditors who shaped my views of risk, independent assurance, good governance, and the value that internal audit provides. Five years later, I offered an updated look at the audit trail in a second edition to the original manuscript, titled The Speed of Risk.

One of the chapters in Lessons Learned on the Audit Trail touched on becoming a trusted advisor. I have long preached the value of building relationships with our stakeholders — on the board, in the C-suite, and across the organization — to help elevate internal audit and earn a seat at the table with management and others. This is possible only by demonstrating conclusively and consistently how internal audit helps an organization achieve its goals. The abbreviated examination of some key characteristics of proven trusted advisors provided the genesis for my second book.

For Trusted Advisors: Key Attributes of Outstanding Internal Auditors, I surveyed and interviewed an array of leading internal auditors. From those discussions, I gleaned insights into the traits that characterize outstanding internal auditors — those individuals who have earned that seat at the table and are also considered trusted advisors in their organizations. I examined attributes including ethical resiliency, critical thinking, business acumen, intellectual curiosity, dynamic communication skills, and insightful relationship building.

While Lessons Learned on the Audit Trail was a retrospective on our roles as assurance and advisory providers, Trusted Advisors was a contemporary look at the profession and the traits that leading internal auditors demonstrate in building and sustaining trust. While exploring the past and the present is important, we will never realize our full potential until we look forward. That is where the first edition of this book, Agents of Change: Internal Auditors in an Era of Disruption, took readers.

Since the first edition of this book was published in early 2021, the world has experienced one of the most consistently disruptive periods in its history. Constant upheaval from a pandemic, geopolitical instability, financial institution failures, and disruptive AI technology have created a wildly unpredictable risk landscape. The 2020s is being aptly described as the era of permacrisis, because the world is seemingly gyrating through an endless stream of risk-induced disruption. If ever the world needed change agents, it’s in the era of permacrisis. Thus, the title of this edition was born: Agents of Change: Internal Auditors in the Era of Permacrisis.

What Is an Agent of Change?

My intent is for this edition of the book to be a beacon that shines the light on imperatives and opportunities for internal audit practitioners at all levels. To truly impart value to our organizations, we must be catalysts for transformation that creates value within the organizations we serve. To be sure, we add value when our assurance engagements identify corrective measures that need to be undertaken in the wake of audit findings. We certainly add value when we impart advice as our organizations’ trusted advisors. But our objectives should not be limited to providing assurance and advice. More importantly, we should be influencing positive change that enhances our organizations’ value. This is even more vital when our organizations are being subjected to the external forces brought on by permacrisis.

I first wrote about internal auditors as agents of change in a 2015 blog post. In the years since, I have often urged internal auditors to embrace the role and join other catalysts in their organizations who thrive on change and innovation.