Giving Thanks to Those Who Volunteer

It’s National Volunteer Week in the US. ISACA, however, is global in its reach, as is our corps of dedicated volunteers, and I want us to honor them all. So, I am choosing to declare this period as “ISACA Volunteer Appreciation Week.” In this spirit, I ask you, members of our professional community worldwide, to join me in thanking our organization’s over 4,000 members who provide us with their generous gifts of time and expertise to support advancing ISACA’s purpose to help realize the positive potential of technology.

Here, in their own words, are a few examples of volunteers’ contributions, and their motivations to give back to ISACA and our profession:

• Hari Chede, president of the UAE chapter, speaks proudly of his impact on members’ career development and of skills he’s gained through his volunteer work conducting CISA and CISM review classes: “If you have a passion in assurance fields and you want to grow in that field, apart from having different assurance certifications and education, being a volunteer at ISACA can accelerate your career by learning various skills (event management, time management, project management, accounting and public speaking) and keeping you engaged with successful people in the assurance fields.”
• Joe Cai helps position ISACA to expand its global impact by volunteering as a translator as a member of the CISA Certification Working Group: “I find ISACA is paying more and more attention to the market in China. ISACA is providing many Chinese Simplified materials to break the language barriers and engaging with the local community, both of which require lots of local volunteers. With their help, we can build a good ISACA ecosystem, gathering more and more IT control, security, risk and governance professionals in China. Participating also affords volunteers many benefits like building relationships with industry peers, acquiring more IT control and cyber security trend information and knowledge within China as well as ISACA global, and meeting other ISACA members from all over the world.”
• Jo Stewart-Rattray serves as volunteer chair of ISACA’s Women’s Leadership Council which has developed and launched the Connecting Women Leaders in Technology program to address urgent challenges of women in the technology workforce: “Together with my HQ colleagues, we have brought together a group of influential women from across the world to build the resilience and confidence of our women leaders to seek the career they want and to provide the knowledge assets and connections that can guide them along the way. ‘Connecting Women Leaders in Technology’ is in response to a great want and need for such initiatives from our constituency base. Without women in the workforce, we simply won’t have the resources to continue to fuel the job economy and innovation.”

In 1969, it was a small group of volunteers in Los Angeles who had the foresight to see the need for our work as a result of companies investing in technology capability to support financial and business operations. They established the EDPAA, and sowed the seeds of opportunity that led to our current day ISACA. As we approach our 50^th anniversary, volunteering has always been at the foundation of ISACA’s evolution. Increasing this engagement will be a hallmark of how we write the next 50 years of ISACA’s history.

On behalf of the entire ISACA family, we thank our chapter leaders who work tirelessly to increase ISACA’s visibility, influence and impact locally. We thank those who contribute to keeping our certifications and continuing education relevant in a constantly changing workplace as a result of a rapidly changing technology landscape and an increasingly complex legal, regulatory and compliance environment. We extend our gratitude to those volunteers committed to advocating for and strengthening our professions, creating opportunities for career growth and, perhaps most importantly, helping all of us to share the value of what we do to enable the organizations for which we work.

In a world where time is our most precious commodity, your willingness to give back inspires us all, especially knowing that you do so above and beyond your many other professional and personal responsibilities.

Editor’s note: To learn more about volunteering with ISACA, visit www.isaca.org/volunteer. To share your volunteer story, email [email protected].

Matt Loeb, CGEIT, FASAE, CAE, Director and CEO, ISACA

[ISACA Now Blog]