When we started Audit Integrity it was a single thought – there has to be a better way. In the wake of the huge, media-grabbing scandals of the early part of this decade the real surprise was not that there are executives willing and able to abuse shareholders, it was that they went undetected by the best analysts in the business.

That better way was through quantitative forensic analysis of corporate behavior, as measured by a wide range of accounting and governance practices. By applying forensic identification —"the application of science and technology to identify objects from the traces they leave"—a forensic analyst can uncover important evidence beyond the smoking gun without waiting for a confession. That is the basis of the AGR®, which has proven to be the best measure of fraud-related risk in the market.

Protection of the stakeholders is the explicit purpose of the information provided by Audit Integrity. I use the Chairman’s Corner as a way to speak to the various ways Audit Integrity’s forensic approach can help corporate stakeholders identify and manage risk, and to some of the newsworthy aspects of corporate behavior. There will always be companies that abuse the trust placed in them, in a way that is meant to go undetected. We can help, and I hope the readers of the Chairman’s Corner can benefit from our view of a sometimes upside-down world.

James A. Kaplan
Chairman
jkaplan@auditintegrity.com