It’s a scientific fact that a person’s body gestures give away his true intentions.  Actually, over ninety percent of all face-to-face or face-to-computer conversations derive from nonverbal clues. Conveying competent and ethical behavior, both on virtual conversations and from 6-feet away, is of utmost importance.

Since our body language, the most crucial and sound part of our personality, “speaks the loudest,” it is imperative that we learn how to apply appropriate and deliberate nonverbal gestures that display confidence, exude integrity and create a sense of trust during virtual calls.  Since social distancing conditions seem to intensify uncertainty and fuel anxiety, every aspect of our role as tax preparers is now magnified and complicated.

Body language expert Jan Hargrave teaches you the ways in which your body communicates to the world around you.  As the nation’s leading behavioral authority, Jan will provide you with the nonverbal behaviors/practices that exude trust, display competence and build credibility during virtual conversations and at in-person events.  Discover how to:

• Communicate ideas clearly, impressively and powerfully during conversations.
• Engage the fundamentals of ethical and professional nonverbal intelligence (NI) as set forth in the IPT guidelines for all members.
• Demonstrate respect for the key moral principles of honesty, professionalism, and dignity.
• Employ the “TRIPLE-THREAT-Communication Method.”  Learn to demonstrate meaningful eye contact, purposeful gestures and intentional body posture to develop clarity during virtual meetings or in-person events.
• Become familiar with the facial expressions of emotions (interest, curiosity, attention, contempt, anger, disgust, happiness).  
• Detect fraudulent/deceptive claims: learn to read the “micro-expressions” of deception, craftiness and cunningness during conversations.
• Decipher quick ways to sharpen rapport and likeability through mirroring and matching.

CPE: 1.5 hours

Field of Study: Communication

Knowledge Level: Basic

Prerequisites: None

The volume of critical risks and the pace of business change today are rendering extinct audit's traditional process for identifying and responding to new risk information. Internal Audit today must use its team and technology to better sense risk information on an ongoing basis. The department level audit plan can no longer be biased in favor of the status quo and internal audit staff must learn to adjust the audit engagement scope to be focused on the most current, critical risks. This session will share key teachings from our Chief Audit Executive meeting series on Real-Time Assurance – that is, how audit departments today are conducting a real-time risk assessment, to inform a real-time audit plan, which will enable auditors to create a real-time audit engagement scope.

It is our hope that after this session participants will have a better understanding of how other internal audit departments are:

1. Collecting real-time risk information
2. Enabling more real-time updates to the audit plan
3. Empowering auditors to make real-time changes to the audit engagement scope

CPE: 1 hour

Field of Study: Auditing

Knowledge Level: Basic

Prerequisites: None

Data analytics has helped transform how employee expense, accounts payable, IT risk management, and enterprise security data is managed. The Packaging Corporation of America is using analytics to add value by assisting in the reviews of unusual transactions, facilitating data extraction, and improving reporting and audit rule definitions within our employee expense application. Data interrogation tools have given us the ability to develop sophisticated risk analytics that are more advanced than random sampling, manual spreadsheet manipulations, or business intelligence.

From data classification to auditing and reporting, the use of this technology is helping to shape the future of our business processes. As we grow, we will continue to incorporate data analytics in more audits that increasingly encompass more areas of the company. By laying the groundwork now, we will be able to use our data in ways that were not possible before. Using data interrogation tools has improved efficiency and coverage by combining decentralized datasets related to employee expenses into a single source for analysis. A library of 74 scripts with over 40 test cases was developed to identify issues ranging from fraud to policy gaps. We have been able to successfully implement continuous monitoring for all employee expense activity over the last 18 months. As a result, audit rules within the employee expense application have been improved to prevent exceptions that were not previously flagged, and broadly defined expense guidelines are in the process of being transformed into updated policies and procedures.

The learning objectives for this session are:

1. Demonstrate data interrogation techniques with industry standard tools.
2. Demonstrate storytelling with data analytics and how to effectively visualize the results.
3. Provide the audience with techniques on extracting value from decentralized data sets.
4. Provide the audience with lessons learned from developing data analytics programs for a Fortune 500 company.

CPE: 1 hour

Field of Study: Auditing

Knowledge Level: Basic

Prerequisites: None

Artificial intelligence or “AI” is often referred to though the capabilities of AI are generally not well understood as well as the value that may be obtained. There isn’t yet even a single set of AI terminology that can be agreed upon to use. Tanmay will answer the questions of what AI is, what it's capable of, what it’s not capable of, and how might AI be used by internal auditors in their professional and personal lives.

During the presentation, Tanmay will display transforming examples of this power.

CPE: 1.5 hour

Field of Study: Information Technology

Knowledge Level: Basic

Prerequisites: None

A candid discussion on assurance for high velocity emerging risks with an emphasis on the ever changing and rapidly expanding risk of data localization regulations globally:
- what the current state is
- internal auditor considerations and
- what internal auditors should be doing to provide appropriate assurance.
 

The learning objectives for this session are:

1. What is the status quo currently with regard to data localization regulations currently
2. Why Internal Audit should care
3. Recommendations on how to approach as an auditor

CPE: 1 hour

Field of Study: Auditing

Knowledge Level: Basic

Prerequisites: None

Analytics is changing the game in many professions, with audit being no different. Today, many internal audit groups are using descriptive (rules based) analytics to supplement their audit process. This session will cover how we have used advanced business intelligence and an enterprise-wide platform, to take these analytics to the next level.   

We will demonstrate how our inventory of descriptive analytics have been integrated with organizational data, and curated into interactive risk dashboards. These dashboards are used by our auditors to interactively assess risk across all dimensions of the business to strategically derive audit plan, scope and fieldwork execution. Further, we will show how the enterprise - wide platform allows Internal audit to share insightful analytics with the business in an advisory capacity, enhancing our perception within the organization as a true value partner.

Lastly, we will discuss our ambitions for future program evolution. This includes highlighting our recent integration of predictive analytics and robotic process automation, along with plans to expand into other advanced capabilities (including machine learning, natural language processing and process mining).  

The learning objectives for this session are:

1.)  Understand how advanced business intelligence can augment traditional audit processes and decision making.  

2.)  Learn how analytics can be embedded through all phases of the audit process.  

3.)  Understand how a shared analytics platform can increase Internal Audit's perception and role within the organization, to be a true value partner.

4.)  Introduce how emerging technologies such as predictive analytics and robotic automation can further enhance how Internal Audit performs it’s duties.  
 

CPE: 1 hour

Field of Study: Auditing

Knowledge Level: Intermediate

Prerequisites: None

CPE: 1 hour

Field of Study: Auditing

Knowledge Level: Basic

Prerequisites: None