In this Audit & Beyond interview, AuditBoard’s Chief Growth Officer Jim Sperduto and EY’s Global Risk Consulting Markets leader Scott McCowan join theCUBE’s Rob Strechay and Rebecca Knight to unpack how partnerships are amplifying value in audit, risk and compliance. Sperduto shares why he joined AuditBoard after 31 years at ADP, citing a customer-first culture, passionate teams and the fact that “50% of the Fortune 500 companies use our core solution.” The discussion explores how customers are tackling rising risk with limited resources and why teaming technology with expertise matters.
McCowan brings fresh insights from EY’s new study of 1,200 companies and 40 executive interviews, introducing the “risk strategist” vs. “risk traditionalist” personas. He explains why rear-view, matrix-driven approaches are no longer sufficient in a volatile environment, noting that even financial services “fared no better” than other industries. The conversation highlights crisis-ready operations (e.g., rapid response to policy changes like recent H-1B fee news), the need for a common taxonomy from board to CFO to CAE, and giving the strategist a louder voice. The team then dives into the new EY.ai for risk integration with AuditBoard’s platform – delivered natively to preserve AuditBoard’s workflow – bringing AI to internal controls testing to compress cycles from weeks to days or even hours and to reduce the overall cost of compliance. They also discuss AuditBoard’s connected risk approach and new scenario planning and resilience capabilities that help unify fragmented data across silos and surface forward-looking insights.
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Jim Sperduto, AuditBoard & Scott McCowan, EY
Insights into Modern Risk Management Strategies at AuditBoard's Audit & Beyond
In this video, we explore an insightful discussion from AuditBoard's Audit & Beyond event featuring Jim Sperduto, Chief Growth Officer at AuditBoard, and Scott McCowan, Global Risk Consulting Markets Leader at EY. Hosted by Rob Strechay of theCUBE Research and Rebecca Knight of SiliconANGLE Media, the conversation delves into contemporary approaches to risk management and the importance of strategic partnerships.
Sperduto brings decades of industry experience to their new role, shedding light on why AuditBoard's innovative solutions attract major Fortune 500 companies. Meanwhile, McCowan discusses an EY study that differentiates between traditional and strategic approaches to risk. The dialogue explores how organizations can leverage data-driven solutions and the potential of artificial intelligence, referred to as AI, to stay ahead in a volatile global landscape.
Key takeaways from this engaging session include the rising need for a strategic approach to risk management that integrates innovative technologies and collaborative partnerships. According to McCowan, organizations that adopt a risk strategist mindset outperform traditionalists. Additionally, Sperduto emphasizes the transformative power of partnerships, such as that between AuditBoard and EY, in delivering enhanced value to clients, showcasing the synergy of combining technology and expertise.
play_circle_outlineStrengthening Audit Risk Management: The Power of Partnerships in Driving Industry Innovation - Insights from AuditBoard and EY Collaboration
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play_circle_outlineAnnouncement of integration between EY.ai for risk and AuditBoard's platform for seamless user experience.
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play_circle_outlineThe role of AI in enhancing efficiency and reducing compliance costs for organizations.
In this Audit & Beyond interview, AuditBoard’s Chief Growth Officer Jim Sperduto and EY’s Global Risk Consulting Markets leader Scott McCowan join theCUBE’s Rob Strechay and Rebecca Knight to unpack how partnerships are amplifying value in audit, risk and compliance. Sperduto shares why he joined AuditBoard after 31 years at ADP, citing a customer-first culture, passionate teams and the fact that “50% of the Fortune 500 companies use our core solution.” The discussion explores how customers are tackling rising risk with limited resources and why teaming techn...Read more
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What were the key takeaways from the partnership panel regarding collaboration between companies?add
What is the importance of the integration between EY.ai for risk and AuditBoard's platform for customers?add
What impact is AI having on risk management and compliance processes in organizations?add
>> Hello everyone and welcome back to theCUBE's live coverage of AuditBoard's Audit & Beyond. I'm your host, Rebecca Knight, alongside Rob Strechay. Rob, we're talking today about the power of partnerships.
Rob Strechay
>> I love this. I think everybody has had so much energy all day, and a lot of it is powered by partners and better together, and that to me is just key, especially when you're talking about things as complex as audit risk.
Rebecca Knight
>> Indeed. Indeed. Well, with that, I would like to introduce our next set of guests. We have Jim Sperduto, Chief Growth Officer at AuditBoard. Welcome Jim.
Jim Sperduto
>> Thanks.
Rebecca Knight
>> And Scott McCowan, Global Risk Consulting Markets leader at EY. Welcome.
Scott McCowan
>> Thank you for having me.
Rebecca Knight
>> So actually Jim, I'm going to start with you because you're pretty brand new to the job, but yet you are a longtime veteran of this industry. What was it that drew you to AuditBoard?
Jim Sperduto
>> Sure. Yeah. Prior to joining AuditBoard, I was actually with ADP for 31 years where I spent a lot of time in the sales organization and the last five or six years actually as a president of our small business portfolio. So why did I decide to leave ADP and come to AuditBoard? First and foremost, the stat that 50% of the Fortune 500 companies use our core solution. So it made me keep asking the question, why? Why is that the case? And it's real clear that we have a great product and that we are committed to continuing to improve that product over time and obviously build additional enhancements, because this company is great at keeping our customers front and center. We also have great associates. You don't have to speak to an associate for more than five minutes to realize how passionate they are about this industry and how knowledgeable they are and how much they want to serve our customers. And the last thing I would say is that there's so much potential, and a lot of that potential can be realized with incredible partners, like partners that we have here.
Rob Strechay
>> Yeah, yeah, I think, Scott, again, getting into this, it was very exciting. EY here, you guys do a lot around the world obviously in this space, but you also had some interesting stats where you're seeing the personas kind of change or evolve within risk. Kind of go into the risk strategist versus the risk traditionalist and what you guys have been seeing in that study.
Scott McCowan
>> Yeah, no, absolutely. So we just released a study about a month ago, so you can go to EY.com/risk and pull that up. And we went out and surveyed 1200 companies globally and did 40 interviews. And the purpose of that was really to expand the aperture beyond just audit, which AuditBoard's done a great job of presenting their new capabilities today with their various releases. And in the world that we're living in today, everyone knows that it's more volatile than ever, right? That is a pure fact, especially in the United States, but also geopolitically around the world. And it's not good enough anymore to just have a traditional approach to risk management. You cannot look in your rear view mirror, you're not doing your two by two matrices. You have to think differently and you have to have that agility to understand what risks are preventing you from achieving your strategic objective as a company. And so as part of this study, when we got the survey results, what we were really doing was asking questions of, do you use a data-driven approach to risk management? Are you using scenario planning? Have you considered the adoption of AI? And there was this void in responses where we brought in statisticians and created these personas of a risk strategist versus a risk traditionalist. In the essence of that is those risk strategists actually show that there's better company and business performance by a strategic approach to risk management, and the risk traditionalists are lagging behind. And so it's really a rally cry to the industry to say, "We need to be thinking about risk differently today."
We have a really fascinating perspective on financial services there, which is the 800 pound gorilla in risk management, as you guys know. But the study itself said that financial services fared no better than any other industry in this assessment of risk strategists versus risk traditionalists, because one of the things that's made them so successful in risk is that it's regulatory driven. And so now that you have to think differently about the impact of other emerging risks, financial services has to respond the same exact way. I was mentioning to you before we got on the air here with the H1B news that came out about 30 days ago, and that was about Friday afternoon that it was dropped within the US that there was going to be that fee. And you couldn't wait until Monday to respond. And so there's this concept of crisis management and as it relates to risk management is much more important. Where your people today? Are they outside of the US? How do we get them back? What escalation paths are we going to go through? What is the communication protocol? That's what risk management is today.
Rebecca Knight
>> So this is really fascinating, because it does seem to be at the core of whether or not you view risk and audit as an engine for growth and potential innovation versus the old school way of thinking. And is it organizations that are traditionalists versus strategists or is it human beings within those organizations that take on those characteristics?
Scott McCowan
>> I love that question. It's both. And one of the things that we found really interesting as we were doing the interviews is I was talking with a chief audit executive who self-identified as a risk strategist. And in that conversation she had this light bulb moment. She says, "Oh my goodness, my boss, the CFO, he's a traditionalist, and that's why we keep speaking past each other." And so we talk a lot about common taxonomies or approaches to risk management and top down from the board. It starts with the CEO and it starts with the board, what is your risk tolerance? You think about emerging markets, et cetera. But when you have that conflict within your risk organization, someone needs to win out. And that risk strategist needs to have a loud vocal voice. And by aligning risk to strategy really gets people's attention because then that means you have a seat at the table, a literal seat at the table as strategic decisions are being made.
Rob Strechay
>> So, Jim, I think it really makes sense in my mind why a services and a technology company would come together to kind of go after this part of the market. You had a partnership panel just yesterday. What were some of the key takeaways out of that panel?
Jim Sperduto
>> Yeah, I think the biggest takeaway is obviously always try to do something great for your customers that you can't necessarily do alone. And this is a perfect example of having that multiplier effect where that one plus one equals three, where we're able to deliver much more value together than we could alone.
Rob Strechay
>> And just following up on that, why AuditBoard? Why EY and AuditBoard together?
Scott McCowan
>> So Jim mentioned it before, 50% of the Fortune 500 within the US market, with our presence being one of the big four, it's impossible to ignore them. So first of all, it's a if you can't beat them, join them. And the one thing that we've been really focused on is we've been reframing our risk strategy is we have no interest in competing with AuditBoard because of their world-class capabilities within infrastructure. And so the reason why that better together story works so well is let's let them do what they do best and we'll do what we do best, and that's bringing the 100 years of EY heritage to the table. It's knowledge being our differentiator, and our IP. And so our ability to overlay that on top of a world-class platform like AuditBoard brings that complete solution. One of the founders is also an EY alumni, so-
Rob Strechay
>> That doesn't hurt.
Scott McCowan
>> Exactly.
Rebecca Knight
>> So both EY and AuditBoard are known for their customer-focused cultures. What are you both hearing from your clients in terms of their biggest priorities, management priorities, risk priorities going into 2026, and how have these shifted from previous years? Let's start with you, Jim.
Jim Sperduto
>> Yeah, look, there's a lot that is coming at our customers from a risk perspective. And in general, they don't have the resources to be able to keep up with that risk. So they need help. And there's real problems that they have to solve and they need to lean on both technology, as well as expertise, to be able to solve those problems. And that's what we're intending to do, and obviously build solutions that appeal to those trends.
Rob Strechay
>> So you just announced the new integration between, I'm going to look at this because it's EY.ai for risk with AuditBoard's platform. To me, this is a lot of coming together. It's not just the partnerships, not a relationship, this is actually integration.
Scott McCowan
>> Yeah.
Rob Strechay
>> Why is that so much so important to you and to your customers?
Scott McCowan
>> So the entire world is asking how is AI disrupting risk management, just like every other industry. So we've been focused working very closely with AuditBoard on how do we best represent that to our shared customers, but do it in a seamless way. And we do have our own UI and UX user experience, but we wanted to deliver that natively through AuditBoard's platform so that they get the best of both brands, but it's also not disruptive to their everyday. AuditBoard is known for their world-class workflow, and we want to keep it that way. And so we just had our presentation right before this where we were unveiling, as you were indicating, our internal controls capability, which is bringing the power of AI to testing. And you think about the common model of analysts preparing the work and reviewing it, it's now really focused on a process that used to take weeks down to days and maybe even hours. And so it's unlocking efficiency and driving down the overall cost of compliance for organizations, because that is hitting the bottom line. And so to do it as streamlined as possible, leveraging automation, intelligent automation, just brings a better outcome quicker to our clients.
Rebecca Knight
>> So driving down costs, but what are some other outcomes that customers are seeing or can expect to see from this integration?
Scott McCowan
>> Sure. Yeah. So it's also looking at the upside of risk insights. So one of the things that we're focused on with AuditBoard is there's data everywhere. And I'm sure you've interviewed people who said, "AI is only as good as the data that underpins it," and that's really true here as well. And so one of the things that continues to plague the risk industry is fragmented data within an organization because the CISO owns cyber risk, the controller owns financial risk, and they've been sitting within their individual silos. And so this connected risk mantra that AuditBoard has underpinned on their platform is critical to bring that data together. And so when you can shine a light on the interconnectedness of data in the scenario planning and resilience capabilities that you announced today, that's driving new insights. So it's not just that rear view mirror that we were talking before, but it's discussing the impact of tariffs where you're truly watching the wire now and trying to drive quicker, faster decisions and actions off of what could impact you, and really looking forward.
Rob Strechay
>> Yeah, to me, that makes total sense. It's such an evolving landscape. I think it's never been more dynamic than it has been for the past year. But a question to both of you, and we'll start with Jim. What are you most excited about as you look ahead between the EY and AuditBoard alliance, especially when you look at the future of risk and compliance together and going forward?
Jim Sperduto
>> Yeah. I think it's probably not more complex than just being able to deliver exceptional value to our mutual customers. And if we do that, that's going to obviously create happy customers that will continue to do business with us, and we'll be solving real problems that they face in the market.
Scott McCowan
>> Yeah, AuditBoard has known, and since its inception for internal audit and internal controls, what I'm most excited about, and I've mentioned it even a couple times already, is the innovation that they're putting into extending horizontal capabilities into regulatory compliance, resilience and scenario planning, enterprise risk management. And so it's the full complement of capabilities in one platform. And so our ability to bring our own services that match is a really enticing offer to our joint customers because you can live within one ecosystem and one environment and drive more value to the organization outside of just that core.
Rebecca Knight
>> And that's where the magic happens.
Scott McCowan
>> That's where the magic happens.
Rebecca Knight
>> Exactly. Well, Jim and Scott, thank you both so much for coming on the show. A really interesting conversation.
Scott McCowan
>> Thank you for having us.
Jim Sperduto
>> Thanks you. Thanks.
Scott McCowan
>> Thank you.
Rebecca Knight
>> I'm Rebecca Knight, for Rob Strechay. Stay tuned for more of theCUBE's live coverage of AuditBoard's Audit & Beyond. You're watching theCUBE, the leader in enterprise tech news and analysis.
Rebecca Knight
Rob Strechay