2016 Accomplishments Poised to Drive 2017 Growth

We hope 2017 finds you ready for another year of challenges, opportunities and achievements—much like the year we all have just enjoyed.

In 2016, ISACA moved forward as an organization with the support of its 215 chapters around the world working to increase our visibility, influence and impact, locally and globally.  Perhaps most encouraging is the progress we are making as a valued professional community, which has occurred amidst rapid changes and increasing complexity in and around our key fields of interest—audit/assurance, information and cyber security, governance and risk. Highlights from 2016 included:

• The growth of our community to 159,000 constituents worldwide;
• A very inspirational and successful Global Leadership Summit (GLS) that brought together over 400 ISACA chapter, member and staff leaders in April, and has resulted in ongoing input on both ISACA’s current efforts and how best to shape the future of our organization;
• Regional expansion of ISACA events: Our first Africa CACS conference was held in Nairobi, Kenya, in August. Two new cyber security conferences took place in November: CSX Asia Pacific in Singapore and CSX Europe in London;
• Completion of the development work required to support the 2017 transition from paper-based to computer-based testing for ISACA’s core certifications (CISA, CISM, CRISC, CGEIT);
• ISACA’s acquisition of CMMI, with plans to accelerate ISACA’s reach in fast-growing economies, including China and India, and to better engage and deliver solutions to enterprises, while highlighting the value members of our professional community deliver;
• ISACA’s significantly increased engagement with government, including the EU, US, India, Israel, Jordan, China, Kenya and Singapore, with many others expressing interest or initiating a dialogue;
• The launch of ISACA’s Connecting Women Leaders in Technology program, which has been well-received across our professional community, and offers opportunities to extend its impact going forward into 2017 and beyond;
• Established business development initiatives to grow relationships with organizations that employ professionals in our community worldwide;
• The recent deployment of the ISACA Member and Customer Experience Center which, in its first two months of operation, has already significantly improved response time and overall service levels, including reducing certification application processing time from eight weeks to three weeks, and responding to email inquiries in less than 72 hours.

The above is a small subset of all that has happened over the past year. These highlights, along with many other contributions and accomplishments, have helped lay the foundations for a very promising year ahead. In 2017, we will again expand our education and training programs; increase our research efforts and publications output; grow our collaboration with government, industry, and other strategic partners; launch a new digital presence; enhance member and customer service levels; and begin planning our 50th anniversary, with an aim of using this 2019 milestone as a means to further increase the visibility of our professions and to build our workforce of the future.

While our anticipated growth in 2017 will occur in a world that remains unsettled, we believe ISACA’s professional community is ready to meet the challenges that will ensue, and turn these challenges into opportunities in the spirit of ISACA’s purpose to help enterprises and people realize the positive potential of technology. We thank all of you for your support and efforts to date, and as we begin 2017, we wish you all a safe, healthy, productive and prosperous year ahead.

Christos K. Dimitriadis, Ph.D., CISA, CISM, CRISC, chair of ISACA’s Board of Directors and group director of Information Security for INTRALOT, and Matt Loeb, CGEIT, FASAE, CAE, Director and CEO, ISACA

[ISACA Now Blog]