To respond quickly to emerging threats and opportunities, organizations need strong risk management processes as well as a risk culture that embeds risk awareness in significant business decisions. A focus on risk culture also helps drive behaviors and attitudes that ensure risk conversations and disclosures are connected to the reality of the business.

In recent meetings, IFAC’s global Professional Accountants in Business (PAIB) Advisory Group discussed how risk culture is increasingly important in raising risk awareness, improving decision making, and enhancing risk reporting and disclosure. Accountants in business need to be as involved in the cultural dimensions of risk management as they are in establishing governance and risk management policies and processes.

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Esther Bosch
Esther Bosch

Esther Bosch became a member of the IFAC Professional Accountants in Business (PAIB) Advisory Group in January 2023. She was nominated by the Royal NBA (The Royal Netherlands Institute of Chartered Accountants). The last 25 years, Ms. Bosch has mostly worked in international business environments; in external accountancy at KPMG and internal audit and enterprise risk management at Air France/KLM and Royal HaskoningDHV. Currently, she is the Director Risk & Audit at Royal Schiphol Group. Prior to this she was Head of Internal Audit & Risk at Stahl Holdings; a global specialty chemistry supplier.

She actively fulfills the role as Chair of the NBA member group of internal auditors and government accountants (NBA-LIO) in the Netherlands. Besides serving the interests of its members, the NBA-LIO Board also advises the main NBA Board on matters related to this member group and strives for alignment with other professional bodies like the Institute of Internal Auditors the Netherlands (IIA) and the professional association for IT-auditors in the Netherlands (NOREA). Furthermore, she was a member of the NBA ESGAssurance working group and she cooperated in other NBA projects.

Ms. Bosch received the CPA, CIA and CRMA qualifications and holds a Master's Degree in Business Economics and a University degree in Accountancy.

Headshot of a man wearing glasses and a white button down and gray jacket
Robert B.M. Mul

Executive Director, Royal NBA: The Netherlands Institute of Chartered Accountants

Robert Mul (1963) is Executive Director and manages the department Profession & Society (public trust) at the Royal NBA: The Netherlands Institute of Chartered Accountants. With a staff of sixteen; the department supports more than twenty five NBA-committee’s varying from Banking to Housing associations, SMP’s, Sustainability, Fraud and Accountech. Mul personally runs the policy program ‘Sharing Knowledge’ which brings together auditors and stakeholders in economic sectors to produce so called Public Management Letters[1] (audit insights). He also represents the NBA in nationwide consultations especially regarding healthcare, public sector and Tax. And internationally at the European professional accountancy organizations and at IFAC. Mul and his wife live, and raised their three children, in Rotterdam.

Before joining the NBA in 2009, Mul was elected by the city council of Rotterdam to hold  public office as Director of the Audit Office Rotterdam in 1998, and was re-elected in 2004.  The office published reports on operational and performance audits and reviews of the financial audits as performed by the city’s audit department and a private audit firm. Formerly, Mul hold several positions at the national audit office of the Netherlands. In 1988 he graduated in political science (with honours) at the University of Amsterdam. In 1996, he received a post-academic master degree at the Netherlands School of Public Administration.  

In 2002, Mul was a co-founder and became the first president of the Dutch Society of Public Audit Offices & Public Audit Committee’s (NVRR). At his resign in 2007 he was awarded the Honorary Chair-medal. In 2003 he became vice-president of the Committee Follow-up audit Accountability which was appointed by the State Secretary for Education Mark Rutte to investigate allegations of fraud at each of the 152 institutes of vocational and higher education in the Netherlands. During 2004, he was a member of the independent guidance committee which oversaw the evaluation by the Ministry of Finance of the central government system for results oriented budgeting. Over the years, Mul published or co-published several articles and a book in English including:

  • ‘Sharing knowledge: public management letters, a new way to fulfil the public role of accountants’ (WCOA, Rome, November 2014)   
  • ‘Local government audit in the Netherlands’ In: Regional public sector audit institutions in Europe, a comparative study (EURORAI, 2004).
  •  ‘Performance or compliance? Performance audit and public management in five countries’ (Oxford University Press, 1999).  
Laura Takamizawa
Laura Takamizawa

Principal, IFAC

Laura Takamizawa is a Principal in IFAC's thought leadership team, focusing on initiatives in support of finance and accounting professionals working in business and the public sector. She was previously an Audit Manager at Grant Thornton, specializing in public sector audit in the UK, and prior to that worked for the Audit Commission. She also spent a year on secondment to the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC), where she was responsible for managing their public sector and business network programs.

Laura is a member of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA), and holds a Bachelor of Science (Hons) degree in Mathematical Physics from the University of Nottingham (UK).

Stathis Gould

Director, Member Engagement and PAIB

Stathis Gould is responsible for IFAC member engagement and leads IFAC’s advocacy for professional accountants working in business (PAIB) and the public sector. A key element of his work is developing thought leadership and guidance in support of enhancing the recognition of and confidence in professional accountants as CFOs, business leaders, and value partners in the context of sustainability/ESG, data and digital transformation, and other emerging business trends and issues.

Before joining IFAC, Stathis worked at the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA), where he was responsible for planning and overseeing a program of policy and research that promoted and developed management accountancy. Prior to serving the accountancy profession, he worked in various roles in the private and public sectors in the UK. There, Stathis delivered financial and performance management in the National Health Service and worked for a technology company responsible for delivering the localization of software and content across the globe.

Stathis holds a BA in European Business Studies, an MBA (with distinction), and a postgraduate certificate in Environmental Management, Economics, and Policy. He is a member of the Institute of Management Accountants.

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