Building a Better Auditor: Four Skills Internal Auditors Should Develop Now, BLOGS JIM PELLETIER, CIA MAR 22, 2022
IIA Vice President Jim Pelletier takes a look at four skills internal auditors should be cultivating to be future-ready for the profession.
By the nature of what we do, internal auditors are frequently faced with new challenges, changing conditions, and growing stakeholder expectations. To keep pace, we must remain in a state of continuous evolution, growing existing competencies and developing new skills. Leveraging data from two key studies — the 2022 North American Pulse of Internal Audit and the Internal Audit Foundation’s (IAF’s) Internal Audit Competency Study — four areas stand out as both critical gaps and significant opportunities for internal audit teams and internal auditors who want to become indispensable to the profession.
- Data Analytics
- Fraud
- Cybersecurity
- ESG
In the short and medium term, internal auditors must get focused on these four areas to stay relevant. Of course, these are not the only skills internal auditors should be developing. I would encourage you to read through the studies I have mentioned as well as other credible reports to help identify your own competency gaps that you can work on.