Happy February.  And just like that, we are already done with the first month of the year.

Here’s what is in this month’s newsletter:

• Verracy’s Newsletter Evolution
• Theranos.  Will we learn from Elizabeth Holmes’s downfall?
• Adding Agile to Your Audit Toolkit
• February Free Webinar Series – Brilliant with the Basics: Fraud (1 CPE)
• February Open Enrollment – Brilliant with the Basics: Fraud (4 CPEs)

VERRACY UPDATE

Verracy’s Newsletter Evolution
by Bret Kobel, Managing Partner of Verracy

2022 is already looking to be a barn burner. So much is happening already that it’s hard to keep up.  We kicked off our Newsletter last month. Our goal is to bring you more than just a link to news, current events, and trends, but to provide our insights and thoughts on how they impact all of us in our work.

We’re starting off small with this newsletter, getting some small wins to avoid getting overwhelmed with the production of writing every month.  It’s amazing how much work goes into what seems like so little.  We hope you enjoy it.  We hope you get something out of it. We hope you will share it with others.  We hope you continue reading as we expand it, grow it, and make it better.

This month, Mary Breslin will be sharing her thoughts on the outcome of the Elizabeth Holmes trial.  She will also be talking about Agile Audit and why now?  Why is now the perfect time to engage with Agile Auditing?

If you have feedback for us, want to share your thoughts, or maybe submit an article, drop us an email at info@verracy.com.

CURRENT EVENTS

Theranos.  Will we learn from Elizabeth Holmes’s downfall?
By Mary Breslin, CIA, CFE, Founder of Verracy

Humans are both amazing and flawed. We are capable of accomplishing incredible things sometimes based solely on optimism, hope, belief, faith, and imagination.  This has led to amazing achievements like flight, space travel, the internet, GPS (I’m personally extremely grateful for that one!) and countless others.  But do those same qualities allow terrible events that should have been prevented to occur?

Let’s talk about Theranos. Last month Elizabeth Holmes was found guilty of 4 counts of fraud.  Her sentencing is delayed until September to allow time for the trial of Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, her professional and personal partner.

The counts of wire fraud for which Elizabeth was found guilty involved the investors PFM Healthcare Master Fund, Lakeshore Capital Management LP, and the Mosley Family Holdings LLC (combined for $144M of investments). While those three were used for proof of the fraud in the trial, there were several other investors that included incredibly wealthy, intelligent and successful individuals, families and corporations. Media Mogul Rupert Murdoch; Oracle founder, Larry Ellison; Venture Capitalist Tim Draper; the Devos Family including Betsy DeVos, former Secretary of Education; the Walton family of Walmart; the Cox Family of Cox Enterprises; Billionaire Carlos Slim Helú; and corporate investors Safeway and Walgreens.

There have been many articles and opinion pieces, on whether “unicorn” founders and their investors have learned anything from this.

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AUDIT TIPS

Agile Auditing: Another Tool for our Audit Toolkit
By Mary Breslin, CIA, CFE, Founder of Verracy

Three Reasons Every Audit Shop Should be Adding Agile Auditing to its Toolkit

Agile has been around for over 20 years but it has received more attention in the audit profession in the last 2 years than the prior 18 combined.  Why is that?  Three major reasons.

1. Speed.  Agile can deliver results faster than traditional audit approaches. Much faster. Traditionally, for the results of an audit to be seen as relevant and valuable they have to be timely. But what is timely? It depends on the organization. Generally, it means within the lifecycle of the organization or area being audited. Simply, how quickly things change. For example, in investment banking, an audit that takes 6 months, start to finish, will largely been seen as irrelevant because too much time has passed. For many government or manufacturing organizations, that same 6 months is still probably very relevant. So why does audit need to increase the speed at which they deliver results?

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