Webinar – Ethics and Trust in Accounting and Auditing

Ethics plays an important role in the accounting and auditing professions, as accountants handle sensitive financial information and auditors are responsible for providing accurate reports to stakeholders. Ethics is also crucial for these professions, as their reputation rests on the trust that employers, investors, and the public have in their integrity and their adherence to ethical principles. However, both professions are faced with new, emerging ethical challenges. In a fast-evolving digital environment, the traditional roles of auditors and accountants reach a level of complexity that often exceeds what they have been trained to. At the same time, the transition to more sustainable business models confronts them with dilemmas along the way to realising net zero ambitions.

• What does professional ethics mean for accountants and auditors?
• How can accountants and auditors ensure that their decisions and actions are ethical?
• What kind of standards (quality and quantity) do these professions need?
• What should they do when their professional standards conflict with their own interests or the interests of their organisations?

This Round Table aims to shed light on these issues and to understand how accountant and auditors may stand up to the ethical principles of their respective professions.

Speakers

	Marie-Eve Fortier, Partner, PricewaterhouseCoopers Marie-Eve began her career with PwC in Montreal back in 2002 and joined the Geneva office in 2005 as part of the international mobility program. She provides external audit services to private, cantonal and international banks as well as to securities dealers and is a Lead Auditor recognized by FINMA. She has experience in leading and managing a team to evaluate the design of internal control system, to test effectiveness of controls, and to assess compliance with Swiss banking regulatory requirements.
	Maggie McGhee, Executive Director, Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) Maggie leads ACCA’s development of strategy and ACCA’s corporate governance arrangements and the governance of ACCA members and students. Prior to joining ACCA in 2016, Maggie was Director General at the UK National Audit Office. Maggie also worked for PwC in the Advanced Regulatory and Compliance Analytics area applying specialist analytics tool in the banking and capital markets sector.
	Franck Missonier-Piera, Professor, University of Fribourg Franck Missonier-Piera is Full Professor at the University of Fribourg and holds the Chair of Accounting and Financial Analysis since 2013. Doctor in Managerial Economics from the University of Geneva, he is also CPA, CMA (Chartered Professional Accountant, Certified Management Accountant ). He has been a professor at HEC-Montréal, HEC-Lausanne, ESSEC, EM Lyon and at the University of Geneva. His areas of research and teaching focus on IFRS / IPSAS, financial analysis and corporate governance.

Organizer and context

The webinar is organized by the Observatoire de la Finance, Geneva-based. We are organizing this webinar as part of a series of events to promote the global Prize Ethics & Trust in Finance for a Sustainable Future. The webinar will be open to the public and will be promoted among the Partners of the global Prize and the networks of the Observatoire de la Finance.

Contact: Dr. Virgile Perret, perret@obsfin.ch