In today’s AI-driven environment, the controller plays a crucial role in ensuring the integrity, reliability, and ethical use of AI systems, particularly within financial operations. Controllers act as guardians of data quality, compliance, and risk management, ensuring AI-driven insights are accurate, relevant, and aligned with regulatory standards.
The controller’s role is evolving from traditional financial oversight to becoming a strategic enabler of AI-driven transformation, balancing innovation with ethical, compliant, and reliable financial practices.
Topics Covered
- Key Responsibilities of Controllers in AI
- 1. Data Integrity and Quality
- Ensure the quality and reliability of data used to train and inform AI models
- Establish data governance frameworks and implement data quality initiatives
- Maintain data lineage, tracking data from source to downstream systems
- 2. Risk Management
- Assess potential risks of AI implementation, including inaccuracies, vulnerabilities, and ethical concerns
- Define and implement AI risk management frameworks to ensure responsible and ethical use
- 3. Compliance
- Stay informed about relevant regulations and ensure AI systems meet legal and policy requirements
- Monitor AI operations to prevent violations of laws or organizational standards
- 4. Transparency and Auditability
- Ensure AI decision-making is transparent and auditable
- Establish review processes to identify potential biases or errors in AI outputs
- 5. Collaboration and Training
- Work with IT and business teams to understand AI capabilities and limitations
- Provide training to teams on effective AI use and management
- 6. Value Creation
- Leverage AI to identify automation opportunities, improve operational efficiency, and gain real-time financial insights
- 7. Emerging Role
- Controllers are increasingly hands-on in AI implementation.
- They serve as catalysts for AI-enabled transformation, identifying potential use cases and building confidence in AI tools
Learning Objectives
- Explore the trends in AI
- Discover the controller’s role in AI
- Identify specific AI processes for Controllers
- Identify key AI cases
- Discover AI and financial reporting
- Explore AI and fraud cases
- Discover AI and expense management
- Discover AI and improved decision making
- Explore AI and risk assessment
- Explore AI and Supply chain management
- Identify The seven pillars of a trustworthy framework
Level
Intermediate
Instructional Method
Group: Internet-based
NASBA Field of Study
Accounting (2 hours)
Program Prerequisites
Basic understanding of the concept of artificial intelligence
Advance Preparation
None
Instructor
Lynn Fountain
Lynn Fountain has over 38 years of experience spanning public accounting, corporate accounting and consulting. 20 years of her experience has been working in the areas of internal and external auditing and risk management. She is a subject matter expert in multiple fields including internal audit, ethics, fraud evaluations, Sarbanes-Oxley, enterprise risk management, governance, financial management and compliance. Lynn has held two Chief Audit Executive (CAE) positions for international companies. In one of her roles as CAE, she assisted in the investigation of a multi-million-dollar fraud scheme perpetrated by a vendor that spanned 7 years and implicated 20 employees. The fraud was formally investigation by the FBI and resulted in 5 indictments estimating a $13M fraud loss.
Ms. Fountain is currently engaged in her own consulting and training practice. She is a highly sought-after trainer and international speaker. In addition, Ms. Fountain has assisted numerous companies with enterprise risk management frameworks, internal audit processes and financial accounting. She also serves as a discussion leader for the AICPA for numerous classes finance, accounting and risk management topics.
Ms. Fountain is the author of three separate technical books. Her first book released in 2015 by the Institute of Internal Auditors Foundation is entitled “Raise the Red Flag – The Internal Auditors Guide to Fraud Evaluations”. Her second book “Leading the Internal Audit Function” was released in October 2015 by Taylor & Francis Publications. This book serves as the initial launch for a series of leading practice internal audit and information technology publications. Her third book “Ethics and the Internal Auditor’s Dilemma” was released in December 2016.
Ms. Fountain obtained her BSBA from Pittsburg State University and her MBA from Washburn University in Kansas. She has her CPA, CGMA, CRMA credentials.