Kim Eccles, Director, Digital Enterprise Canada, Sun Life Canada

Aurora Di Pasquale, Director, Internal Audit, Sun Life Canada

For the past two years, Sun Life Canada has been undergoing a pivot to Agile. In 2021, the company's Internal Audit team conducted an advisory review of the Digital Enterprise Framework rollout to get an understanding of the objectives and provide feedback on the control design.

Eccles and Di Pasquale will describe the Agile execution and audit approach, and share their learnings from this transformational journey, including:

• How and where the focus on business transformation was initiated.
• The outcome of the evolution and how they are changing their organization by bringing the business units and Information Technology closer together.
• Their governance model, communications and change management efforts to help their organization though the culture change needed to support the new model.
• How they have closely partnered with Internal Audit to ensure they remain compliant during and post-transformation.

Pat Colavita, Senior Vice-President and Chief Internal Auditor, Foresters Financial

Globally, there has been increasing impetus from regulators to focus on culture. They recognize that organizational culture can have a material impact on the health of financial institutions and the broader financial system. Internal Audit is in a unique position to ask whether culture risk is being given enough focus. Colavita will walk you through Foresters Financial’s path for auditing culture.

Catharine Dutt, Partner, Enterprise Risk Services, MNP LLP

Sohail Choksy, Senior Manager, Enterprise Risk Services, MNP LLP

Financial services organizations have taken different approaches to auditing culture – ranging from a focused audit of culture to embedding the topic in all audits. Dutt and Choksy will examine key approaches that can be considered and tailored for your organization as well as some viewpoints on emerging regulatory expectations.

Naresh Gupta, Senior Manager, Data Analytics Internal Audit, Manulife

In an audit, data analytics can be described as the science and art of discovering and analyzing patterns, deviations and inconsistencies within the processes and data of the underlying subject matter. However, across the financial services industry, the internal audit function has been relatively “underserved” in the use of analytics when compared with direct revenue-contributing functions, such as sales and marketing.

For several years, Manulife’s Internal Audit Services have been making a conscious effort to develop its internal data analytics capability that assists the audits to be more efficient, effective, and highly valuable to the organization. In this session, Gupta will address “what we do” and “how we do it” by sharing a few recent cases in which data analytics was utilized during audits.

Doug McLellan, Vice-President, Audit Services, The Co-operators Group Limited

Of late, the environmental, social and governance (ESG) movement has been growing in popularity and is a common benchmark practice among the world’s biggest corporations and industries, with insurance being no exception.

The Co-operators issued its first Corporate Sustainability Report more than 10 years ago. At the outset, the partnership between Internal Audit and Corporate Sustainability started gradually but since then, it has gained significant momentum and importance.

McLellan will chart the progression and advancement of this symbiotic relationship through time, and how Internal Audit and Corporate Sustainability have collaborated to ensure that many key metrics, performance indicators, and management assertions included in the company’s annual Integrated Report are reviewed and validated effectively using a risk-based approach.

Mary Larson, Partner, Consulting Services, MNP LLP

Geoff Rodrigues, Partner, National Leader, Internal Audit Services, MNP LLP

What is the ESG movement and what will it look like in Canada in the future? How should you think about its importance for your organization, and—as internal auditors—consider the nature of your role in providing assurance to your organization that expectations are being met? Larson and Rodrigues will share their perspectives on how ESG has changed the face of business today and the ecosystem of risks that must be considered when developing risk-based internal audit plans.