This week, The IIA is hosting its annual Global Council meeting in Lima, Peru. Global Council is a truly extraordinary forum that enables delegates from IIA institutes around the world to gather and deliberate important strategic issues facing not only IIA Global, but the global internal audit profession itself. Last year’s Global Council was held in New Delhi, India, and next year’s meeting will be in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. 

As a young internal auditor, I concentrated extensively on learning the technical skills of the profession. I learned early in my career about the importance of developing an audit plan at the beginning of every engagement, documenting the results of the audit, and crafting a well-written audit report. I also learned how important it was to understand the operations/business of the areas I was auditing. All of these skills served me well throughout my career. However, I can honestly say that the technical skills were easy to learn compared with the “soft skills” that I needed to hone in order to be successful.