Lal Balkaran is a Fellow Certified General Accountant, Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, Certified Internal Auditor, and holds an MBA from the Edinburgh Business School.

He is a published author and is perceived as a leading member of the internal audit profession. Mr. Balkaran has more than twenty five years of internal auditing experience obtained in a wide range of industries both in the private and public sectors including six years with the Big Four. Lal is often consulted on the latest thinking in internal auditing to improve corporate governance.

He is a prolific writer and has written seven reference books on business and related areas including the world’s first dictionary on auditing published by Lexis-Nexis Canada and an international directory on professional accounting and business certifications published by Wiley. Mr. Balkaran also wrote six books on his native Guyana.

In addition, he has had articles published widely across the globe on a wide range of subjects including seven articles in the prestigious Internal Auditor magazine. He has done several internal audit and related workshops, seminars, and working luncheons in North America and the Caribbean and contributed a chapter to Professor Jeff Ridley’s new book Cutting Edge Internal Auditing that was published by Wiley in the UK.

Mr. Balkaran has been a member of the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) for over 23 years and is a Past President of the IIA-Toronto. He sits on the Committee of Research and Education Advisors of IIA Global, Internal Auditor Editorial Advisory Board, and is an IIA-Toronto Honourary Member. He was a member of the Internal Audit Advisory Board set up by the Treasury Board Secretariat in Ottawa to establish internal audit functions in federal agencies of the Government of Canada.

In 2002, he pioneered the annual Audit Committee Chair Roundtable with the IIA (Toronto) and the Institute of Corporate Directors to discuss and share ideas on new developments, pending changes, and common issues affecting audit committees from a corporate governance dimension. An average of twenty Audit Committee Chairs from several large organizations in the Greater Toronto Area usually attends.

Mr. Balkaran is also a former External Examiner to two Commonwealth Universities in Auditing, Management Accounting, and Financial Management.

His interests are wide and include landscape photography, music, anthropology, stamp and coin collecting, and travel. He currently lives in Scarborough, Ontario, Canada.