Interim Chief Audit Executive — Assurance Delivery

Where independent challenge is won or lost

Internal audit independence is rarely lost in a single moment. It erodes when the plan is set by what management is comfortable having reviewed, when new activities start before anyone asks how they will be assured, and when findings are softened to keep relationships intact. The Interim Chief Audit Executive will meet each of those pressures over 18 months, answering to the Audit Committee Chair, with executive authority to resist them.

Several judgement calls follow. One is coverage: as an organisation grows, the assurance plan must follow the growth rather than the history, which means deciding what to stop auditing as well as what to start. Another is thresholds. You will agree a framework that sets out which decisions and limits sit with local leadership, and choose the facts on which oversight of investment, capacity and controls rests. A third concerns inherited commitments, where you will rule on which carry on, which are suspended and which are brought to an end. A fourth is refusal: proposals that slide cost or risk onto others without someone accountable will be stopped, and value cases that skip take-up, dependencies or downside rejected. Finally, you will confirm the escalation route and decide how often the audit committee hears about progress, exceptions and unresolved decisions.

In a cooperative or mutual there is an added dimension. Members expect the governance of their organisation to be visible and trustworthy, and an audit function that challenges independently is part of how that trust is earned.

Eighteen months of assurance keeping pace

Within the first ninety days, an assurance plan that follows where the organisation is growing should have the audit committee's approval, with control owners identified for each area. Around month nine independent challenge should be reaching new and expanding activities, and findings should arrive at the committee on a fixed rhythm. By month 18 the assurance function should hold a standing view of risk that moves with the organisation, and the route for escalating concerns should have been tested in practice.

An audit executive with growth in their record

You will have led assurance or risk somewhere with $790 million or more in revenue, at least 2,500 people and operations in seven countries, and made calls in agribusiness or food where delay had a measurable cost. The committee is interested in ESG transition, succession and turnaround. The capability profile asks for risk judgement at level 4, supported at level 3 by risk appetite, regulatory engagement and assurance testing. Strong candidates will show where evidence they produced changed decisions about people, capital or management attention, and will be able to describe a popular commitment they ended and what that freed.

The chair twice, then the investment committee

The Audit Committee Chair speaks with you privately over video in the first week, and again in the second, this time over a working case. The third week brings you in person before the investment committee. A response in writing reaches you within four working days of each.