00:00:02 The IIA
The Institute of Internal Auditors presents All Things Internal Audit.
00:00:06 The IIA
In this special milestone episode, Terry Grafenstein sits down with Anthony Pugliese to reflect on five years of leadership at the IIA.
00:00:15 The IIA
He shares what it's meant to lead a global profession during a period of unprecedented change.
00:00:21 The IIA
from modernizing the standards and advancing advocacy to strengthening the talent pipeline and navigating cultural complexity across more than 100 countries.
00:00:31 The IIA
Their conversation discusses leadership through influence, professional judgment, integrity, and what it truly means to represent an entire profession on the world stage.
00:00:43 Terry Grafenstine
So when you think about your five years as the CEO of the IIA,
00:00:48 Terry Grafenstine
What do you think captures what this role has meant to you personally?
00:00:52 Anthony Pugliese
That's a great question.
00:00:54 Anthony Pugliese
There's been a lot.
00:00:55 Anthony Pugliese
I have to actually, you know what, I'll start at the beginning.
00:00:58 Anthony Pugliese
I think when I was first interested in the role and I was contacted about the role and I was thinking about it and of course researching, based on my prior experience in other associations, I of course knew about IIA, even in college, right?
00:01:13 Anthony Pugliese
The House of Gap included something on IIA when we learned that.
00:01:18 Anthony Pugliese
But I had studied so much about it because, at the time I was in a job, I was enjoying quite a lot in California.
00:01:25 Anthony Pugliese
So I researched and researched and researched.
00:01:27 Anthony Pugliese
And as I recall, Terry, was even calling you and talking to you about the organization and your experience and all that.
00:01:34 Anthony Pugliese
But I think after all that and getting a sense of what the job was about and then getting the job, it was a moment of not just being proud, which of course I was, and humble, which I was, but just
00:01:47 Anthony Pugliese
the excitement of being in front of a profession that was at the onset or maybe well into such significant change, that I think that just meant a lot to me to be entrusted with that.
00:02:00 Anthony Pugliese
And then each of the milestone things that we've accomplished, certainly a lot while you were chair of the global board and were on the North American board, those come to mind as well.
00:02:10 Anthony Pugliese
You know, the standards being issued, knowing that final day when we said it's done, Bo,
00:02:16 Anthony Pugliese
even though we hadn't sent it out the door yet, was a very special moment because that was foundational to everything else that we did, learning, our credentials.
00:02:26 Anthony Pugliese
I mean, just modernizing how the profession did what it did and reflecting what was actually happening in practice.
00:02:32 Anthony Pugliese
Those are things that come to mind, but definitely at the moment, somebody called me and said, we want you to do this.
00:02:39 Anthony Pugliese
It was, it's like, I took it very personally.
00:02:43 Anthony Pugliese
Of course, and I have not regretted a moment of it since.
00:02:47 Terry Grafenstine
As a person who's been part of this profession for my entire adult life, I'm so happy that you pursued the role and that they ultimately were selected.
00:02:56 Terry Grafenstine
And because you've just been phenomenal and been such a good guiding light for literally the profession.
00:03:03 Terry Grafenstine
So when you think about leadership, so being a CEO, obviously that's like a big leadership role and a lot of responsibility.
00:03:10 Terry Grafenstine
But what do you think is uniquely challenging about leading the institute in a profession that's based on trust, judgment, things that are these big morality structure types of principles?
00:03:24 Anthony Pugliese
I think leading an association is somewhat challenging unto itself.
00:03:29 Anthony Pugliese
It's very unique.
00:03:30 Anthony Pugliese
I think most people have a different idea
00:03:33 Anthony Pugliese
of how it's run and why it's run in certain ways that you get used to over time.
00:03:39 Anthony Pugliese
So I think there's a lot of differences there between what an association CEO does versus maybe other CEO roles.
00:03:46 Anthony Pugliese
Namely, it's the acknowledgement and participation of members in decision-making.
00:03:51 Anthony Pugliese
And that's obviously so important.
00:03:53 Anthony Pugliese
I find that in organizations where that starts getting bypassed,
00:03:57 Anthony Pugliese
It's almost the beginning of a downfall, or at least a temporary downfall.
00:04:01 Anthony Pugliese
Not listening to your members sounds crazy, but it happens more often, I think, than you may realize.
00:04:07 Anthony Pugliese
And that was something that's very unique about this role.
00:04:10 Anthony Pugliese
But what made it even more profound was the fact that we are so global.
00:04:15 Anthony Pugliese
One of the things that interested me so much in this role, and I had global roles before, but not to that extent.
00:04:22 Anthony Pugliese
So I had foundational experience that I built on.
00:04:25 Anthony Pugliese
But
00:04:27 Anthony Pugliese
Trying to make sure you're exerting indirect authority, indirect control versus direct is something you kind of have to master along the way.
00:04:37 Anthony Pugliese
And it makes it a little unique in trying to do that.
00:04:40 Anthony Pugliese
I don't mean trying to trick people into doing what you need.
00:04:42 Anthony Pugliese
I mean trying to convince that change is needed.
00:04:46 Anthony Pugliese
And sometimes it's easy, right?
00:04:47 Anthony Pugliese
Sometimes people just agree with you.
00:04:49 Anthony Pugliese
But that step
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you have to follow that.
00:04:52 Anthony Pugliese
You have to get input.
00:04:54 Anthony Pugliese
You have to get buy-in, and you have to also then move as quickly as you can.
00:04:59 Anthony Pugliese
And that moving quickly part of it, I think we were able to do, but on any of the decisions that we've made that have been strategically important.
00:05:06 Anthony Pugliese
But I think it's more that, just the leading through sometimes indirect abilities versus more direct and getting that buy-in and participation from the profession, because it's at the end of the day,
00:05:19 Anthony Pugliese
It's about the 270,000 members that we have around the world that we're trying to work so hard to make sure they're equipped with what they need, but they have to be a part of the process.
00:05:29 Anthony Pugliese
And I think when I started, I felt like we needed to increase the exposure to what we were doing so people not only knew we were making changes, but why.
00:05:37 Anthony Pugliese
And you know, when you've got 118 nations being part of IIA,
00:05:42 Anthony Pugliese
that has its language issues come first, but cultural and economic, even the form of government that exists in a country affects how we may want to go about getting that input.
00:05:54 Anthony Pugliese
But that it's challenging, but it also, you know, it's the reason I guess this industry is appealing to me.
00:05:59 Anthony Pugliese
It's a fun part of the job.
00:06:02 Anthony Pugliese
This profession is ready for change.
00:06:04 Anthony Pugliese
So a lot of that has not been difficult, but I always keep that in mind that that's a process that's unique.
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that I have to go through.
00:06:11 Anthony Pugliese
And my team, not just me, but all people in leadership roles have to go through.
00:06:16 Anthony Pugliese
Making sure we have a good board that reflects the actual membership, all of it, as best we can is also an important part of getting that input.
00:06:26 Terry Grafenstine
Amazing.
00:06:27 Terry Grafenstine
So I love the global aspects of the AI and the profession.
00:06:30 Terry Grafenstine
So you talked about coalition building and leading through influence and getting people to partner together for the greater good and the greater cause of the profession.
00:06:40 Terry Grafenstine
So how has being accountable to an entire global audit profession shaped the way that you make decisions as a CEO?
00:06:49 Anthony Pugliese
It certainly makes you
00:06:51 Anthony Pugliese
pause, right?
00:06:51 Anthony Pugliese
Because my base of reference, if I had to say, what have I been most exposed to?
00:06:55 Anthony Pugliese
Clearly, the United States and Canada are very much a part of my career and most of Europe.
00:07:02 Anthony Pugliese
But understanding the nuances of other cultures has really shaped the way I make decisions.
00:07:09 Anthony Pugliese
Because I think about even something as simple as the use of the word advocacy, which was not something we did a whole lot of.
00:07:16 Anthony Pugliese
We did advocacy, but we wanted to really increase it.
00:07:20 Anthony Pugliese
And as you go around the word world, actually the word advocacy isn't even a word that you can translate in some languages.
00:07:28 Anthony Pugliese
So you're talking about little things like that, but imagine the scale when it's even bigger.
00:07:33 Anthony Pugliese
It's changed the way I think about what I do.
00:07:36 Anthony Pugliese
I'm always very quick to ask my team is, what will our membership in Latin America think of a decision like this?
00:07:45 Anthony Pugliese
I mean, what will it think of within Latin America?
00:07:48 Anthony Pugliese
Is there any part of it that we know this could be a problem or could that be a problem or we need to approach it differently?
00:07:54 Anthony Pugliese
So I enjoy it.
00:07:55 Anthony Pugliese
So fortunately, it's always better to learn and have experiences where you're challenged, but you're enjoying what you're doing because I keep trying to make that better.
00:08:04 Anthony Pugliese
But it has changed fundamentally how I make decisions in my role.
00:08:08 Terry Grafenstine
So one of the things about being the CEO of the IAA is you ultimately, you become the face of a profession.
00:08:15 Terry Grafenstine
So it's different than being just the face of an organization or corporation.
00:08:21 Terry Grafenstine
And so what was the moment where you felt the weight of representing our entire profession and not just an organization?
00:08:29 Anthony Pugliese
I think when we had run into what ended up being a misunderstanding, truly, and I think, Terry, you were part of this, helping us figure out how we would approach it, but when we had a regulatory agency actually state something
00:08:43 Anthony Pugliese
negative about the profession.
00:08:46 Anthony Pugliese
And I looked at that and realized a big regulatory agency in the United States making a decision that put us in an unfavorable light would trickle across the rest of the US into state level government, other federal agencies, but it would also be replicated
00:09:03 Anthony Pugliese
around the world.
00:09:04 Anthony Pugliese
The same as sometimes decisions made in Europe because of its prominence on the global stage can affect US policy and the rest of the world, et cetera, et cetera.
00:09:12 Anthony Pugliese
But that particular instance of a regulator making a comment that was just negative, I think the need to make that go away made me feel the weight
00:09:23 Anthony Pugliese
of representing an entire profession because it would have been nothing less than damaging.
00:09:28 Anthony Pugliese
And as it turned out, with a lot of effort and what we would call good old-fashioned advocacy is going and talking to people, sitting down.
00:09:36 Anthony Pugliese
politely as best you can say, this is not right.
00:09:40 Anthony Pugliese
And it must change because these are the consequences of that.
00:09:43 Anthony Pugliese
And I know they're unintended maybe, but these are the consequences.
00:09:46 Anthony Pugliese
I really felt it.
00:09:47 Anthony Pugliese
And since then, every time I'm sitting in front of a, especially a government official, somebody that could have a positive or not positive effect on what we do in any particular country or region, I really feel it.
00:10:01 Anthony Pugliese
And it's a part of my role I really enjoy, but one that I realized those moments
00:10:06 Anthony Pugliese
could make or break things that we do as a profession.
00:10:09 Anthony Pugliese
So I take that very seriously, but it does make me realize the weight or the gravity of what I do and what I'm responsible for.
00:10:17 Anthony Pugliese
That's one example.
00:10:18 Terry Grafenstine
Oh yeah, and I was part of that particular example.
00:10:21 Terry Grafenstine
And thank you for representing our profession because it really is important for us to have a seat at the table.
00:10:27 Terry Grafenstine
really important part of your role.
00:10:29 Terry Grafenstine
And thank you for doing that.
00:10:31 Terry Grafenstine
You talked about your staff and your team and relying on them and using them as a touch point in some of your thoughts and decision making.
00:10:39 Terry Grafenstine
And when you look at the IAA today, what about the people or culture makes you most proud, even if it's not something a member see directly?
00:10:46 Terry Grafenstine
Because you have a lot of things going on behind the scenes as well.
00:10:50 Anthony Pugliese
One of the things, I mean, we've, I think IIA has always done a good job of finding qualified, good people to do the work we've done.
00:10:57 Anthony Pugliese
We've been around for a long time, 83 years, 84 years now.
00:11:01 Anthony Pugliese
We've grown.
00:11:02 Anthony Pugliese
So a lot of good decisions have been made.
00:11:03 Anthony Pugliese
But one thing that I thought about our culture that was not where it needed to be for the world to see us as global is we needed more people that did not come from a US or Canadian perspective only.
00:11:17 Anthony Pugliese
And that makes a profound difference.
00:11:19 Anthony Pugliese
So you can be very qualified in your role, but if you don't understand the nuances of business in another region of the world, especially one you may have zero background on, it's important.
00:11:30 Anthony Pugliese
You have to make sure you step back and your culture reflects that kind of a diversity.
00:11:36 Anthony Pugliese
And I don't mean just, you know, I'm going to hire someone from Europe, I'm going to hire someone from the Middle East, et cetera.
00:11:41 Anthony Pugliese
I need people that have
00:11:42 Anthony Pugliese
done the work and in the profession in those countries.
00:11:46 Anthony Pugliese
So they bring every perspective that's needed to be successful.
00:11:50 Anthony Pugliese
I mean, we have a lot of great examples.
00:11:51 Anthony Pugliese
The head of our standard setting is from Belgium and she's amazing.
00:11:56 Anthony Pugliese
The head of our entire affiliate relations, the person and team that deals with 118 nations is from Spain.
00:12:03 Anthony Pugliese
And he was an internal auditor in Spain, et cetera, et cetera.
00:12:06 Anthony Pugliese
Those form a very different culture because folks like that will say, wait a minute,
00:12:12 Anthony Pugliese
Let's pause because I don't think that's going to work here and may not work as well as you think it will there.
00:12:17 Anthony Pugliese
And I think that cultural journey, it takes time, right?
00:12:20 Anthony Pugliese
Because it's not just putting a body in a seat that's from another country, but one that can truly represent the profession as a non-American or non-Canadian.
00:12:30 Anthony Pugliese
And so that was a big cultural journey and I'm very proud of it.
00:12:33 Anthony Pugliese
We've also become a very, I almost so proud, we're not just a bilingual company, we're a many lingual.
00:12:40 Anthony Pugliese
A lot of our staff speak 3 languages.
00:12:43 Anthony Pugliese
And although it's unfathomable to speak 5 languages, but we have four people here that speak 5 languages.
00:12:51 Anthony Pugliese
They get invited to a lot of calls and trips, I might add.
00:12:54 Anthony Pugliese
But that's important.
00:12:55 Anthony Pugliese
And we've recently even opened our doors for exchange programs with our national institutes or what we call affiliates or national institutes.
00:13:04 Anthony Pugliese
So we have someone literally from IIA, Saudi Arabia coming to work with us for a year, and we're sending someone there to work for a year.
00:13:11 Anthony Pugliese
And those two individuals will just by default become incredibly valuable to wherever they're going, coming from and going back to and vice versa.
00:13:20 Anthony Pugliese
So I'm proud of that culturally that we even have something like that we want to grow.
00:13:24 Anthony Pugliese
I don't want it to be one country.
00:13:26 Anthony Pugliese
I want it to be many, many at the same time and have our staff
00:13:30 Anthony Pugliese
go out and experience the challenges and opportunities that are sitting outside of the US.
00:13:37 Anthony Pugliese
I want us to be a company located in the US, not a company that can be classified as an American company.
00:13:45 Anthony Pugliese
And I think the vast majority of our membership would agree that that's the best approach we could take to be global, among other things.
00:13:53 Terry Grafenstine
So when members think about the IA during this chapter of its 80 plus years of existence, what do you hope that they felt from your leadership?
00:14:01 Anthony Pugliese
I think it's almost imperative that you put more weight on the changing part of the profession than just the legacy.
00:14:08 Anthony Pugliese
That's not quite what you asked.
00:14:10 Anthony Pugliese
I mean, there are parts of our legacy that have been more tradition and orientation, and sometimes you just have to challenge status quo and wonder how many people, members,
00:14:21 Anthony Pugliese
is this legacy or tradition important to versus how many are struggling because we haven't acknowledged the fact that our profession wonderfully has changed into something so much bigger than it was 80 plus years ago.
00:14:34 Anthony Pugliese
So I think it's a pause to make sure you're remembering tradition and being very deliberate about knowing when you're undoing something or changing a legacy, but always acknowledging the leaders that came before me and before you
00:14:49 Anthony Pugliese
as a former global chair, knowing that they did the best they could.
00:14:52 Anthony Pugliese
That's something we can never forget and never stop acknowledging.
00:14:56 Anthony Pugliese
Because I wouldn't be here building on success without all of those hundreds and hundreds of staff, former CEOs, former chairs, et cetera, former board members.
00:15:07 Anthony Pugliese
So that respect is there and that legacy will always be there, certainly as long as I am.
00:15:11 Anthony Pugliese
But I think it's
00:15:13 Anthony Pugliese
more important to focus on where the profession's going, because you can't let a, we can't get behind in understanding and responding to change.
00:15:21 Anthony Pugliese
Even recent things that were uncovered in our Vision 2035 report, like a third of our CAEs around the world are now managing the risk function directly.
00:15:31 Anthony Pugliese
That's not something we were geared up to have resources around, and now we are.
00:15:37 Anthony Pugliese
That's more important, say, than acknowledging the fact that we never used to do risk, so therefore we should not do risk.
00:15:45 Anthony Pugliese
That argument doesn't hold merit because the market makes decisions, and I'm not here to change the way the market evolves, especially in my opinion, us being asked as a profession to do more is a positive market development.
00:15:59 Anthony Pugliese
It could have gone the other way, right?
00:16:00 Anthony Pugliese
It could have been somebody else that was asked to do more risk work.
00:16:04 Anthony Pugliese
So it's a balance, but I do always put more weight on the changing needs versus the legacy.
00:16:10 Terry Grafenstine
And I love that because one of the things I hate to hear is if you ask somebody, why do we do this or that?
00:16:16 Terry Grafenstine
And the answer is, that's where we've always done it and always done it, right?
00:16:20 Terry Grafenstine
And it's like, well, you know, we're always going to do the old stuff and we're going to get left behind as a profession.
00:16:26 Terry Grafenstine
So I love the fact that
00:16:28 Terry Grafenstine
you're at your vision 2035 for anybody listening to this podcast who's not read that, I highly encourage you to do that because it definitely gives a roadmap of where we're going as a profession.
00:16:39 Terry Grafenstine
It was very well done.
00:16:40 Anthony Pugliese
Thank you.
00:16:41 Terry Grafenstine
So when you think about some of the auditors, you know, intern, I'd like to say some of the young internal auditors, but there's actually a lot of people that join the internal audit profession mid-career.
00:16:50 Terry Grafenstine
So think about people who are coming to the profession
00:16:53 Terry Grafenstine
just new to the profession, whether it's their first profession or something, a change mid-career, and they're stepping into a leadership role for the first time.
00:17:01 Terry Grafenstine
What lessons from your CEO journey would you want them to hear?
00:17:06 Anthony Pugliese
You know, that's a great one.
00:17:07 Anthony Pugliese
Let me pause and think.
00:17:08 Anthony Pugliese
I will start by saying the vast majority of people I've met and experienced that have moved into leadership roles, let's say the CAE role, know their stuff and they know it really well.
00:17:22 Anthony Pugliese
And
00:17:23 Anthony Pugliese
Even with that, sometimes I find I'm looking at people who doubt that they have the ability to do certain things that they're being asked to do.
00:17:32 Anthony Pugliese
Like for example, culture audits.
00:17:34 Anthony Pugliese
Culture audits are so huge right now for our profession.
00:17:37 Anthony Pugliese
It's just getting bigger.
00:17:38 Anthony Pugliese
And this isn't culture like, you know, is this a great place to work?
00:17:41 Anthony Pugliese
This is culture assessing
00:17:43 Anthony Pugliese
whether an organization has the right behavioral patterns and the right risk appetite and responses to risk.
00:17:50 Anthony Pugliese
And our members always say, well, how am I qualified to do that?
00:17:52 Anthony Pugliese
And I'm very quick to say, you are.
00:17:55 Anthony Pugliese
How many times have you walked away from a team and whatever company you work for and said,
00:18:01 Anthony Pugliese
something about this team is not run as well as that team, or there's something about the way these people are answering my questions versus that team.
00:18:09 Anthony Pugliese
We have so much more in our heads and in our cognitive part of our brain that we are aware of.
00:18:16 Anthony Pugliese
And I sometimes find that you can be almost afraid to put that forward.
00:18:21 Anthony Pugliese
And I would ask those young, new, like you said, it could be not young, but just new to the role, is trust a lot of your gut on these things.
00:18:29 Anthony Pugliese
You always have to make sure gut's not your leading indicator.
00:18:32 Anthony Pugliese
There's got to be data and evidence.
00:18:34 Anthony Pugliese
But I find that we question our own ability to move into a lot of these roles.
00:18:40 Anthony Pugliese
And for really,
00:18:41 Anthony Pugliese
very well qualified to do a lot of this work.
00:18:44 Anthony Pugliese
And risk is another great example.
00:18:46 Anthony Pugliese
We are so good at assessing risk.
00:18:49 Anthony Pugliese
We do that.
00:18:50 Anthony Pugliese
It's probably almost to a detriment.
00:18:52 Anthony Pugliese
I know my family wishes I would quit telling them everything that could go wrong in the world and in life and so forth, but we are qualified.
00:18:59 Anthony Pugliese
So I'd ask that person to step back and say, maybe I am more prepared than I'm even giving myself credit for, because I find our members are just tremendous.
00:19:11 Anthony Pugliese
They know a lot, they do a lot, but yet doing new things can sometimes be more challenging than I wish it were for them.
00:19:17 Terry Grafenstine
You talked about the fact that there's changing expectations.
00:19:21 Terry Grafenstine
So Vision 2035 talked about a lot of chief auditors taking on more risk management or enterprise risk management responsibilities, higher expectations from the board, our role in public trust.
00:19:33 Terry Grafenstine
As a former inspector general, that is music to my ears because that's definitely
00:19:38 Terry Grafenstine
something that I find personally just that's compelling part of my job.
00:19:42 Terry Grafenstine
I think that's really important.
00:19:44 Terry Grafenstine
And so when you think about all those different challenges that we have to face as a profession and balancing all that, what does strong leadership and internal audit look like you today?
00:19:55 Anthony Pugliese
There's so many answers to that one.
00:19:57 Anthony Pugliese
I think for me personally, and not particularly in rank order, but I think a strong leader in internal audit today needs to understand how and how best to embrace what I call human intelligence skills.
00:20:11 Anthony Pugliese
Some people may say emotional intelligence.
00:20:12 Anthony Pugliese
It's not quite that.
00:20:13 Anthony Pugliese
It's the human intelligence skills that are critical to doing a job, like how do you explain AI to a member of management that has no background?
00:20:21 Anthony Pugliese
and make sure that they're smart people, but how many people understand AI or cybersecurity?
00:20:26 Anthony Pugliese
It can go right over their heads.
00:20:27 Anthony Pugliese
And they may not understand the concerns, but having those, in that case, communication skills, the ability to distill complex ideas and as simple to understand, easier to understand language, but really knowing that human intelligence skills are far more important than they ever have been because the world is so complex and because teamwork is so needed.
00:20:49 Anthony Pugliese
Internal auditors have to use
00:20:51 Anthony Pugliese
experts so often to be sure that some of their assumptions and report conclusions are right, especially in these newer areas that we're growing so strongly in.
00:21:02 Anthony Pugliese
That's important.
00:21:03 Anthony Pugliese
And that leader that isn't intimidated by or afraid of giving members of management or members of boards and audit committees
00:21:12 Anthony Pugliese
perhaps advice that they know these people may not want to have.
00:21:15 Anthony Pugliese
I'd call that maybe professional courage, is just stepping up and saying, this doesn't feel right.
00:21:22 Anthony Pugliese
Maybe I don't have all the facts, but it's that ability to talk, even when you may not have enough to issue a report, but you have enough up here in your head that you can step up and make contributions.
00:21:35 Anthony Pugliese
I want us to have a seat at the table, so to speak,
00:21:38 Anthony Pugliese
And you can't have a seat at the table if you're quiet.
00:21:40 Anthony Pugliese
When our new standards were issued, that was one of the most common questions that we got is, well, you know, I don't even get access to the board of directors.
00:21:48 Anthony Pugliese
And you're like, well, first of all, you need to document that you've not been given access despite requests.
00:21:54 Anthony Pugliese
But when you do have access, how would you use it?
00:21:57 Anthony Pugliese
And by the way, did you ever ask for that access?
00:22:01 Anthony Pugliese
And you'd be surprised, I'd say a good 30%, a third,
00:22:05 Anthony Pugliese
of members will say, well, no, I haven't done that.
00:22:06 Anthony Pugliese
I kind of expect it.
00:22:08 Anthony Pugliese
You're like, well, they say the old adage, you don't get what you don't ask for most of the time in life, much less for our profession.
00:22:15 Anthony Pugliese
So those kind of skills come to mind in addition to keeping up on this changing nature of just everything.
00:22:22 Anthony Pugliese
AI comes to mind.
00:22:24 Anthony Pugliese
I know a lot of us, we preach, you know, it seems like we evangelize the message of, please don't think this is a problem for the next generation to worry about.
00:22:32 Anthony Pugliese
It is here, it's now.
00:22:34 Anthony Pugliese
Don't put it off.
00:22:35 Anthony Pugliese
It's a complex topic, but we can do it.
00:22:38 Anthony Pugliese
And you've got to learn those things.
00:22:40 Anthony Pugliese
Professional education is strong leadership.
00:22:44 Anthony Pugliese
It's knowing you have to constantly be skilled.
00:22:47 Anthony Pugliese
And sometimes that's just some working knowledge.
00:22:50 Anthony Pugliese
AI is a great example, probably the subject of another webcast.
00:22:53 Anthony Pugliese
But sometimes when we tell members, just start with governance.
00:22:57 Anthony Pugliese
Get your foot in there.
00:22:59 Anthony Pugliese
Experience is the best teacher ever.
00:23:02 Anthony Pugliese
Just get your foot in there and start poking around and asking.
00:23:04 Anthony Pugliese
And do we have tools available?
00:23:06 Anthony Pugliese
Take classes, but keep yourself current as best you can in a world that changes, it feels like daily.
00:23:13 Anthony Pugliese
I mean, now we're even dealing with things that are more abstract, like geopolitical risk and things like that.
00:23:19 Anthony Pugliese
So it's important to stay plugged in and profoundly important to stay plugged in.
00:23:25 Terry Grafenstine
And I think your point about, things like some of these things are really sensitive.
00:23:28 Terry Grafenstine
You're dealing with boards, geopolitical risk, and being able to have that professional courage to speak up even when it can be scary.
00:23:35 Terry Grafenstine
And so I think that that's great guidance.
00:23:38 Terry Grafenstine
So it was interesting when I first, the very first day that I became the global chair of the IIA, you and I had a meeting with an institute that was struggling and there was some coaching going on.
00:23:48 Terry Grafenstine
And it gave me immediately sort of a glimpse as to what your day looks like behind the scenes that I had no idea that was happening.
00:23:56 Terry Grafenstine
And so many of the people listening probably would have no idea.
00:24:00 Terry Grafenstine
So what's one of the things about being a CEO that looks simple from the outside, but absolutely isn't?
00:24:06 Anthony Pugliese
I'll give you a funny one, but then I'll move into a real one.
00:24:09 Anthony Pugliese
The first one may be a personal grievance is sometimes I think people look at my role and go, oh my goodness, he's so lucky.
00:24:15 Anthony Pugliese
He gets to travel everywhere.
00:24:16 Anthony Pugliese
And I'm thinking, thank you.
00:24:18 Anthony Pugliese
I feel very fortunate that I do get to experience so many cultures, but it's not about fun.
00:24:23 Anthony Pugliese
It's about making sure that I can say comfortably, I know the opinions of a lot of our members.
00:24:30 Anthony Pugliese
And I know the opinions of the boards of our affiliates and the CEOs of all of our national institutes, et cetera.
00:24:36 Anthony Pugliese
And I know the concerns.
00:24:37 Anthony Pugliese
And you know what?
00:24:39 Anthony Pugliese
Other than the United States, parts of Europe and Canada, people don't use Zoom and Teams like we do.
00:24:44 Anthony Pugliese
You have to show up.
00:24:46 Anthony Pugliese
The cultural expectation is if you're serious, show up and let's talk in person.
00:24:51 Anthony Pugliese
So there's a little bit of that I think about, but to your comment about the issue I remember well when you stepped into your role is that
00:24:59 Anthony Pugliese
We have a superpower as an association, and I've never seen it before except in for-profit organizations, like say the really large professional services firms like where I started at Deloitte, where you were at one point, all the big ones, they work as a federation.
00:25:16 Anthony Pugliese
They have member countries that belong and roll up into their global structure.
00:25:20 Anthony Pugliese
We're the same way.
00:25:22 Anthony Pugliese
And
00:25:23 Anthony Pugliese
It's profoundly a superpower because I can say in front of a regulator, we have a board of directors, a CEO, staff, and volunteers in 118 nations ready to move on issues and make sure our members are where they need to be in each one of those locations.
00:25:42 Anthony Pugliese
But 118 nations
00:25:46 Anthony Pugliese
is not an easy thing to, I'm using air quotes.
00:25:49 Anthony Pugliese
People can't see me doing that on camera, but it's a hard thing to keep together and move for all the reasons I cited earlier.
00:25:58 Anthony Pugliese
But it's also very important that it does stay together and that we respect opinions and sometimes just respect that we may not agree,
00:26:07 Anthony Pugliese
but that decisions must still be made, however hard they are.
00:26:11 Anthony Pugliese
And we quickly say, if we don't get it right, we'll do it again.
00:26:14 Anthony Pugliese
But we have to do something.
00:26:16 Anthony Pugliese
Not getting frozen because you have so many disparate opinions and you just have to make decisions and move as best you can, sometimes absent 100% of the data you would love to have.
00:26:27 Anthony Pugliese
But running the organization and its superpower can be difficult at times.
00:26:32 Anthony Pugliese
And I think our global board spends probably,
00:26:36 Anthony Pugliese
I almost want to say up to 50% of its time trying to acknowledge and realize what are the uniqueness of issues in each of the parts of the world where we're present and where we want to be present.
00:26:47 Anthony Pugliese
Where do we want to expand?
00:26:48 Anthony Pugliese
So that federation model, I would not give it up for anything.
00:26:53 Anthony Pugliese
It's just so hugely advantageous to us, but it can be difficult for anybody because of the sheer magnitude and the sheer volume of it.
00:27:02 Anthony Pugliese
I'd also say, not to end that, like I need to make it a positive thing, but it's the part of my role I think I just absolutely relish the most because of the exposure and the education.
00:27:16 Anthony Pugliese
I said from experience, it's just profound.
00:27:18 Anthony Pugliese
I can go from countries like China to countries like in South America, Latin America in general, Europe, Middle East, et cetera.
00:27:26 Anthony Pugliese
And your style continues to shift to make sure you're doing business in those parts of the world the way that it needs to be done.
00:27:35 Anthony Pugliese
So it's like this amazing classroom that I have every day and every trip I ever make.
00:27:40 Anthony Pugliese
That's some of the things that may look easier perhaps than it probably is from the outside looking in versus the other way around.
00:27:48 Terry Grafenstine
So you spoke about the global, we're a huge profession, right?
00:27:53 Terry Grafenstine
And interacting with all the different personalities and cultures.
00:27:57 Terry Grafenstine
But one of the things I would say would probably be uniform, regardless of where you're at in the world, is we're a profession built on skepticism and evidence.
00:28:05 Terry Grafenstine
And so what's one assumption you had going into this role that got tested pretty quickly?
00:28:11 Anthony Pugliese
Goodness.
00:28:11 Anthony Pugliese
I think one assumption, I think, I don't know if it's an assumption or a fact, I'm so impressed by the power of our volunteer structure.
00:28:20 Anthony Pugliese
And I still am very, very proud of how we put our volunteers together.
00:28:23 Anthony Pugliese
And I don't mean just in the global setting.
00:28:25 Anthony Pugliese
I mean everywhere in the world.
00:28:28 Anthony Pugliese
But I think what got challenged very quickly is how diverse the opinions
00:28:33 Anthony Pugliese
can be on any single topic that may be so obvious, right, to me or to you when you were chair.
00:28:40 Anthony Pugliese
And let's even pick a non-American chair.
00:28:43 Anthony Pugliese
And we have many, same to them.
00:28:45 Anthony Pugliese
They may look to this part of the world and say, what?
00:28:48 Anthony Pugliese
I don't understand why you feel that way.
00:28:50 Anthony Pugliese
But it became kind of to the very first comment I made about getting buy-in and making sure you're getting all that and being able to respond to why you may do things that are contrary to that.
00:29:01 Anthony Pugliese
But I think that assumption got tested pretty quickly is just how we're one profession and we all sort of do the same thing, but the opinions on how we get there are very different and they have to be acknowledged or we're just not going to be seen as doing what we need to bring consensus to a global profession.
00:29:22 Anthony Pugliese
The good thing is it still works.
00:29:24 Anthony Pugliese
It's just it got tested and I needed to make sure I adjusted.
00:29:27 Anthony Pugliese
And one of those adjustments was what I mentioned earlier is that
00:29:31 Anthony Pugliese
this company has to be not just look, it has to be more global and how it thinks and acts and maneuvers.
00:29:38 Terry Grafenstine
No, and I love your earlier example about advocacy.
00:29:42 Terry Grafenstine
And I was part of those conversations and how different parts of the world view that word.
00:29:47 Terry Grafenstine
And it's like, I remember one person from a different part, not from North America saying, isn't that bribery?
00:29:53 Terry Grafenstine
And it was sort of,
00:29:54 Terry Grafenstine
I thought, okay, let's break down this word.
00:29:57 Terry Grafenstine
That's definitely not what we mean, but it is interesting.
00:30:02 Terry Grafenstine
But when you, so as you come into this role, what's something that you were really confident about five years ago, but you see differently now?
00:30:10 Anthony Pugliese
I think this would probably be any CEO answer, to be honest.
00:30:13 Anthony Pugliese
I think the rate of change is, like I said, probably every, I hate to give you a canned answer, but
00:30:20 Anthony Pugliese
I was worried about cyber and making sure we had our arms around that.
00:30:24 Anthony Pugliese
And it was during the pandemics I was hearing about these culture audits becoming more and more prominent as companies tried to react better to risk.
00:30:31 Anthony Pugliese
But I think just my eyes and ears are open for what that next big thing is going to be.
00:30:38 Anthony Pugliese
And I have to admit in some of the other organizations I worked for, it was a little bit more static.
00:30:43 Anthony Pugliese
Not like dead on arrival, like just stopped in its tracks.
00:30:46 Anthony Pugliese
slow, but what we're experiencing is unprecedented change.
00:30:50 Anthony Pugliese
And I can honestly say so far, it's all been, in my opinion, amazing for our profession.
00:30:56 Anthony Pugliese
But that change keeps us on our toes and the speed at which we have to operate really makes it a necessity that we think of ourselves, our mentality.
00:31:06 Anthony Pugliese
is that we're not a not-for-profit in the sense of how other people think of a not-for-profit.
00:31:11 Anthony Pugliese
slow, bureaucratic, too much red tape.
00:31:14 Anthony Pugliese
Some of that's by design.
00:31:16 Anthony Pugliese
We have to follow processes that allow members to weigh in on things that we do, and that can be timely, but we still have to keep moving and acknowledging and supplying our members with resources that help them navigate all these new opportunities.
00:31:29 Anthony Pugliese
Sometimes we call them risks.
00:31:31 Anthony Pugliese
I tend to look at anything that's put in front of us because people trust us as a positive thing.
00:31:37 Anthony Pugliese
We just have to be ready for those.
00:31:39 Anthony Pugliese
It's hard to, especially right now, it's hard to predict with that next, I forgot how you used to refer to it, Terry, the next bright bouncing silver ball.
00:31:45 Anthony Pugliese
Like, what's that going to be?
00:31:48 Anthony Pugliese
And let's not chase all of them, but let's be very deliberate about figuring out where those trends are leading.
00:31:53 Anthony Pugliese
That's kind of the reason we did 2035.
00:31:56 Anthony Pugliese
So that rate of change, I started, I needed 2035, like me as a leader, to give me that future orientation so that I was working now for whoever comes after me, that they can pick up from literally where the profession is and keep going.
00:32:13 Anthony Pugliese
So that would be my thought on that.
00:32:16 Terry Grafenstine
You've talked about the rate of change and navigating all the different cultures and the different needs and perspectives.
00:32:23 Terry Grafenstine
And just from a practical perspective, being away from your family,
00:32:26 Terry Grafenstine
airplanes and jet lag and all that time away.
00:32:30 Terry Grafenstine
When things are feeling particularly heavy, what's one small thing that you do to help you to reset your perspective, to make sure that you stay grounded and centered?
00:32:38 Anthony Pugliese
Sometimes, and by necessity, by design, you know, I think in a CEO role, you can get pulled, like I said, appropriately.
00:32:45 Anthony Pugliese
And it's not an area I dislike.
00:32:47 Anthony Pugliese
It's an area that I don't have the energy literally or bandwidth to focus on.
00:32:50 Anthony Pugliese
But operations,
00:32:52 Anthony Pugliese
is something you have to be cognizant of because it is how members experience us.
00:32:56 Anthony Pugliese
It's important, but when I need a reset, I go out and I meet with members.
00:33:01 Anthony Pugliese
And I find that the exhilaration that gives me and the ability to think differently is really a helpful way to reset.
00:33:10 Anthony Pugliese
I have to say it puts me in a good mood.
00:33:12 Anthony Pugliese
When I show up for a national conference, I just came back from a wonderful one in Germany.
00:33:17 Anthony Pugliese
I did one in Saudi Arabia in December.
00:33:19 Anthony Pugliese
All those experiences
00:33:21 Anthony Pugliese
I walk away from them very energized.
00:33:24 Anthony Pugliese
I find that our members are some of the most positive, encouraging, motivated people I've ever met.
00:33:31 Anthony Pugliese
And to me, that is refreshing and it reminds me why it is what I do is so important to so many people.
00:33:38 Anthony Pugliese
And it's a personal responsibility.
00:33:41 Anthony Pugliese
But resetting to me is getting out there,
00:33:44 Anthony Pugliese
Getting away sometimes from the day-to-day operations of IIA, which are critical, but getting out there when I need to and making sure that I receive that input, and fortunately, it does help me reset.
00:33:56 Anthony Pugliese
The other things are exercise.
00:33:58 Anthony Pugliese
Don't overeat.
00:33:59 Anthony Pugliese
Make sure you have some fun things on your plate.
00:34:02 Anthony Pugliese
But professionally, that does help me reset.
00:34:05 Anthony Pugliese
It really does.
00:34:06 Anthony Pugliese
And thank goodness for that, because it is part of my job as well.
00:34:10 Terry Grafenstine
No, absolutely.
00:34:10 Terry Grafenstine
And one of the things that you constantly weave into all of our conversation today is members and the focus on members and what it does for members.
00:34:19 Terry Grafenstine
And so when you think about members and if they look at the Institute and the IAA during this chapter of its 80 plus years of existence, what do you hope that they're getting from your leadership in this season of its total existence?
00:34:35 Anthony Pugliese
Certainly building on what was done by leadership before me, both staff, CEOs, and the boards and the board chairs that have come before me, it's really important.
00:34:44 Anthony Pugliese
But some of the things we're doing, if I had to say, what do I hope they feel that we accomplished, whoever comes after me, whoever comes after you, is we've started to do new things that we feel as a board is going to be profoundly impactful to the profession.
00:34:59 Anthony Pugliese
So I hope they feel that.
00:35:00 Anthony Pugliese
For example,
00:35:02 Anthony Pugliese
I feel quite strongly that we have to work on our pipeline.
00:35:04 Anthony Pugliese
It's so important.
00:35:06 Anthony Pugliese
And when I hear students don't even know what an internal auditor is, and I say that like students that I almost think should know, like they're in accounting programs, say, or they're in programs where they should have gotten exposure to what we do, developing that pipeline, I hope we start, it's one of those things you start now and you see the fruit of that labor maybe 10 years into the future.
00:35:27 Anthony Pugliese
So we have to do those things now.
00:35:30 Anthony Pugliese
Advocacy would be another one of those things is becoming a powerful advocacy organization, not just with legislators and regulators, but also with thought leaders and with other influential bodies.
00:35:44 Anthony Pugliese
It's just very important.
00:35:46 Anthony Pugliese
And I hope in the future, when I'm retired, or what is the old expression, I've won.
00:35:51 Anthony Pugliese
Yeah, actually, if I did win the lottery, I don't think I would retire because right now I'm having a lot of fun.
00:35:56 Anthony Pugliese
But I think I hope they see
00:35:58 Anthony Pugliese
that what we laid in place now is bearing fruit for them in the profession in the future, whatever after my chapter is over.
00:36:07 Anthony Pugliese
And that's two that come to mind.
00:36:09 Anthony Pugliese
I could go through all of them.
00:36:10 Anthony Pugliese
We're trying to reinvent our learning.
00:36:12 Anthony Pugliese
We're trying to really change a lot of the way we do operations within the organization so our members feel like they're dealing with a modern organization that cares about member and customer experience.
00:36:25 Anthony Pugliese
So all of it ties to our plan, but there are certain things like pipeline and so forth, advocacy that I put particular hope in that we're going to be very successful.
00:36:35 Anthony Pugliese
I think our standards team has done a crazy good job given the challenge that was in front of them.
00:36:42 Anthony Pugliese
to put out new standards and topical requirements.
00:36:45 Anthony Pugliese
Topical requirements, yes.
00:36:46 Anthony Pugliese
Yeah.
00:36:47 Anthony Pugliese
And that was a tough decision.
00:36:48 Anthony Pugliese
And we didn't take it lightly.
00:36:50 Anthony Pugliese
We knew that it was a decision that didn't have 100% unanimous opinions around it, but we felt like it was the right thing.
00:36:58 Anthony Pugliese
And I think in hindsight, it really was.
00:37:00 Anthony Pugliese
Our credentials team, amazing.
00:37:02 Anthony Pugliese
Just the work that they do, I hope it's just seen.
00:37:06 Anthony Pugliese
in the future.
00:37:07 Anthony Pugliese
I have the benefit of being supported by an amazing team, both here and global and the leadership we have at 118 nations that are around the world.
00:37:16 Anthony Pugliese
I hope they all feel it.
00:37:17 Anthony Pugliese
I hope they feel it now, and I hope they feel it into the future.
00:37:20 Terry Grafenstine
So one of the things I love about you, Anthony, we've known each other many, many years, is you just bring so much passion to what you do.
00:37:26 Terry Grafenstine
And
00:37:27 Terry Grafenstine
As I asked you this question, I think it's going to what's going to be challenges is for you to focus on one thing and because you emanate how much you love so many aspects of your role and stuff.
00:37:37 Terry Grafenstine
Well, what part of Leading Institute has been most meaningful to you of all these great things that you're able to drive and influence?
00:37:45 Terry Grafenstine
What one do you think is the most meaningful to you personally?
00:37:47 Anthony Pugliese
Do you know there is one thing that I'll say to my team, and I often admit there are times when I never cry when I say it, but you know you can feel the emotion kind of coming into your voice and into your eyes.
00:38:00 Anthony Pugliese
when you make a certain statement.
00:38:01 Anthony Pugliese
But I always, when I stand up in front of, I call it Team IIA, right?
00:38:05 Anthony Pugliese
The 260 people that work here on North America and global activities, is when I get up in front of a room and I say, we've had a good year, which I've been able to say for the last five years, and I remind them that what we do impacts an entire global profession.
00:38:23 Anthony Pugliese
I think there's something about that wakes up, I wake up in the morning, and I want them to wake up in the morning, and I think pretty much they all of them do, and they realize the gravity of what we're responsible for doing.
00:38:37 Anthony Pugliese
And it is changing, keeping up with change, and progressing the interest of a very large, very defined, and growing, changing profession, and knowing that that's been entrusted
00:38:49 Anthony Pugliese
to me, to the board of directors, to my executive team, to every single employee here and around the world, that's extraordinarily meaningful work.
00:38:57 Anthony Pugliese
I mean, you get up every day knowing that what I do today isn't just of a benefit to the IIA.
00:39:03 Anthony Pugliese
It's a benefit to everybody around the world that's in this profession, whether they're members or not.
00:39:08 Anthony Pugliese
So I think of that, it's profoundly meaningful.
00:39:11 Anthony Pugliese
And it's literally where all the passion
00:39:15 Anthony Pugliese
comes from is when you realize that responsibility can never be underestimated or taken lightly.
00:39:20 Anthony Pugliese
Just never.
00:39:22 Anthony Pugliese
I think if it ever is, it's time for that person to get out of that role, me or anyone else, is when you lose that perspective of like, this is the future of a profession.
00:39:31 Anthony Pugliese
Difficult decisions are part of the process.
00:39:35 Anthony Pugliese
We have fun decisions we make as well.
00:39:37 Anthony Pugliese
Vision 2035 was kind of a fun project.
00:39:40 Anthony Pugliese
It needed to be done, but sometimes it's not that clear cut.
00:39:42 Anthony Pugliese
So I'd have to say that part of it is by far the most meaningful to me.
00:39:47 Anthony Pugliese
They may have to kick me out, Terry.
00:39:50 Anthony Pugliese
They have to say, he's 80, he's 90, he's got to go, got to get some new blood in here.
00:39:54 Anthony Pugliese
But it's very important.
00:39:56 Anthony Pugliese
It keeps me moving.
00:39:58 Terry Grafenstine
So as we wrap up our time together and as we reflect, you reflect back of all the things that we discussed during this, our time together, and if somebody listens to this episode years from now, what do you hope that they get from this and what it says about our profession at this moment in time?
00:40:17 Anthony Pugliese
As a CEO and working with a global board and being on a global board, I just really want
00:40:25 Anthony Pugliese
our future members, our current members maybe in future stages of their career, and all of our stakeholders to be content that we did what needed to be done as however difficult decision-making gets for us, and it does, that we did the best we could and it worked, that we did do the things that were necessary to put the profession in the right place for the future, and that we have grown and we are doing more, and we are being seen
00:40:51 Anthony Pugliese
by the world, every part of the world, for the quality work that we deliver every single day.
00:40:57 Terry Grafenstine
Well, Anthony, I want to thank you so much for our time together today.
00:41:00 Terry Grafenstine
And sincerely, from the bottom of my heart, I want to, as a member of this profession, and as your person, I like to call my friend as well,
00:41:09 Terry Grafenstine
how much you've done for our profession in the past five years.
00:41:13 Terry Grafenstine
And I'm so excited about what lies ahead, but congratulations on five years of leading the Institute of Internal Auditors.
00:41:20 Terry Grafenstine
And I hope everybody enjoys hearing this conversation and knows that Anthony truly is who he comes across as here.
00:41:27 Terry Grafenstine
He's just genuinely passionate, authentic, and just a wonderful leader.
00:41:31 Terry Grafenstine
Thank you so much.
00:41:33 Anthony Pugliese
That is so nice.
00:41:33 Anthony Pugliese
Thank you so much, Terry.
00:41:35 Anthony Pugliese
I really appreciate the compliments and the comments.
00:41:37 Anthony Pugliese
Thank you for being here today.
00:41:40 The IIA
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00:41:45 The IIA
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00:41:51 The IIA
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00:42:00 The IIA
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00:42:03 The IIA
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00:42:06 The IIA
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00:42:10 The IIA
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