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The chief audit executive , director of audit, director of internal audit, auditor general, or controller general is a high-level independent corporate executive with overall responsibility for internal audit.
Publicly traded corporations typically have an internal audit department, led by a chief audit executive who reports functionally to the audit committee of the board of directors, with administrative reporting to the chief executive officer.
The profession is unregulated, though there are a number of international standard setting bodies, an example of which is the Institute of Internal Auditors. The IIA has established Standards for the Professional Practice of Internal Auditing and has over 150,000 members representing 165 countries, including approximately 65,000 Certified Internal Auditors.
The CAE is intrinsically an independent function; otherwise it may become dysfunctional and of low quality. The CAE function exists only to constitute a third-level of control in the organisation, which must be independent from the first-level control and consecutively second-level. An effective independence is the result of both an attitude of CAE, and of prerogatives/guarantees conceded by the organisation or given by the organisation’s principals.