2023 Chapter Leaders Summit Recap

The ACFE held the inaugural Chapter Leaders Summit in person on December 14-15, 2023, in Austin, Texas. In attendance were 49 members representing 35 chapters across the United States and Canada who heard from ACFE leadership, participated in group discussions and more. Chapter leaders with various degrees of experience attended - some with more than 20 years of experience and some representing new chapters formed just weeks prior. These differences helped bring diverse perspectives and ideas to the group discussions.

The Summit began with ACFE President John Gill, CFE, and Chief Executive Officer John Warren, CFE discussing many of the ACFE’s plans for 2024. John Warren highlighted a few of the ACFE’s organizational goals. Some of these include continuing to grow membership and certification worldwide; raising the profile of the ACFE and the CFE credential; being a customer-focused, data-driven organization and more. He also emphasized the importance of ACFE chapters and how crucial they are to our overall goal of membership retention and acquisition.

John Gill discussed our continuing partnership with The IIA and the upcoming plans that we have for 2024. He also discussed changes to the CFE Exam Prep Course and potential changes to the CFE Exam. Additionally, the ACFE will try to make it more accessible for members to take the CFE Exam without making the exam easier to pass. This began a group discussion about ways we can accomplish this goal.

Over the next day and a half, attendees were introduced to several ACFE staff members who offered advice on finding speakers, group training options, partnerships to help build membership and working with our higher education group. Attendees also participated in several group discussions and exchanged ideas about challenges that all chapters experience.

The ACFE’s communications team gave practical advice on how chapters can reuse content from their site and bring more awareness to their chapter’s activities and brand. This was followed by a 10-minute practical exercise asking chapter leaders how they would engage with their members following a one-hour webinar. Each group gave different ways to use social media to help promote their chapter after the event.

Our higher-education partnership liaison and Albany Chapter leader, Dr. Marie Rice, introduced the Justice for Fraud Victims Project, which the ACFE will promote in 2024. This is another opportunity for the ACFE and our chapters to engage with local universities and provide real-life experience for students. If you want more information on the Justice for Fraud Victims Project, please email Joe Broccolo.

We are still receiving the evaluations from the event; however, the evaluations have all been positive so far. The attendees enjoyed hearing from other chapter leaders, and they all mentioned they were able to take away something they could implement in their own chapter.

We look forward to offering this event again in 2024 and making it an even better experience for attendees.