The Compliance Week 2014 conference, happening May 19-21 in Washington, is shaping up to be another stellar summit meeting of all things risk, audit, and compliance. We're especially pleased with our program so far this year, and I wanted to call out a few reasons why you should attend.

First, we're going old school with our attention to internal control matters. The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board and the Securities and Exchange Commission have been abundantly clear in the last 12 months that they are skeptical of all these statements that your internal control over financial reporting is clean—and as they have pushes that skepticism onto audit firms, so the firms have pushed that onto you and your Sarbanes-Oxley controls. Hence we have a few sessions that sound like something right out of 2005, in those days immediately after SOX was passed:

The Future of the Audit Committee (a keynote panel discussion, with PCAOB board member Jay Hanson, plus several audit committee board directors);

Assessing Your Control Environment;

Integrating Enhanced Auditor Expectations Into Your Control System.

Second, regulatory enforcement is alive and well, so we will have two keynote speakers to tell you what their enforcement concerns are: Mythili Raman, acting assistant attorney general at the Justice Department; and Andrew Ceresney, director of enforcement at the SEC. You can also attend several panel sessions about running your internal investigations well, a subject that I suspect will challenge us all until retirement.

And we're delighted to have a keynote address from Jay Jorgensen, the global compliance chief at Walmart, reflecting on his first year of running ethics & compliance at the largest business in the world. Walmart's specific troubles with allegations of misconduct in Mexico are no secret. Beyond that, however, Jorgensen has also led a sweeping re-organization of Walmart's compliance function. Personally, I most want to hear him talk about how he boils down the vast amount of information he could hear about Walmart into those few pieces of information he needs to hear. That is a problem every compliance officer can appreciate, no matter the size of your company.

Beyond our keynote speakers, the rest of our agenda includes dozens of panel discussions, small-room workshops, and even a film screening (!!!), looking at a wide range of ethics, compliance, risk, and audit issues you deal with every day. We have some great thinkers about ethics & compliance from some great businesses: McDonald's, Adobe, International Paper Co., AirBnB, Terex, Humana, Aflac, the University of Miami, to name just a few. Be sure to visit our conference agenda page often, since we'll be adding more all the time.

On that point about adding more speakers—yes, we're still eager to hear from other compliance, audit, and risk executives who might like to get involved with the program. If you want to be a speaker, email me at mkelly@complianceweek.com and we can talk. (The usual caveats: we mainly look for in-house corporate executives, not vendors or service providers;  and we do waive the registration fee for speakers, but you are responsible for your own travel & lodging costs.)

Our early-bird registration rates expire on Jan. 31, so do your finance department a favor and sign up now before prices start to rise Feb. 1. Beyond that, I look forward to seeing you in Washington in May.

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