Internal Audit

The Institute of Internal Auditors has announced that Kyrgyz Republic (Kyrgyzstan) has joined its global federation as a national institute, strengthening the profession’s international reach and reinforcing ongoing efforts to advance internal audit worldwide.

Internal auditors are trained to ask questions. So why do governance failures still occur in organizations with mature internal audit functions, established control frameworks, experienced auditors, risk registers, audit committees, and well-documented assurance processes? The conventional answer is that risks were missed. My research suggests something more uncomfortable. In many cases, the risks may not have been entirely invisible. The warning signs were present.

Environmental, social, and governance issues might have dropped down internal audit’s list of priorities as regulators in the United States have backed away from some of the more ambitious ESG initiatives of recent years. But if the regulatory pressures have eased, and the ESG headlines have faded, the underlying risks haven’t disappeared.

The Financial Accounting Foundation (FAF) today announced the appointment of Hillary H. Salo as the next chair of the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). Her term as chair will begin July 1, 2027, and conclude June 30, 2034. Salo currently serves as vice chair of FASB and chair of the Emerging Issues Task Force. She will succeed Richard R. Jones, whose term concludes June 30, 2027.

Fairness in artificial intelligence has moved from a technical topic to a governance responsibility. Regulators and investors now expect boards to identify who owns algorithmic risk, to understand how high‑impact models make decisions, and to show that monitoring is continuous. Internal audit is not expected to rebuild models. Its job is to confirm that management has defined fairness, measures it, and can stop a model when it drifts.

Every internal audit function develops an audit plan. The problem is that many planning processes still reflect how internal audit teams operated years ago rather than how leading organizations operate today. Those standouts recognize that risks change and intensify too fast to do audit planning the old way.

As summer winds down, so too does the internship season. Over the past several weeks, your team has been enriched by fresh perspectives, eager minds, and renewed energy that has invigorated the internal audit department. For internal audit leaders, the end of a student internship is more than just a goodbye; it’s a valuable opportunity to reinforce the department’s culture, acknowledge the intern’s contributions, and identify ways the team can grow from the experience.

BarkerGilmore, a Chief Compliance Officer executive search firm specializing in compliance leadership, has released its 2026 Chief Compliance Officer Compensation Report, providing an in-depth analysis of Chief Compliance Officer compensation, executive mobility, and leadership trends across today’s compliance market.

Shadow IT has challenged internal auditors for more than a decade. Shadow AI is the same phenomenon, but accelerated, more opaque, and materially riskier. It refers to employees using generative and agentic AI tools without the knowledge or approval of IT, compliance, or risk management. Attorneys pasting contracts into public chatbots, clinicians uploading patient notes for transcription, and developers debugging proprietary code in consumer models illustrate the pattern.

The Institute of Internal Auditors has named Stacey Schabel, CIA, CPA, as Chair of the Global Board for the 2026-2027 term. The announcement was made during The IIA’s 2026 International Conference in Singapore. Schabel joins the ranks of volunteer leaders who have helped shape the profession and guide the IIA’s mission through the years as Global Board Chair.