by Alex Movchan

We recently conducted an interview together with Timur Khasanov-Batirov (the Netherlands), Co-founder of Dutch Compliance Club. This particular talk focused on topics such as top priorities for compliance officers, the implementation of compliance programs, current trends in large organisations, and ESG.  Continue reading…

by Alex Movchan

2020 was a year full of unexpected and unknown, when countries and businesses had to deal with new risks and adjust their business strategies and operations to be successful in the new environment. But while leaders around the world were trying to find ways to keep businesses profitable and prevent people from losing their jobs, corrupt government officials and fraudsters were actively exploring new vulnerabilities and using those for their personal, illegal gain. In these circumstances, the work of risk management and fraud prevention professionals to secure their organisations became even more important than ever before. Continue reading…

by Alex Movchan

We recently conducted an interview together with Magali Logossou who is a Global Audit Manager Forensics by the Heineken company. We focused on the topic of conducting fraud investigations within organisations during the Covid-19 pandemic, which Magali Logossou gave her insights on given her expert opinion in the fields of internal auditing and forensic practices. Hello Magali, you have an impressive international career in France, UK, Switzerland and the Netherlands with in depth knowledge of internal audit and forensic practices. Based on your experience, on which 2-3 main points would you advise organisations to focus on to prevent or significantly minimise the probability of fraud occurring within an organisation? Continue reading…

by Alex Movchan

We recently had an opportunity to speak with a man named Edmund Saunders, CICA, CFE (President of Institute for Internal Controls Europe, ex-advisor from the UK government to Polish officials in the banking sector). He is also very experienced and dedicated in the following fields of internal control, fraud, internal auditing, risk management, international banking and anti-fraud and anti-corruption – identification, avoidance and combatting techniques. Dear Edmund, thank you for finding time for the interview. I know that you have a lot of experience in building internal control systems, mostly in financial institutions, all around the world (in UK, Switzerland, USA, Poland, etc.). In your opinion, what should be the core focus, the main 2-3 objectives to focus on, while building an effective control system within an organisation? Continue reading…

by Alex Movchan

We recently conducted another interview with Olga Lukashenko who is an Audit Director at Reanda Netherlands. The first interview that was conducted with this special woman can be found on our platform under related items, which was about planning and executing audit engagements during the Covid-19 crisis. This particular talk with Olga covers the topic of conducting audit engagements in regions with a high level of exposure to fraud and corruption.  Continue reading…

by Alex Movchan

We have recently had the pleasure of speaking with Olga Lukashenko who is an Audit Director at Reanda Netherlands. She is an incredibly dedicated finance professional with experience in accounting, auditing and financial management. She also has a proven track record in preparation of consolidated financial statements according to IFRS and GAAP, IFRS-reporting implementation in different accounting systems, as well as auditing and independent assessment of financial and non-financial data. Olga has an impressive international career with in depth knowledge of audit practices. This year is very unusual in terms of the Covid-19 related situation and many Chief Audit Executives struggle to execute the audit plans given travel restrictions, additional limitations of resources and shifting business priorities.  Continue reading…

by Alex Movchan & Magdalena Wolska

“People show you who they are,
not by what they say, but by what they do.”
Jane Green, British journalist and writer

Probably, every internal auditor, at least once, had a feeling after the end of the audit engagement, that maybe there was something unnoticed, undiscovered, left “behind the curtains”. You start thinking about it, but nothing concrete really comes up on your mind – the interviews were held, reviews performed, testing completed. It looks like everything was examined properly, but the fear of missing something important just does not come out of the mind. Suddenly a thought comes up out of the blue: “And what, if there was a fraud out there?” Right, missing a fraud is the worst nightmare for an internal auditor. Although the Standards don’t put full responsibility of fraud detection on the internal auditors, but as is written in the Standard 1210.A2: “Internal auditors must have sufficient knowledge to evaluate the risk of fraud and the manner in which it is managed by the organization”. What is the trickiest about fraud is that it is like an iceberg – seems to be just a small detail from the first sight, but 95% of an iceberg is hidden beneath the water. And the damage it can cause might be truly unpredictable. If you have any doubts about that, just think about Titanic – the largest ship afloat with 2500 passengers on board, 1 500 of them died, making it one of the deadliest commercial peacetime maritime disasters in modern history. And this tragedy happened because the crew did not manage to identify the iceberg in time. 
Continue reading…

by Alex Movchan

We recently spoke to a special woman, Alkistis Gkiosi, BAcc, ACCA, CIA, CFE, who is known as a Compliance Expert and Internal Controls and Regulatory Affairs Professional. She has gained a lot of international experience, thanks to the various positions she fulfilled initially in the field of external audit and later in internal audit. From internal audit, Alkistis ended up in Cyprus where she is in charge of the compliance department of an international financial services company. Continue reading…