Owner, Getting Words to Work®

With over 30 years' teaching, writing, publishing and corporate experience in the US and Europe, Sara provides report-writing training worldwide through her business, Getting Words to Work®. She has written numerous articles on language and reporting, and spoken at national and international conferences.

As a member of the Chartered Institute of Internal Auditors’ Technical Content and Research Group, Sara provides resources for members in the UK and abroad. As well as a Certified Internal Auditor, she is a professional writer, copyeditor and translator. Sara was the copyeditor for the IIA’s Global Internal Audit Standards 2024 and Quality Assessment Manual, as well as a member of the working group for the Global Practice Guide on Final Engagement Communications.

Sara is the author of the bestselling Radical Reporting: Writing Better Audit, Risk, Compliance, and Information Security Reports and was one of Richard Chambers’ 2022 Internal Audit Beacon Award winners. In 2025, the Chartered Institute of Internal Auditors awarded her the J. J. Morris Award for Distinguished Service, and Richard Chambers named her one of 25 global internal audit influencers in 2026.

Ursula Schmidt is former Executive Vice President Audit & Compliance at RTL Group, having led the Internal Audit and Compliance practice for 15+ years. Together with her team, she investigated compliance cases and ran a multitude of audit projects worldwide. She also served as Secretary to the group´s Audit Committee. Previously, Ursula held senior positions in strategy and controlling at RTL Group and served as chairman of the audit committee of Channel Five in the UK. After having helped operations in 30+ countries set up compliance frameworks, internal controls, and anti-fraud processes, Ursula set up her own company to share her broad experience in Internal Audit and Compliance on a wider scale.

Ursula is Board member of IIA Luxembourg and serves as an independent non-executive director on several boards in Luxembourg. She is a regular conference speaker and webinar host on all things internal audit and compliance and publishes extensively, on LinkedIn and other media.

Her continuous engagement in the field of Internal Audit was recognized in 2024 by Richard Chambers, former President and CEO of the Global Institute of Internal Auditors, with the prestigious “Internal Audit Beacon Award”. Already earlier in 2023, Richard Chambers acknowledged her as one of the “top leaders in the profession to follow in 2023”.

Ursula holds a PhD in Economics, is a Certified Compliance & Ethics Professional – International (CCEP-I.) with the Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics (SCCE), and is a Certified Director and Certified Financial Expert at Deutsche Börse. She speaks German, French, English and Dutch.

Matej Drašček is an international speaker and author on internal audit and ethics, with his recent book Ethical decision-making in management published by Routledge, New York.
In addition to having served as a lecturer for several universities and faculties, he has published numerous professional and scientific articles on internal audit, business ethics, and strategic management. Matej has spoken at many domestic and international conferences, presenting new tools and insights in internal audit and business ethics. He received many awards for his writing and work and is currently President of IIA–Slovenia.
He holds a PhD in Business Ethics from University of Ljubljana, Slovenia and holds CIA, CRMA, CFSA, CFE, CC, and CSF-X certifications.

John has over 26 years’ experience working in the internal audit, risk management, business improvement and governance fields. John is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Internal Auditors (CIIA) in the UK, an Independent Internal Audit Committee Chair, and a member of three other Audit Committees in the international charity, defence and local government sectors. He was Head of Internal Audit and then Chief Assurance Officer for the States of Guernsey until the start of 2021. 

John continues as a practising internal auditor (and not just a trainer or talking head!) and currently works flexibly as The Internal Auditor for an international credit ratings agency. Amongst his many other international and UK roles.

He has delivered numerous well-received courses for the CIIA, as well as to many other global Institutes of Internal Auditors. At the last count he regularly works with 19 different IIAs. John’s other recent clients include FTSE listed companies, multinationals, financial services, central and local government, law enforcement, charities, professional services companies, and international organisations such as the OECD, the ACCA, NATO and UN Agencies. 

He is the Chief Examiner, Chief Chartered by Experience Assessor and EQA reviewer for the CIIA and has been a visiting lecturer in the Governance and Assurance Hub at Birmingham City University. 

John loves internal audit, is an enthusiastic advocate for the internal audit profession, and particularly enjoys working in new and emerging areas of internal audit and assurance interest.