Initiatives

Midwest Audit Committee Network

Audit committee effectiveness. Risk management. Fraud. Information technology governance. International market risk. More than 20 audit committee chairs residing in or representing companies in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin have discussed these and other important audit committee oversight issues in our Midwest Audit Committee Network (MWACN), founded in 2007. The network is supported by Ernst & Young.

This dialogue has contributed to enhanced audit committee performance and highlighted opportunities for directors across the region to refine corporate governance practices.

Recent network topics:

The audit committee's relationship with the external audit firm

On January 31, 2012, Midwest Audit Committee Network members convened in Chicago to discuss their audit committees' relationships with their external audit firms. Members discussed several key issues, including incorporating key risks into the audit scope, audit fees and fees for non-audit services, ways of strengthening their relationship with their external audit firms, and improving the ways their audit committees evaluate the external auditor's performance.

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Board and audit committee oversight of information technology

On October 5, 2011, members convened in Chicago to discuss the board and audit committee’s roles in oversight of information technology (IT). Members were joined by chief information officers (CIOs) from several of their companies. Members and CIOs began the meeting with a discussion on IT trends and transformative technology – such as cloud computing, social media, and mobile devices – that is changing the way companies do business. These technologies have introduced several benefits, but also introduce risks that challenge companies to rethink their risk-mitigation approaches, including data security and access-control processes. They also discussed cyber attack protection, particularly against advanced persistent threat attacks, which target the intellectual property of governments and commercial entities. These attacks, typically state-sponsored, are difficult to detect and often elude traditional IT security controls.

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Overseeing international risks and opportunities

Audit committee chairs discuss how their oversight is shifting to help companies navigate growth into emerging and other international markets, including the nature of their risks and new management practices to mitigate risk.

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View Network Fact Sheet

Participant Profile

Laurette Koellner
Midwest Audit Committee Network

Audit Committee Chair, Sara Lee