Every year presents corporate audit committees with new challenges and changes. The annual Audit Committee Leadership Summit brings together audit committee chairs from leading North American and European companies for a rich sharing of perspectives on the most significant financial, risk, reporting, auditing, and governance matters facing boards today.
Network members learn how leading audit committees in other markets address these issues and identify new strategies for improving governance. In dialogue with regulators, government officials, and financial reporting experts, members provide input on international public policy matters. The summit is supported by Ernst & Young.
Topics covered at the Audit Committee Leadership Summit:
Policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic continue to consider changes to the audit profession and to how companies and their boards interact with auditors. Audit committee chairs are overwhelmingly opposed to the proposed changes. As alternatives, members offered a number of approaches that rely on strengthening the role of the audit committee in dealing with the auditor. Several European audit chairs met with members of the European Parliament to discuss this approach.
Members met with top executives from Moody's and Fitch to discuss the lessons credit rating agencies (CRAs) have learned from the financial crisis, their views of efforts to regulate CRAs, and how boards oversee companies' interactions with CRAs.
Members discussed the various risks associated with governmental action (and inaction) in jurisdictions across the globe, and then focused on the risks stemming from the current struggles in the eurozone, as well as the board's role in overseeing political risk management.