Audit Committee Chairs & The Value of Peers

Staying Current & Learning

We all learn in different ways but for most of us, peers help shape our views and can be a great source of insight.

As Boards face ever more complex challenges and disruption comes from very different and unexpected sources, the value of external perspective increases markedly. Fidelio supports Chairs through Search, Evaluation and Development; we also ensure both Chairs and Committee Chairs have access to peer networks to increase their effectiveness.

The Audit Committee plays a key governance role and inevitably attracts scrutiny from regulators, shareholders and the media. Some issues that Audit Committee Chairs face are sector specific; many are not.

To that end, Fidelio convenes Audit Committee Chairs from a range of sectors and geographies – a peer network with much in common but also very distinct vantage points. In this Overture, we include findings from a previous Roundtable convened as a meaningful sounding board providing insight into other leading Boards internationally and a source of best practice.

Criteria

The Roundtable brought together international Audit Committee Chairs from a range of backgrounds including Financial Services, retail, FMCG, technology, leisure, oil and gas and pharmaceuticals. Additional criteria for inclusion were experience of:

• Scale – large companies and major markets
• Complex shareholder structure
• Experience of embedding compliance functions, including in markets with weaker governance
• Preparing for digital disruption
• Perspective on sustainability

What’s on the Agenda

The Audit Committee remit has grown extensively over recent years. Themes covered by the Roundtable included:

1. The Importance of the Audit Committee
2. The Audit Committee’s Purview
3. Audit Chair Commitment
4. Committee Composition – the skills and the pipeline
5. Empowering Effective Committee Meetings
6. Compliance and Ethics
7. The Rise of Technology
8. Strategy and Time Horizons

To read more about the findings of Fidelio’s Audit Committee Roundtable, please contact info@fideopartners.com.