An AI policy nobody can apply is not governance
Governance starts with an inventory: which AI systems an organisation uses, who owns each one and what decision each informs. The principles in the policy come after.
The Corporate Business Alliance: Standards for the professions that run organisations.
CBA is a UK professional body for finance, accounting, management and technology. It maintains the published standards of practice in each, admits members, certifies practitioners against the standards and keeps the public register — continuing ten years of work as a global certification body.
Each CBA Standard states what competent practice in a discipline consists of: the domains of the work, their relative weight, and the learning objectives a competent practitioner meets in each. The standards are versioned, open to read in full, and written for employers, training providers and practitioners.
The Competency Framework sets three levels at which competence is recognised, and the Code of Professional Conduct sets the standard of behaviour expected of members.
Finance
Management
Publications
The library
Every standard as a typeset edition, to download, print and cite; practice notes on applying them; and working tools for the practitioner. All of it free, and open without an account.
Membership
One membership, open to anyone
Member
Open to anyone working in, or preparing for, one of the four fields, and renewed each year. Members pay less for every certification, and keep everything they buy and every credential they earn in an account in their own name.
Membership and credentials
Membership is not a qualification. A credential is earned by assessment, carries a designation and an entry in the public register, and is open to members and non-members alike.
Insights
On practice
The budget is not the forecast
A budget is a commitment, a forecast is a best estimate and a target is an ambition. Most planning processes blur the three into one number, and then wonder why nobody believes it.
Most procurement savings are decided before the tender opens
Negotiation gets the attention, but the requirement, the specification and the evaluation decide most of what a contract will cost. By the time suppliers are bidding, much of the value has already been fixed.
Certifications
Certification against the standards
Each CBA credential is awarded against one discipline standard, at the level of the Competency Framework its evidence supports, and recorded in the public register.
- CBA-FMAFinancial Modelling & Analysis with AI
- CBA-FPAFinancial Planning & Analysis
- CBA-IFRSIFRS Specialist
- CBA-CAMAccounting Manager
- CBA-CRPCompliance & Risk
- CBA-AIMAI-Driven Management
- CBA-COMOperations Manager
- CBA-CPMProcurement & Supply Manager
- CBA-DMPDigital Marketing
- CBA-AIGAI Governance
- CBA-AIPArtificial Intelligence
- CBA-DAPData Analytics
- CBA-GAIGenerative AI
Employers
Defining and relying on competence
Using the standards to define what a role requires, what each level of credential evidences, and how to check one in the register.
For employersLearning partners
Teaching to the standards
Training providers and institutions may apply to deliver CBA programmes under their own brand, to the published standards. What approval requires is set out in a public accreditation standard.
Become a partner
The public register
Every credential CBA awards is a public record.
A register entry states the holder, the discipline, the level, the scheme version, the dates and the current status. Anyone can look an entry up by its credential ID, without an account.
The register