South Africa shines at the IAEP Conference

The Department of Auditing at the University of Pretoria was once again represented at the 11th annual Internal Auditing Education Partnership (IAEP) Leadership and Networking Conference in Orlando, Florida in the USA from 22 to 24 September 2017. The Conference was attended by a number of IAEP-accredited universities from across the globe, including China, Thailand, the United States and South Africa.

 

Mr Rudrik du Bruyn, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Auditing and also Chairperson of the Global Academic Relations Committee of the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA), attended the Conference along with three students from the Internal Auditing honours programme, namely Mr Jurgen Damm, Ms Karolina Dlugosz and Ms Thandolwethu Solani. 

 

Since the IIA’s purpose is to facilitate progress through sharing, the Conference was aimed at facilitating learning and networking on a global level, thus creating opportunities for building lifetime connections for educators and students. The educators’ forum involved workshops on how to enhance the quality of teaching the discipline of internal audit. In addition, students were given the opportunity to network among each other and with a variety of internal audit practitioners from Deloitte, KPMG, South West Airlines and Vanguard, amongst others. This allowed the future leaders of the profession to gain relevant insight into the essential traits of being an internal auditor.  

 

The highlight of the Conference was the case study competition for students. On the first day, students were divided into groups from different universities from all over the world to ensure diversity was achieved and learning opportunities were enhanced. Teams were required to prepare a high-level risk assessment and present their work to the audit committee (the practitioners who acted as the judges). Karolina Dlugosz’s group achieved first place, and overall, the South African students were given extremely positive feedback regarding their technical knowledge and presentation skills.

 

The students would like to extend a special thank you to the Department of Auditing for providing them with the fantastic opportunity to go and represent the University of Pretoria in Orlando. “We look forward to the future, and know that the internal audit profession is one where growth and opportunities are limitless,” they said.