In our main interview this month, Chris Burford FCCA talks about the fascinating companies he’s worked for – among them, Wagamama, Leon and Hamleys – on his way up to becoming CFO at Boxpark, the pop-up shopping, street-food and entertainment destinations built around a series of shipping containers. After reaching £20.5m turnover in 2023 thanks to the football World Cup, the company is now looking for other venues in the UK and beyond.
In this month’s latest artificial intelligence (AI) developments, we look at how, now that 78% of internal audit teams use data analytics in some or all of their audits, the next phase will be powered by AI. But despite the strong appetite for the new tech, leaders are facing a clear challenge in articulating and initiating its introduction into the internal audit workflow. Find out more.
As we marked Global Ethics Day on 15 October, we look at the ethics of AI use. A new report addresses these questions and sets out the urgent need for finance professionals to understand the ethical implications of the use of AI so that they can be sure that the fundamental principles underpinning the profession are consistently applied in the digital age.
A new ACCA report, Internal control over sustainability data, stresses the growing importance of sustainability data, and the need for internal controls around its collection and reporting. Finance and internal audit professionals, as this article highlights, need to rethink their approach when applying the principles of internal control here, and appreciate the different nature of the data involved. The challenge, it adds, is that a system of financially driven internal controls that can be applied to sustainability data does not exist.
A similar finding is highlighted in ACCA research supporting its Climate Tech Readiness Toolkit. Climate tech is now central to risk management, resilience and long-term value creation, we report, but there’s a significant readiness gap, with data being the single biggest barrier to effective sustainability reporting.
Finally, don’t forget to sign up for ACCA’s annual virtual conference, Accounting for the Future. This year’s theme is ‘Trust and innovation in the new era of finance’. Register to attend live from 25-27 November or on demand, and earn up to 21 free CPD units.
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