In my role as President and CEO of The IIA, I am always mindful that we stand on the shoulders of many great leaders who came before us. The Institute was founded by a group of visionary internal audit professionals almost 70 years ago, and it has never looked back. Today we embrace almost 170,000 members globally in 165 countries.

I am not sure if it is my imagination, but the topic of internal auditor independence seems to be picking up steam — especially outside of North America. In the past week, I have commented on the topic twice in my blog (Don’t Confuse Independence With Objectivity, and What Would It Take to Make You More Assertive?).

This week I am attending the Asian Confederation of Institutes of Internal Auditors (ACIIA) Conference in Sydney, Australia. It is always exciting and richly rewarding to participate in conferences that are as professionally organized and thought-provoking as this event. By combining the Southern Pacific and Asia Conference (SOPAC) with the annual ACIIA conference, IIA–Australia has managed to attract almost 1,000 professionals to this year’s event.

I recently attended an internal audit conference outside of North America. One of the keynote speakers delivered a presentation on what he thought was a very provocative theme. It was his assertion that internal auditors are not “independent,” thereby (he asserted) the very definition of internal auditing was flawed. He knew I was in the audience, and I believe he fully expected I would challenge his views as being inaccurate. In fact, his assertion that internal auditors are not independent is not provocative at all. The International Standards for the Professional Practice of Internal Auditing (Standards) does not assert that the internal auditor is independent. Often people confuse the organizational attribute of “independence” with the individual attribute of “objectivity,” which internal auditors are expected to maintain.