Members of Audit Committee, Board of Directors members of listed companies, banking institutions and insurance companies and others dealing with audit committees, alongside with Regulators attended the launch event of the KPMG Cyprus ACI.
The event took place on Tuesday 4th April, at the Hilton Park Hotel, with distinguished speakers from Cyprus and abroad.
On behalf of KPMG in Cyprus a welcome note was addressed to the participants by Christos Vasiliou, Deputy Managing Partner and Head of Advisory. Christos highlighted the importance of the appropriate tone at the top and stated that “in our opinion, no single corporate governance structure is enough, if there is no ethical culture, ethical behavior and ethical way of thinking of the Board of Directors members”.
Timothy Copnell, the Founding Chairman of KPMG UK ACI spoke about the global journey of the institution of KPMG ACIs over the last 18 years. He talked about his personal experience and how things and challenges Audit Committee members have to deal with, changed over the years, ending his presentation with areas set to challenge global audit committees over the next few years, such as cyber security highlighting that “as the cyber landscape evolves, audit committee (and board) oversight, and the nature of the conversation, must continue to evolve”.
Stefos Stefanides, a seasoned ex-audit partner and currently an active member of Audit Committees in a number of important Cypriot companies shared with us his insights from the Audit Committee meeting room and highlighted for us the Cyprus reality on the matter.
Panayiotis Peleties, Chairman of the KPMG Cyprus ACI and Assistant Head of Audit talked about the urgent need for increasing awareness of members of Audit Committees in Cyprus. Panayiotis highlighted the new challenges ahead with the EU audit reform becoming effective, the new accounting standards which will bring about the biggest changes in accounting for more than a decade and ended his presentation by asking George Tziortzis, the firm’s Head of Management and Consulting, to deliver a short presentation which was specifically addressed to Board of Directors members with the aim of increasing cyber security awareness.
Petros Mavrommatis, Vice-Chairman of the KPMG Cyprus ACI and a Principal at KPMG in Cyprus provided an overview of how the Institute will operate, informing the audience of the many publications available and the up-coming events to be sponsored by the Institute.
The presentations were followed by a panel discussion, during which the participants had the opportunity to raise questions about the institute, the new regulations and other important information members of the audit committees should be aware of.
Source: Gold News
