From Sky Diver to Fraud Fighter

MEMBER PROFILE

Rose Karam, CFE, CIA 
Senior Internal Auditor   
City of Cleveland  

Rose Karam is Senior Internal Auditor for the City of Cleveland. While her life’s journey has seen her crisscrossing the country, and following her passions for skydiving, sailing and other experiences, it is her knowledge in accounting to which she returned to build a career. Today, Karam has an intense sense of focus and dedication to preventing and detecting fraud.

Tell us a little about your non-traditional career path.  

I was a skydiver for 15 years, and my husband and I ran a skydiving jumpsuit business for seven years. I made over 1,000 jumps before trying my hand at sailing. We bought, gutted and converted a 40-ft. bus into our home, doing all the work ourselves. We learned welding, plumbing, electrical work and bodywork. Then we began crisscrossing the county driving semi-trucks and delivering freight. Back in Cleveland, I worked at a storage facility renting spaces and moving trucks, setting up the books on the computer and doing taxes. Later I found myself at another non-profit agency as an accountant.

How did you become passionate about fighting fraud?  

While in college, I worked at the main post office and considered becoming a Postal Inspector. This is when my curiosity for investigative work first arose. Later on, I worked for a non-profit agency and heard stories of the woman who had gotten away with a sizeable embezzlement. Reputation was at stake. Despite all the red flags, there was no tightening of controls. I learned that trust is not a control, it’s wishful thinking… I set a goal to gain more knowledge on fraud investigating, which led to my Certified Fraud Examiner (credential).

What are some of your duties as Senior Internal Auditor for the City of Cleveland?  

As a Senior Internal Auditor, I often lead audits and provide recommendations based on my experience or expertise in the field, and provide guidance to newer members.

What are some of the best lessons you have learned through your work experience?  

Positions of trust are powerful fraud weapons. High level positions, little or no segregation of duties, a lack of controls, and absent delegation-of-duties all work to the fraudster’s benefit. Everyone should have to answer to someone because without that control in place the temptation for fraud rises. You need to have a passion for discovery, education and growth – and I consider myself a sponge for knowledge.

Read more ACFE member profiles in the Career Center on ACFE.com.

Be a Revenue Enhancer, not an Overhead Cost

GUEST BLOGGER

Cora Bullock

Assistant Editor, Fraud Magazine

The recession has dramatically changed our lives, and it has undoubtedly affected internal auditing. Danny Goldberg, CPA, CIA, CISA, CGEIT, CCSA, national professional development practice director of Sunera, addressed just how much it has affected IA in his Tuesday breakout session, "Evolution of Auditing: How the Recession Is Changing the Industry." He summarized the IA changes by saying, "Don’t be an overhead cost. Be a revenue-enhancer. My CIO at my old job didn’t see the innate value in internal auditing. Once I saved him money, he did."

Internal auditors are still valuable, but not only do they need to continue to do more with less, they also must become revenue enhancers by working inside the organization to cut costs and help the company become more efficient and effective. The nattily dressed Goldberg gave many tips on how to do so, including enterprise risk management (ERM). He pointed out that ERM was very popular in the mid-2000s because we were prosperous then, and it's becoming increasingly popular so companies can cover their rears, so to speak. "If you're in IA, you need to get into ERM," said Goldberg. "ERM will raise your profile in your company."

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) was another hot button. "We need to use our SOX knowledge to leverage into other areas of the company. If you haven’t done that, then we're wasting our SOX knowledge, guys!" he exclaimed.

Goldberg also said that there is still significant segregation between operations and IT, but he believes that audit and IT risk assessment should be combined: "You can't audit a division without knowing their IT systems." And different groups are doing different testing, but we need to learn to integrate our audits.

Read the full article here.