I am not kidding when I say I survived AuditFest 2007! What an adventure it was! For those who do not know, AuditFest is an annual departmental event held in Memphis. All auditors from across the world and the US (160 total) come to Memphis for this week long event!
AuditFest includes a day of speakers where FedEx executives come and share their vision for the company and how important of a role we as Internal Audit play into that vision. It sounds very boring, but it truly is not. Last year the one and only Fred Smith (FedEx President and Chairman of the Board) came to talk to us! This year we had our CFO, Alan Graf, and others come to talk to us. It is not everyday you get to spend the day with the top leaders of this $30+ billion company!
Day 2 consisted of team building activities. The theme for AuditFest 2007 was "Making the Band". We were all put into teams and each team was assigned a team name. My team was "Silver Swing". The team building event was held at the Whispering Woods Conference Center and Hotel in Olive Branch, MS. We were assigned the task of designing our own album cover and taking team pictures. In the middle of taking the album cover pictures the hotel experienced an electrical fire. All 160 auditors were evacuated out of the hotel and into the surrounding grounds while the fire department was dispatched to check out the situation. It was hilarious to see the faces on the firemen as they approached the hotel and saw 160 auditors dressed up in disco, swing, jazz, dance, etc. costumes. They had no idea what they were coming up on! The electrical fire was put out and the events went on as planned. We were interrupted in the middle of the day with heavy thunderstorms but we moved inside with no problem.
Later that night we had a banquet which honored outstanding auditors for a job well-done. I actually received one of the "All-Star Team" awards so I was very happy and honored (and a bit surprised)! The picture below is me with Gene Bastedo (Senior VP of Internal Audit and Alan Graf, FedEx Corporation CFO).
Gene and I at the Awards Banquet!
Once the banquet was over and the DJ was starting the music for the dancing to begin...the lights went out! It was pitch-black dark in the hotel. Come to find out lightening hit a transformer outside and blew up! No lights, no emergency lights, and people were stuck in the elevator! It was quite a site. There was even a tornado spotted in the area (not near us!)! The fire department was called out again (same firemen) to address this problem! I think they were pleasantly surprised to see how nice we all clean-up! Anyway, the lights came back on about an hour and a half later and the people stuck in the elevators were rescued!
Our final day was spent bowling as a team, golfing, and a charity event! It was another fun AuditFest!!!
Check out pics from the exciting and memorable event!
FedEx Internal Audit!!! WOW, we really are professionals!
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