by AZALEA AZUAR / pic credit: member.mia.org.my

THE Malaysian Institute of Accountants (MIA) will be holding the Audit Committee Conference 2021 on March 15 and 16.

Co-organised with the Institute of Internal Auditors Malaysia, the conference will be held virtually from 9am to 1.15pm.

Following how the Covid-19 pandemic has made governance more complex and challenging, the two-day conference will be exploring the pressing issues that the audit committees are facing.

It would also discuss how they can frame, prioritise and manage these issues to deliver robust oversight and good corporate governance.

Hence, this conference will be sharing strategies and best practices that audit committees can use to pivot to a more effective approach for good governance.

This year, it is important to balance technical skills and vast experiences with soft skills such as agility, empathy and resilience that will differentiate an effective audit committee from the crowd.

One of the highlights for this year’s event is understanding how delegates would set an effective audit committee agenda for 2021, which is by prioritising material issues and customising their own unique board audit agenda in this panel session.

As more investors and stakeholders demand more information about environmental, social and governance (ESG) on socially conscious investing, “Prioritising ESG for Better Disclosure” would advise audit committees to collaborate with management for enhanced oversight and integration of ESG information and risks into better quality disclosure.

Moreover, the “Agile and Resilient — Lessons Learned from The Audit Committee” topic will explore how the pandemic has impacted audit committees.

Senior members will be sharing their experiences and will also assess how the state of relationships with their board and management helped them deal with this crisis.

On “Investing in a Competent Finance Function”, the conference will look at how audit committees can take the lead in identifying and addressing the challenges and/ or bottlenecks at the board level when it comes to investing in finance resourcing and approving budgets for finance function investment, especially for technology transformation.

This is vital to strengthen the competency of the function and the quality and reliability of financial reporting.

Furthermore, the “Technologies, Risk and Auditor’s Focus” topic will highlight the importance of internal auditors as pivotal support for board audit committees.

Hence, this session will explain the key issues that internal auditors must focus on with the increasing use of emerging technologies in the financial reporting process.

The technological shift has placed further emphasis on the management’s internal control over financial reporting.

This would require internal auditors to exercise heightened judgement and professions scepticism when assessing the sufficiency and source of audit evidence.

This is because they will likely be less able to design traditional substantive tests that would provide sufficient appropriate audit evidence.

Key speakers for the conference will be Professor Hernan Huwyler who is a governance, risk and compliance executive for multinational companies; Professional Practices and Technical Division of MIA ED Simon Tay; and CapitaLand Group global internal audit leader Jenny Tan.

To register and view the full programme for the Audit Committee Conference 2021, visit pd.mia.org.my.