Dubai: The UAE Internal Auditors Association (UAE-IAA), working towards elevating the standards of IA professionals through updating their knowledge especially in emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI), Digitization, Robotics, Data Privacy, Digitisation and Cyber Security, is taking its agenda several notches up by organising the first-ever symposium on Benchmarking in Internal Audit in Dubai on June 24.  

His Excellency Abdulqader Obaid Ali, Chairman of UAE IAA that represents 45 per cent of the total 7,000-plus Internal Auditors in the region, underlined the importance of the symposium’s topics that international experts will be addressing and how it will contribute to upgrade the professional skills and knowledge of internal auditors in the UAE and enhance its global reputation.

The one-day symposium will be held at the InterContinental Dubai Festival City (DFC) Hotel, with the CEOs, Chief Audit Executives (CAEs) and Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) attending the ‘physical’ event. It will provide seven CPE credits and there will be limited tables making participation by up to 10 organisations possible. Four distinguished specialists will present in the one-day seminar programme, while Abdul Qadir Obaid Ali will act as facilitator and moderator.

Mike Fucilli will speak about Control Assessment and Aakash Bassi will deal with Fraud.  Darren Mullins and Rae Lawrie will talk about Cybercrime and IT Audit. Michael Fucilli is the Vice President for Risk Management at Annaly Capital Management, one of the largest mortgage real estate investment trusts in the world. Aakash, a Partner with BDO UAE and the Forensic Practice Leader for BDO in UAE and Saudi Arabia, has been assisting leading organizations to prevent, detect and respond to fraud, misconduct and integrity breakdowns. Darren Mullins, a Partner and Head of Forensic Technology for Accuracy in the Middle East, is an expert in Digital Forensics, Electronic Discovery, Fraud Analytics and Cyber Forensics and Incident Response. He has provided expert testimony in successful litigation and arbitration cases in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) and the UK.  He has investigated computer, network, and cloud-based data from systems used across the world to identify evidence of malicious intent in cases relating to cyber breaches, IP theft, fraud and misconduct and asset tracing. Rae Lawrie, Director in the Dubai office of Accuracy, an independent international player providing expertise to company management and shareholders, specialises in white-collar crime, fraud, financial and corruption investigations.