Internal Audit Quality Improvement Director

The mandate

The interim Director will lead the internal audit quality improvement programme before a scheduled independent assessment. The assignment must start within fifteen business days and prioritise substantive quality over cosmetic assessment preparation.

Work will combine file inspections, standards mapping, root-cause analysis, action verification and live coaching. The Director must distinguish isolated documentation defects from recurring failures in judgement, capacity, review or independence, and ensure corrective evidence appears in current audits rather than retrospective narratives.

Temporary authority covers quality-review selection, file access, finding severity, methodology recommendations and escalation of non-remediation. The appointee cannot rewrite engagement conclusions, perform management controls or guarantee an external assessment result. Audit owners retain responsibility for their files.

A permanent Quality Head must be identified by month two and lead the final inspection round, one calibration session and the assessment evidence presentation. Exit requires closure or transparent acceptance of all critical quality gaps and a forward monitoring schedule owned by the permanent leader.

What you will own

• Map applicable internal-audit standards to methodology, actual practice, retained evidence and responsible quality owners.
• Inspect a risk-based sample of completed and live files across planning, fieldwork, evidence, supervision, reporting and follow-up.
• Classify findings by isolated error, systemic method, behavioural cause, capacity pressure and independence risk.
• Trace recurring weaknesses to root causes and design actions that change current work rather than only policies.
• Establish calibration for scope, evidence, ratings, report language and issue validation using anonymised cases.
• Verify prior quality actions through live-file evidence and reject closure based on training or policy issuance alone.
• Prepare an honest assessment dossier that states residual nonconformance, remediation and governance acceptance.
• Certify the permanent Quality Head through inspection, calibration and evidence-presentation tests.

Candidate qualifications

• At least 15 years in internal audit and quality assurance, including Director responsibility for QAIP or external assessment readiness.
• Chartered Accountant membership with ICAI in good standing, together with CIA or equivalent internal-audit quality credentials.
• Evidence of identifying a systemic audit-quality cause behind apparently isolated file defects.
• Deep knowledge of internal-audit standards, file inspection, evidence, supervision, ratings, issue validation and external assessment.
• A case where you refused to close a quality action because policy or training had not changed live practice.
• Experience preparing for independent assessment without concealing residual nonconformance.
• Availability for full-time Chennai delivery and rapid transfer to a permanent quality leader.

Working terms and boundaries

• Six months of full-time, five-day-week delivery are contracted; an assessment or successor failure alone may justify up to two further months.
• Quality inspection, findings and recommendations are included; engagement opinion rewrite and external-result guarantees are excluded.
• Audit owners remain responsible for their files and must evidence changed practice in current work.
• The permanent Quality Head leads the final inspection, calibration and assessment presentation before exit.
• Completion requires closed or accepted critical gaps, live remediation evidence and an operating forward QAIP.

Application

Applications for this mandate are received in one way only: through the India Board Terminal's application process. It is automated end to end. Your Executive Passport travels to the mandate holder in its confidential form, your answers to the three questions below are read before anything else in your file, and every stage that follows is recorded on your applications page.

There is no address to write to and no intermediary to call. The mandate holder reads what the Terminal delivers and nothing else, which is what keeps the process the same for every applicant and keeps your name out of it until you release it. Applications close on 6 October 2026. Mandate reference AUD-INT-2026-MAA-43.