Organization’s must be able to recognize the concepts of unconscious bias and pro-actively develop practices that help the organization move beyond those practices
Unconscious bias (or implicit bias) is often defined as "prejudice or unsupported judgments in favor of (or against) one thing, person, or group as compared to another, in a way that is usually considered unfair.” We have all experienced the concept of unconscious bias in the workplace at some point in our career whether we recognized it at the time or not. Many researchers believe unconscious bias will occur as an automatic response of the brain when quick judgments are required. Many unconscious biases in today’s world tend to be exhibited toward minority groups based on factors such as nationality, class, gender, age, race, ethnicity, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, and disability.
Leaders may rely on their past experiences as background to discerning future judgments. When unconscious biases occur in an organization, some people benefit while others are penalized.
Organizations must be able to recognize the concepts of unconscious bias and pro-actively develop practices that help the organization move beyond those practices. This will ultimately assist in supporting your DEI program.
Who Should Attend Chief Executive Officers, Senior Executive Management, Board Members, Compliance Professionals, Legal Professionals, and Audit professionals.
Topics Covered • The realities of unconscious bias • Recognizing your own unconscious bias • Combatting unconscious bias
Field of Study: Behavioral Ethics
LSO: This program contains 2 hours of EDI Professionalism Content.
Lynn Fountain has over 45 years of experience spanning public accounting, corporate accounting and consulting. 24 years of her experience has been working in the areas of internal and external auditing. She is a subject matter expert in multiple fields including internal audit, ethics, fraud evaluations, Sarbanes-Oxley, enterprise risk management, governance, financial management and compliance. Ms. Fountain has held two Chief Audit Executive positions for international companies. In 2011, as the Chief Audit Executive for an international construction/ engineering firm, she was involved in the active investigation of a joint venture fraud. The investigation included work with the FBI and ultimately led to indictment of the perpetrators and recovery of $13M. Ms. Fountain is currently engaged in her own training and consulting business and is a regular trainer for the AICPA. Ms. Fountain is the author of three separate technical books. “Raise the Red Flag – The Internal Auditors Guide to Fraud Evaluations” was published by the Institute of Internal Auditors Research Foundation. -“Leading The Internal Audit Function” and -“Ethics and The Internal Auditor Political Dilemma” were published by Taylor & Francis In addition Ms. Fountain was a contributing author to the certification program exam for the National Association of Accountants. She also has certificate programs on various on-line platforms. Ms. Fountain has performed as an adjunct instructor for the School of Business for Grantham University and developed the first internal audit curriculum for the School of Business at the University of Kansas. Ms. Fountain obtained her BSBA from Pittsburg State University and her MBA from Washburn University in Kansas. She has her CGMA, CRMA credentials and CPA certificate (non-active).
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