Since 2003, Henrik Stein heads up the Group Audit function of DZ BANK AG, one of the three largest banks in Germany. Previously, he was a consultant for Ernst & Young Deutschland, Advisory Services, and worked in different capacities at Dresdner Bank AG, including as Director for Group Corporate Development. The main focus of his work has always been internal audit in financial institutions. He has been a Board member of the German IIA (DIIR) from 2009 until end of 2016 and acted last as the Deputy Spokesman of the institute. He also has been Board member of the European Confederation of Institutes of Internal Auditing (ECIIA) since 2014 and President fom September 2015 until October 2017. He graduated from the University of Hamburg with the “Diplom-Betriebswirt” in 1989. He is based in Frankfurt/Main and has worked in several countries worldwide.

Thierry Thouvenot has more than 15 years of experience in internal audit in the financial sector and five years of experience in external audit. Over the past 10 years, he has been Chief Audit Executive of a pan-European bank, which is active in private banking. Thierry has experience of internal auditing in Luxembourg, UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Poland and Russia. He also spent five years as a member of the KBC Group-wide Audit Management Committee. Thierry is a Board member of IIA Luxembourg and has been in charge of financial sector issues since 2010. He has served as Chairman of IIA Luxembourg. He was elected Vice President of ECIIA in 2017.

Serenella holds a Degree in Business Economics from Università Cattolica of Milan and is a Certified Accountant (Revisore dei Conti and Dottore Commercialista). She started her career at Arthur Andersen in 1994 as External Auditor and Consultant for financial and insurance companies, with several roles from junior Auditor to Manager. She joined UniCredit in 2000, as Deputy of the Head of Group Audit for banking subsidiaries; she held various managerial positions in Internal Audit. From 2008 to 2010 she worked for a medium-sized Italian Banking Group as Head of Internal Audit. In 2011 she was appointed General Manager and in 2012 CEO of UniCredit Audit, subsidiary specialized in auditing services and was also responsible for Country ltaly Network Audit. In October 2014 she was appointed Head of Group Audit. Since September 2016 she is the Chief Audit Executive of UNICREDIT GROUP. She is responsible for Audit activities and is the Head of the Internal Audit Competence Line.

Jamie Graham is the Chief Audit Executive at Nordea and is based in Sweden. He has 20 years’ experience in the financial services audit sector having previously held various roles in Internal Audit at Barclays and external audit with PWC. Graham has been a member of the ECIIA Banking Committee since 2017 and took on the role of Chairman in February 2019.

Verra Marmalidou is the President of IIA Greece, previously serving as its Secretary General. She is Deputy Director at National Bank of Greece Group Internal Audit. She was Director of Private Banking at National Securities and has been an instructor at previous IIA seminars.

Jean-Marc Giraud joined Société Générale Inspection department in 1982 after starting his career as a consultant at the OECD in Paris in 1980. In 1989, he moved to the Société Générale Corporate  Investment Banking (SG CIB), first within Genefim, a real estate leasing subsidiary and was subsequently appointed Deputy Head of Real Estate Financing. In 1995, he joined the Group’s Coverage department as Global Head of the Leisure and Transportation sectors. In 1998, he created and headed the Strategic and Acquisition Finance department. In July 2008 he was appointed Head of Global Capital Markets (Equity and Fixed Income origination). Jean-Marc Giraud was appointed Group Head of Inspection and Audit in June 2012. Jean-Marc Giraud holds a Doctorate in Economics.

Alessio re-joined ING Group in September 2014 as the General Manager of Corporate Audit Services.  In the previous ten years, Alessio was the Audit Director for Retail and Wealth at Lloyds Banking Group for two years, the Audit Director for Aviva Europe for one year, the AIB Group Chief Internal Auditor for five years and the Barclays Internal Audit Director for Risk Management and Finance for two years.  

Prior to joining Barclays in 2004, Alessio was a Managing Director within ING Wholesale International Banking, mainly responsible for auditing investment banking, risk management and asset management businesses since 1997.  Previously he worked for Banca d’Italia (the Italian Central Bank), in their Supervision department for four years.

Alessio is a Chartered Accountant in Italy, MSc in Finance graduate at the London Business School, CFA Charterholder, Financial Risk Manager with GARP and Harvard Business School Advanced Management Programme (AMP 174) graduate.

Ernesto is chairman of the Spanish Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) since 2014 and member of the Board of Directors of the Global IIA since 2011. He is also a member of the Audit Committee of the Global  IIA (2013) as well as the Professional Certifications Board. He is Internal Auditing Group Executive Vice President of the Santander Group, with more than twenty years experience in the financial sector. Ernesto has worked extensively all over the world; first as an external auditor and consultant, and then in Santander Group, where he has worked as a risk analyst and financial control vice-president in Santander Investment bank. Finally, he joined Internal Auditing sixteen years ago, where he has been audit director of different departments and CAE in Banesto, the Spanish banking subsidiary of the Santander Group. He is CIA and holds the CRMA certifications. He also holds a 5 year degree in Business Administration and one in Philosophy. He has lectured for four years in audit, accounting and financial analysis subjects, participating in several Master and IIA programs, and is a speaker in many conferences and international congresses as well.

Pascale Vandenbussche is ECIIA Secretary General since 2011. She was Director at Accenture for the Finance and Performance Management Product Line.She has more than 15 years experience in financial functions in various industrial companies (Sicpa Group, Diamant Board,..). She started as an External Auditor at KPMG.