Dear Colleagues:

Welcome to the January edition of our Newsletter. I wish you all a very Happy New Year and let's hope for a more calm business environment in 2008. The turbulence in the financial markets have had an impact on many of our membership in New York and we want you to know our chapter is here to support it's members with networking, training, job postings, etc.

Now on to our recent events and details of some upcoming events.

• On January 11, 2008 The Futures Strategy Group, Collective Intelligence and Board Advisory Services partnered to conduct a one-day scenario planning seminar hosted by the Institute for Internal Auditors in New York. Attendees received a hands-on introduction to managing future risk and uncertainty, while learning to cultivate a clear line of sight on the cross-impacts of multiple kinds of risk from anywhere in their organizations. During the luncheon, Joseph J. Reo presented Metlife's lessons learned during their recent merger integration and the necessity for a flexible and sustainable SOX program
• Our workshop on February 15 will be lead by Chris Wright and Fred Umbach of Protiviti. This program is entitled Engendering a Cultural Awareness of Risk; Finding the right People. Our luncheon speaker will be Ken Yormack of Protiviti speaking to us about “Avoiding Headlines”.
• Mark Arning will host the Audit Director's roundtable on February 28th. These sessions held at New York Life from 2-4PM, provide an opportunity for relaxed, confidential sharing of ideas and common issues. Contact Mark if you would like to join this group.
• And don't forget to mark your calendar for our annual audit seminar on March 28th, 2008. As in past years, we will have general sessions followed by multi-track sessions. Tracks include Financial/Operational, Fraud, and Information Technology. In addition, two 1/2 hour segments will be dedicated specifically to vendors, providing participants an opportunity to visit exhibits. Our featured keynote luncheon speaker will be Stephen M. R. Covey, CEO of CoveyLink, - which is a learning and consulting practice focused on enabling leaders and organizations to increase and leverage trust to achieve superior performance. You probably remember Stephen's father's book on the 7 Habits of Highly Successful People. Stephen M. R. Covey was the CEO of the firm that propelled that to a global leadership training and consulting company. Now he has his own book “The Speed of Trust”. He is an international speaker and many of us have had the privilege of hearing him during other IIA events. We are delighted to be able to bring him to this event. It is never too early to register as this event sold out for the past two years.

I look forward to greeting you at these upcoming events.

Tracy Wych, President
IIA New York Chapter