1.0Faces Onlinehttps://faces-online.nl/en/Asset Financialshttps://faces-online.nl/en/author/elleke-bender/rich600338<blockquote class="wp-embedded-content" data-secret="c83WezTtki"><a href="https://faces-online.nl/en/interview-jules-muis/">Interview Jules Muis</a></blockquote><iframe sandbox="allow-scripts" security="restricted" src="https://faces-online.nl/en/interview-jules-muis/embed/#?secret=c83WezTtki" width="600" height="338" title="“Interview Jules Muis” — Faces Online" data-secret="c83WezTtki" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" class="wp-embedded-content"></iframe><script type="text/javascript"> /* <![CDATA[ */ /*! This file is auto-generated */ !function(d,l){"use strict";l.querySelector&&d.addEventListener&&"undefined"!=typeof URL&&(d.wp=d.wp||{},d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage||(d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage=function(e){var t=e.data;if((t||t.secret||t.message||t.value)&&!/[^a-zA-Z0-9]/.test(t.secret)){for(var s,r,n,a=l.querySelectorAll('iframe[data-secret="'+t.secret+'"]'),o=l.querySelectorAll('blockquote[data-secret="'+t.secret+'"]'),c=new RegExp("^https?:$","i"),i=0;i<o.length;i++)o[i].style.display="none";for(i=0;i<a.length;i++)s=a[i],e.source===s.contentWindow&&(s.removeAttribute("style"),"height"===t.message?(1e3<(r=parseInt(t.value,10))?r=1e3:~~r<200&&(r=200),s.height=r):"link"===t.message&&(r=new URL(s.getAttribute("src")),n=new URL(t.value),c.test(n.protocol))&&n.host===r.host&&l.activeElement===s&&(d.top.location.href=t.value))}},d.addEventListener("message",d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage,!1),l.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded",function(){for(var e,t,s=l.querySelectorAll("iframe.wp-embedded-content"),r=0;r<s.length;r++)(t=(e=s[r]).getAttribute("data-secret"))||(t=Math.random().toString(36).substring(2,12),e.src+="#?secret="+t,e.setAttribute("data-secret",t)),e.contentWindow.postMessage({message:"ready",secret:t},"*")},!1)))}(window,document); //# sourceURL=https://faces-online.nl/wp-includes/js/wp-embed.min.js /* ]]> */ </script> http://faces-online.nl/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Faces-banner-ter-vervanging.jpg1200628Can you tell something about your career? I had the good fun over my fifty years of active professional life in experiencing the exciting intricacies of the accountancy profession in its broadest sense, at the coalface first: as a public accountant, controller, internal auditor, in both client management and practice & people management positions; from a junior, transaction testing box ticking role till oversight roles, both in the private sector as well as the public sector. I had the good luck about every five years to be able to change focus, to do something new, challenging. All this happened for most part with the enabling-winds in the sails of a post-war fifty years roller coaster boom in demand for accountancy services. The last twenty years of my career also gave me the opportunity to add a new dimension to my predominantly micro optic of accountancy, and merge it with macro-prudential issues, systemic risk and governance issues, internal and external, facing the World Bank and when working for the European Commission. Luck has been a major and indispensable ingredient in my career path. What about your education? My formal education has been totally unremarkable. I almost failed high school if it had not been for the few truly sterling teachers everyone runs into during his or her early life. I am mainly referring to those who go beyond the curriculum, instill curiosity and give you perspective. My professional training was equally unremarkable but solid: vocational training via the evening study for ‘registered accountant’ (NIVRA). The NIVRA study’s academic grounding was paper-thin. But I did my studies by taking off three months a year, for 8 years in a row, worked from the University of Amsterdam library and took my NIVRA exams religiously. This arrangement allowed me to go beyond formal NIVRA package training, search on my own steam for the academic side of the profession, which, in the Netherlands, had a very instructive but one-sided hypothetico-deductive slant, borrowing from the German and Austrian school economic tradition. This I complemented in 1971, just after qualifying as a ‘registered accountant’, with a year exposure to the American academic tradition at the University of Chicago. When doing my internship at Ernst & Young in Chicago, the university invited me to sit in on its bi-weekly workshops of Accounting Research. This gave me crucial new angles on the very empirical tradition of American academia; all accountancy adjacent pastures that have helped me tremendously in problem analyses and problem solving during my professional life. This happy mix of practical experience and informal academic training and interest has been invaluable in building and communicating my deep concerns about the sustainability of the financial system in 2004 and the following years. You worked for a long period at EY. Thereafter you became vice-president and controller at the World Bank and in 2001 you were appointed by the European Commission as its first Director-General and Chief Internal Auditor. How did you experience these changes? A fascinating experience, with many aspects they do not teach you at school. But I had the wind in the sails in that both 50+ jobs (the World Bank and the EU) were born out of serious financial scandals at both institutions. That helped my empowerment in pushing through much needed change, my prime mandate at both institutions. There were very ugly moments, but also times for cheer. In the end, I feel I made a solid net difference for the better, for the institutions and myself. One of the first things I discovered was the crucial difference between ‘auditing’ and ‘controlling’ in applying your brains. As an auditor you use your brain ‘extraction’ muscles. You pull information; but whatever good you are at it, you can never be sure you are pulling the right ropes. It still depends whether they accept your advice or not.  As a controller you use your brain push muscles. You are a change agent par excellence, the first line of defense, much better empowered to achieve real change, and certainly less budget vulnerable if you show results. Secondly, these were moves from the private to the public sector. Both sectors have their unique internal politics, their own code of do’s and don’ts; and you have to learn how to negotiate that. The public sector also has a more ethereal bottom line, which means it is easy to surf the waves and avoid causing waves. I was blessed in my last two big multilateral jobs with a superb staff, very professional, who gave me excellent cover in terms of expertise and institutional-cultural understanding. I returned the favor, to take the political heat myself, hence give them political protection in return. Looking back, I see my Controllers job at the World Bank as having been the most interesting. Moreover, it had the added dimension of a few financial crises, crisis management, systemic and macro-prudential issues. During the 1997 East Asian crisis I saw legions of economists rediscovering proper accounting, auditing and governance as an economic fundamental. You are at present one of the five members of the ESM Board of Auditors (BoA). What does that function entail? The Eurozone not really having its own institutions such as a Court of Auditors, the BoA is basically designed as a hybrid of a mature Audit Committee in the traditional corporate sense. It has an oversight responsibility for the financial statements, audit and controls, but with an added responsibility for efficiency and effectiveness audits. The Board has five members, appointed for three years on a rotating bases by the Board of Governors.  Two are nominated by national supreme audit institutions, one by the European Court of Auditors and you have two ‘at-large’ members nominated by the Chairman of the Eurogroup- presently our Minister of Finance, Mr. Dijsselbloem. The ESM manages €700 billion funded by Eurozone member states. Yet it is the Trojka (European Commission, ECB, IMF) that decides whether money will flow to a member state. Hence the other member states have lost