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September 2008
One of the greatest strengths of our chapter is the commitment and involvement of our volunteers. As a volunteer organization, the board of governors is all volunteers. As it is critical to make the membership aware of the individuals that govern the chapter, the names of the board are communicated on our chapter website (http://www.theiia.org/chapters/index.cfm/home.page/cid/3), the Innovator, and several of our other communications to the chapter. As important as the board of governors is to our success, so are the non-board volunteers that head up key committees for the chapter. We would like to take this opportunity to recognize and thank this very talented and diverse group of individuals:
On behalf of the entire board of governors, thank you all for the significant amount of responsibility you have assumed, the many hours that you have volunteered, for being such a critical part to our chapter, and for doing such an incredible and amazing job!
Jay
Archived President's Messages Below:
Incoming President’s Message - Leadership and Diversity
Chicago’s annual seminar was the highest attended IIA event in North America last year with over 1,100 attendees. The seminar has been providing world class training to our members for almost 50 years! Please mark your calendars for next year’s annual seminar which will be held on April 6th 2009.Chicago has two schools, DePaul University and Northern Illinois University, that offer an Internal Auditing course! The Chicago chapter supported both these schools with a $25,000 contribution to the Internal Auditing Academic Advancement Fund.
For 2008-2009, the chapter is going to highlight two foundations of our success: leadership and diversity.
President Elect, Madhuri Patel (Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company) VP of Education, Justin Naples (TransUnion LLC) VP of Operations, Stacy Davis (Hyatt Corporation) Treasurer, Bob Casey (Retired) Secretary, Yolanda Daniel (W. W. Grainger, Inc.)
Finally, thank you to our outgoing President, Jeff Perkins. Helping DePaul University jump start its internal auditing program, assisting the Chicago Northwest IIA chapter to re-establish itself and redesigning our web site are just a few of Jeff’s many contributions to the chapter and profession. Personally, it was an honor for me to serve under Jeff as President Elect this past year and having Jeff as my mentor.
On behalf of the 2008-2009 board, we look forward to a phenomenal year!
President's Message to Chapter from Jeff Perkins OUTGOING PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE HOW DID THE TURTLE GET ON TOP OF THE FENCEPOST?
It has been an incredible year for us! As you know we host the largest IIA seminar in the world that is designed, organized, and managed by a local chapter. The auditor spirit has never been greater. The turnout at the 48th Annual Seminar, our Crown Jewel of an event held on April 7th was an all-time record. Jim Lovell, Captain of Apollo 13 shared many exciting insights and stories from his successful failure (as that mission was coined) and just as I referred to in my opening speech, if an airline company can learn from auto racing (i.e., the airline co. that benchmarked Indy 500 Pit Crews), I dare say, an audience full of auditors did learn from an astronaut! I learned the value of staying calm under pressure, being creative with what you have, and most importantly, teamwork is the number one attribute of a successful audit. I’ll cover teamwork more below when it comes to the proverbial turtle.
At the beginning of my term, the Chapter Board of Governors challenged me and my Officer team to push our chapter beyond previous boundaries and establish goals that only a high performing chapter could achieve. We spent several weeks contemplating the purpose of the Chapter and created 25 goals related to Service to Members, Service to the Profession, and Chapter Administration. We prepared goal descriptions, defined measurements of success, assigned clear responsibility, and evaluated progress regularly to stay focused. We know that “what’s measured is what counts.” Being a year of accomplishments, including A new web-site design, new Organization Chart and Job Descriptions, improved investment results and financial oversight, donated $25,000 to the IIA to further develop Internal Audit education, identified many new Chapter leaders, etc…, I assure you, we are poised to take full advantage of our Chapter’s strengths for many years to come.
I’d like to highlight one particular significant milestone. Our Chapter was the driver of initiating the first University offered Internal Audit course ever in the city of Chicago. In June of 2007, with the enthusiastic help from Mark Salamasick from the University of Texas at Dallas, I met with Kevin Stevens, Director, School of Accountancy and Management Information Systems and several other Accounting Dept. leaders at DePaul University to discuss the importance of the Internal Audit profession and what it could mean to their students. Several of our Chapter Board of Governors worked on DePaul’s Advisory Board over a period of many months to help Associate Professor Sandra Shelton, PhD, MBA, CPA of DePaul build a class and organize curriculum, and these volunteers offered their personal time to help teach. The experiment has lifted off! On April 1, 2008, I was deeply honored to help teach the first class, not titled auditing, but titled Internal Auditing! The textbook in use is the new IIA textbook featured in my September President’s Message, authored by Internal Audit thought leaders Kurt Reding, Paul Sobel, Urton Anderson, Michael Head, Sri Ramamoorti (Chicago’s very own!), and Mark Salamasick:
http://www.theiia.org/bookstore.cfm?fuseaction=product_detail&order_num=1023 As our fiscal year 2007/08 draws to a close, I want to take this opportunity to explain how the turtle got to be on top of that fencepost. After our year got off to a busy start with much planning work to be accomplished by a group of busy volunteers and an inspirational year started to take shape, a close friend asked me, just how did you become Chapter President of such a successful group of professionals? The first thought that came to mind was a story I had heard about a farmer walking down a road who came across a turtle sitting on top of a fencepost. The farmer asked the turtle, how did you get on that fencepost and the turtle responded, I don’t exactly know, but I sure didn’t get here alone! The moral of that story is, the Chapter was not successful this year due to my efforts. Our strong Board, the Officers, Jay Mages, Madhuri Patel, Shel Pais, Dan Levenson, Angie Coughlin, and Justin Naples, the many other selfless volunteers are the reason I was able to spend a very rewarding year sitting on top of a fencepost.
See you around the IIA!
Jeff Perkins IIA Chicago Chapter Outgoing President
President's Message to Chapter from Jeff Perkins February 2008
How Do Marbles and Rice Relate to Volunteering?
I keep a rather unusual illustration on my desk that often spurs conversation. It is a large coffee mug, a jar filled with rice, and four large marbles. To begin the New Year I
The moral of the story is we can all volunteer a little more if we focus on setting priorities, efficiently manage our time, and not worry too much about
Jeff Perkins IIA Chicago Chapter President
President's Message to Chapter from Jeff Perkins November 2007 Is your Chicago Chapter on Fire? President's Message to Chapter from Jeff Perkins September 2007 I hope you have been taking full advantage of our outstanding training sessions this summer, we have just completed three months of our new fiscal year and have seen a very high attendance rate! On June 18th, 49 attendees turned out for our Corporate Governance Conference, presented by Scott Mitchell of the Open Compliance & Ethics Group, Evelyn Howell, VP of Global Business Practices & Compliance at Sara Lee, Charles Elson, Chair in Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware, and Graham Murphy, Principal, KPMG. The July Breakfast Session was attended by 86 people. The topic was Internal Auditor Communication and the facilitator was Darrell A. Katz of Impact Training Solutions, Inc. And on August 20th, we had 98 show up for the timely topic of the PCAOB’s new Audit Standard #5 presented by two Crowe Chizek executives, Todd Richards and Jim Hannan. Many thanks to the presenters for sharing their knowledge and experience with us! Regarding timely topics and as an extension of training, I’d like to draw your attention to a program that is critically important to the future development of the professional practice of Internal Auditing. The IIA has developed a program called The Internal Auditing Education Partnership (IAEP) program. Please go to this link for more information: http://www.theiia.org/guidance/academic-relations/iaaaf/iaep-schools/ This is a unique partnership opportunity for educational institutions and practitioners to offer Internal Audit curriculum. Although this program was established several years ago, it is gaining momentum and includes 36 universities world-wide! Without dating myself too much, when I attended college, Internal Auditing comprised less than one lecture of the audit course so can you imagine how exciting it is to now have IAEP programs. Some schools even offer IA minors and at least one university offers both undergraduate and graduate degrees in IA (University of Pretoria, South Africa). To support improved education, the IIA Research Foundation published a new text book in July, “Internal Auditing: Assurance and Consulting Services.” This book was a collaborative effort by leading IA educators and expert practitioners in the IA field. I believe this book is the first of its kind as it is very student friendly, but also provides detailed material covering all aspects of IA. Please go to this link to place an order: http://www.theiia.org/bookstore.cfm?fuseaction=product_detail&order_num=1023 This text book would also provide an excellent source of training assistance to all IA departments. I think all internal auditors could benefit from reading and studying this text, especially since it is the first and only source that provides a student version of ACL and IDEA software with each purchase. And it should be noted that NIU in DeKalb is an IAEP school and the Chicago Chapter is currently assisting DePaul University in their process to offer an IA course in January and also apply for IAEP membership. Stay tuned as the DePaul program grows and develops! And don’t forget, as our Officers and Board of Governors are hard at work designing new training sessions, please be sure to watch our web-site for the upcoming events!
Jeff Perkins IIA Chicago Chapter President President's Message to Chapter from Jeff Perkins August 2007 Welcome to a new year! It's summer in Chicago and the local chapter is hard at work preparing for our new fiscal year that started June 1st. What could be better? As the new chapter President, I'm deeply honored to have been nominated as the leader and I promise to serve the chapter the best I can. Our chapter is coming off a string of wonderful years and we are presented with solid prospects for continuing our well-recognized tradition of providing top quality service to our members. Certifications, anniversaries, and volunteering, what are those? Thosea re the keys to your success! At the May luncheon meeting we recognized the new CIA's, celebrated several long-time anniversaries, and rewarded those who contributed significantly as volunteers to our profession. Watch for the details and pictures in the next Innovator! Certification serves to distinguish our members and demonstrates mastery of internal audit knowledge. Anniversaries represent consistent dedication and commitment from individuals who comprise the cornerstones of our chapter. And to the members who won awards for volunteering, thank you, without your behind-the-scenes personal devotion, we could not enjoy the many chapter benefits. I'd like to take a moment and recognize the outgoing President, Mike Seward. His dedication to our chapter has been nothing short of exemplary. Mike has provided a roadmap for me to follow and I can onlyhope to have the success he did. Mike had a great year, under his leadership, we set an all-time record attendance figure of slightly over 1,000 at our Annual Seminar and provided other excellent training eventseach month while at the same time, he switched jobs and moved to New York City in December. Also, the IIA recognized the Chicago chapter for achieving "Platinum" status again, which represents their highest world-wide status. We are very fortunate to have a strong and experienced leadership team in place for this year. The officer group consists of our President Elect, Jay Mages of R&M consulting, our VP of Operations is Dan Levenson of D&T, our Secretary is Angie Terrell of CNA insurance, our Treas |
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President's Message to Chapter from Jay Mages
thought I would reflect on my secret ingredient to successful volunteering. As you probably know, all the IIA local chapters are organized and run mostly by volunteers. Serving our Chicago Chapter of 2,200 members requires a deep level of commitment from numerous volunteers. In fact, since the IIA recently surpassed 150,000 members worldwide, you can imagine how many volunteers there must be who share a similar vision and passion for our profession! So back to the question of how marbles and rice relate to volunteering. The rice is what prevents us from volunteering more often, but there is a solution. Picture the jar resting inside of the coffee mug, the rice and marbles inside the jar, and the lid unable to be secured because the marbles and rice do not all fit inside the jar, there just isn’t room.
Each of the 23 Chicago Chapter Board of Governors and many other teams of volunteers in your Chapter are some of the most dedicated and busiest people I know. And one of the things I have learned from all the previous IIA Presidents and other successful business leaders relates to the importance of always improving your time management skills. The challenge we all have is the rice. The rice represents the hundreds of daily and weekly tasks we have to do such as cooking dinner, laundry, house maintenance, commuting to work, paying bills, etc… Whereas the marbles represent our key values such as family, careers, spiritual beliefs, friends etc… However, as the illustration indicates, it just doesn’t all fit neatly inside the jar with the lid secured on top. So how possibly could we take on another time-consuming task like IIA volunteering? The solution is all about focusing on priorities. Rather than focus on all the little things in life that can sidetrack us, if we place our primary values and goals in the empty jar first, i.e., the marbles, then pour in the rice over the marbles, you will find that the lid fits perfectly on top.
all the little grains of rice in our lives. If we focus on the marbles, the rice usually ends up being accomplished. When I was asked to step up my role in the Chapter, I wondered how could I manage all my grains of rice. I immediately thought back to this illustration and said, if I don’t lose sight of my priorities in life, keep the right perspective on all the tasks that can distract me, and not worry too much, I realized this is possible!
Now as my term is progressing, I am pleased to report the marbles are still in focus, the rice is getting done, and the lid still fits tightly on the jar. Even though I am only at the half-way point of my term as President, I can without hesitation say that I already have learned several lessons that will help me be the best leader I can, enjoyed many fun moments with friends, and in some ways, helped improve our Chapter’s operations and the services we provide to you, our valued members. As your career develops as an Internal Auditor in the Chicago area, or even if you are an experienced CAE, please consider volunteering to assist the IIA. Or if now is not the right time, please remember the marbles and rice illustration to help provide you the solution for when the right time arrives. And as I like to say, “see you around the IIA!”