“All three days of the workshop I tried to be highly involved in all the activities. What I especially liked was that the event gathered participants from different institutions and countries. I used it as an opportunity to exchange practices and share opinions with other participants.

Another positive aspect were the discussions in our working groups about the concept of managerial accountability: what it entails and how we understand it from the internal auditor’s perspective while also looking at ways to recognize and assess risks related to managerial accountability.

This approach also contributed to a better understanding of the relationship between internal control, internal audit and managerial accountability, and how we as internal auditors can better support the implementation of managerial accountability in our institutions.

As a spokesperson of my working group and by participating actively in the fishbowl discussion, I learned how to convince colleagues to create and support the auditor's attitude towards topics of high importance. Interpreting our working group's views and convincing members of other working groups that we are on the right path was a particular challenge for me.

What I found specifically helpful was the idea that I as an internal auditor of the company can support the CEO and the Board of directors to increase managerial accountability in our organization. In that sense, attending this workshop helped me create a wider picture of the preparation process of the annual audit plan and to focus more on the value-added audit for the organization. As a result, my organization’s 2020 Annual Audit Plan now contains planned audits that are more focused on accomplishing the organization's strategic targets rather than on specific business problems, as used to be the case.”