Let us introduce you Luca Bisighini from AEGEE Brescia, candidate for a Member of the Audit Commission. Luca is eager to put his international experiences, gained while studying in Italy, Turkey and Poland, obtaining MBA and actively working in his antennae, into serving AEGEE Europe for its better financial future. We’ve decided to ask some questions, so enjoy reading answers below.
The AEGEEan: Please, present yourself.
Luca: Well, I don’t want to take some much time from the reader, so my name is Luca, soon-to-be 27 years old from Brescia, Italy. I am currently in my second year (and some months) in AEGEE and I finished my studies last month by taking a MBA. Also, I am current Policy Officer and Subcom for the Rainbow Area on HR/IT. Many people define me as a good, funny weirdo. Some others use a funny nickname I got (The Horrible) coming from the AEGEE Universe. AEGEE has given me some of my best memories and some of the best experiences ever. I will always be in debt with this organization for everything it did to me. That’s why I am so much enthusiastic about it! [he smiles, ed.]
Can you tell, please, why you’re applying for this position? Which personal and professional goals do you want to reach while you’re on the position?
The reason is simple. I was thinking how I could contribute to this special network I like that much in an appropriate way and after few minutes of thinking, I thought the Audit Commission was the definitive answer. I thought that applying to this role with 10+ years of proven experience in the world of accountancy and economics, was the best choice, a win-win one.
Personally, my desire is to keep contributing to this association again in a very transparent, clear and hard-working way after my Policy Officer’s task I had. I think the role of an Audit Commissioner overall is not that easy at all, that’s why contributing with a extensive economics related experience may help the whole network. Professionally, this potential task fits completely with what I have studied for over a decade, not only in Italy, but also in Turkey and Poland. An effective application of my studies to such a delicate task is what I am aiming for the most.
Can you specify how you’re going to establish and ensure high cooperation with other audit commissioners?
If I have to sum up the whole answer in a few words, I’d say Mutual Trust, Motivation, addressing continuous Communication, critical thinking and Commitment. I know what it means to work as a group of people who has to Audit, to check financial statements and any kind of economic data. I have been doing it for a very long period, especially in intercultural environments. You might do the best work ever, but without any trust in your colleagues, you will never get a team-work. In fact, I am a team-worker. I will be there for any help or suggestion, if needed. It is essential for me to contribute to a team-work, motivating every single person I have to work with in a positive and happy way.
Of course trust is also built through a continuous occurrence of three key aspects:
- Communication is fundamental: we have to be ready for every single thing, together. In my humble opinion, we are lucky to live in an era where communication is one of the easiest things to achieve;
- Without a continuous Critical thinking you can’t evaluate any integrity at all, you can’t assess any risk, you can’t be reliable as an Audit. I’ll be critical, every time;
- And last but not least, continuous commitment: you can’t run away from that. I know what it means to be committed to reach a common team goal. I will not disappoint anybody on this side.
What are the three core things you want to improve by the end of your term? And how?
Basically, I have just one core thing I want to achieve: offering sustainability of the finances over time by addressing a series of continuous controls over the finances of every AEGEE body and setting up an Audit Register.
To do that we need to proceed step by step. First, advanced reporting. It may sound kind of trivial, but I am not looking for just a mere report to do at the end of my possible mandate in front of the Agora, with easy numbers and easy evaluations. I want more. I want to show an advanced risk assessment of how the antennae are working today with the books, especially with relation to the income of the single antennae.
Just checking the book-keeping of the AEGEE Bodies does not guarantee any future stability, especially for the bodies, which are suffering the most. We don’t have to look just at our mandate, we have to realize from the numbers the future behaviour of every body and be ready to report every single thing in the shortest time possible. Last but not least, I recently read an e-mail on ANNOUNCE-L@LISTS.AEGEE.ORG announcing possible changes in the status of the certain antennae. From that e-mail, I realised, that some antennae are having problems with their Financial Reports. Of course, they can still fix their status by sending a written justification, but I am really concerned about how we got to this point for these antennae. We need to understand how AEGEE can effectively help these antennae in an independent, transparent way.
To do that, my idea is to set up a common register of every body we are going to audit. A register with our conclusions and opinions arising from every inspection of every book and provisional analysis. That’s the most complete tool we can possibly make together, before getting into making a final report. That’s the easiest tool we and the Audit Commissioners of the future can use as a valid, clear reference for their work.
How are you going to provide an audit quality over AEGEE Europe and the network finances?
We need to act in a precise, adequate, independent and fast way. We need to realise, that being an independent auditor, means to continuously advise the Financial Director about the right actions to take. We need to analyse deeply the books and realise how the finances are mutating over time to address a clear situation and to advise for a sustainable path. To do that, we need to set up month-by-month common-decided goals to reach together in a clear way. Analyse, comment the analysis all together, make a register of our actions and then report in a unanimous way.
What do you think will be your biggest challenge during the term and how do you plan on overcoming it?
The biggest challenge may be the lack of communication some of the bodies or antennae might have. Again, there’s not so much difficulty in making conclusions out of numbers of the financial reports that we’ll have to examine. We need to communicate a lot and prevent every possible problem at its root. How to overcome it? A better relationship with every Netcom and every antennae is the answer. We need to let them trust us. We will be there to help them.
How are you going to establish and ensure effective communication? What is your strategy to keep the motivation of your team up?
In today’s world, there are lots of ways to communicate with each other: from good old e-mails to social media, video-chats and cloud. Finding a way to communicate won’t be a big deal: once we will decide all together, we’ll easily adopt it. I support an idea of having an ordered cloud account, where we can work together and exchange every information. My strategy to keep the motivation up is easy: being friendly, accurate and on time. Again, the basics of having a mutual trust.
You don’t have any auditing and accounting experience within AEGEE. How would you be able to check all locals Financial Reports and do the auditing of AEGEE-Europe finances?
Well, you are right, because I haven’t had any official role empowered by anybody (that’s why I have not put anything like that on my application), but to be fair and square, non-officially what you are claiming is not true at all. You see, I am coming from a not so big antennae (AEGEE Brescia), where every active person is helping each other with every task, especially on a volunteer basis.
Since the end of 2014, the time when I started to be active with my antennae, I know what is the state of our finances, because we share a cloud account with a special section (a folder) related to our Finances.
Also, I have been monitoring and advising every single board member about the finances of the 2015 edition of the AEGEE Brescia’s SU and now I am doing the same for the 2016 edition and for the upcoming (in 12 days) pre-event, which we are going to organise before Spring Agora Bergamo.
So, despite any precise role given, I know what it takes and I have 1+ year accounting experience within AEGEE at the local level.
Again, to be fully honest, there’s no appointed official role of Internal Audit. Every single person, who wants to give an advice about any economic thing in our antenna is free to do that. And I did, multiple times.
Changing topic, I mentioned that I have attended a Prytania at Agora Kyiv in an active way (there are minutes proving that), dealing with AEGEE-Europe Financial Update.
So, to be fair, I’ve already taken a look at the finances of AEGEE-Europe. Are those pro-active behaviours making me an Internal Auditor? I think officially not, but basically I did the same requested tasks AEGEE-Europe has for their Audit Commissioners. I am not scared at all to check any financial report coming. Why should I be? [he smiles, ed.] I am just eager to do what I do best with fellow Audit Colleagues. I have experience within AEGEE and my antenna’s board can prove that. I have the experience as a MBA graduated student, an accountant. I also have the experience of working in intercultural teams on financial accounting related courses.
Why are you the best candidate for the position of Member of the Audit Commission? Tell us three reasons, please.
Again, there are proven evidences of my transparency and integrity: the example of the Policy Paper I made on Migration is there to see. I have been looking for months across all the networks for opinions, comments, every single thing needed to ensure a good quality work that can represent all of us and AEGEE-Europe.
Considering the positive comments I received from several people, I think I am reliable enough for this task. Second, I am a person who is easy to find and easy to talk with. Communication is more than fundamental in AEGEE to establish goals and work together in a harmonious way. Also, it is better if it is guaranteed in a continuous way and brings tangible results at the end of it. I can ensure stable and good quality communication.
Third and last: I have a proven 10+ years of experience on this matter.
- A MBA (after a BBA and a High School based on accounting studies);
- An internship as an accountant;
- The proven contribution, that I gave and currently giving to my antenna about their finances concerning one Financial Report, two SUs and a Pre-Event;
- International and intercultural economic experience.
You can read his full candidature here.
Written by Dariia Kogut, AEGEE-Kyïv