PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE

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President’s Message – February 2010

In January, the NCEB chapter hosted two events – a day-long seminar – “Consulting Skills for Auditors”, and an afternoon panel discussion on Supply Chain Auditing. 

John Hall was welcomed back to present a very interactive session on viewing ourselves as consultants, rather than auditors.  A consultant is a professional who provides a specialized expertise, content, behavior, skill or other resource to assist a client in improving the status quo.  After all, "You are consulting any time you are trying to change or improve a situation but have no direct control over the implementation." John spoke about partnering with auditees to increase their capacity to find and implement their own solutions and instead of simply dictating to them how and why changes should be made.  This different viewpoint and a change in the way we approach audits are ways to ‘get invited in’ – the goal of every auditor.  Thank you, Ruth Powell, Chevron, for coordinating this event!
Our monthly program was a panel of experts in the field of supply chain auditing.  These professionals from The Gap, Safeway, Chevron and Lawrence Livermore Labs provided us with some good insight into how auditors in these groups assess the risks for supply chain organizations—specifically, ‘What can happen to disrupt a company’s supply chain?’  Supplier qualification, out-sourcing and off-shoring supply chain tasks, and the additional risks that need to be addressed for large-scale purchasing groups were some of the issues discussed among the panel.  Those wanting to learn more about supply chain topics, including Six Sigma and Kaizen, the strategy for continuous improvement, visit the Association for Operations Management website at www.apics.org.  Thank you, Larry Wong, Chevron, for moderating this panel discussion! Kudos to Kennan Rooney, Resources Global Professionals, for setting up this program and making the arrangements with these panelists.

Other events coming up in February include an afternoon program on TDF – Cultures/Change Communications systems – how we view differences to bring about value instead of conflict.  This is a great session to ‘tune-up’ communication skills. More information on this program is listed below.
For those of you interested in further self-improvement, consider adding a certification to your profile this year.  As an encouragement, the NCEB chapter will reward you with a $50 check for any part of an IIA-sponsored exam you pass.  This must be completed by the end of April 2010, and you must be a member of the NCEB chapter.  See below for more information.

In 2008, our chapter co-hosted The IIA San Francisco International Conference.  This was a very successful event. The chapter’s board has identified ways to put the monies allocated to our chapter from this conference to good use – including sponsoring a summer internship program for East Bay college audit departments, scholarships for students interested in entering the Internal Auditing profession, and establishing an Internal Audit program at an East Bay college or university.  More information about these initiatives will be made available as these programs are developed. 

I am looking forward to seeing you at one of our chapter events in 2010!

Brenda Roberts, Northern California East Bay Chapter President
broberts@core-mark.com 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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