Global Head of Risk-Based Internal Audit Strategy

The mandate

The Global Head will make internal audit coverage responsive to the risks that could most seriously impair strategy, resilience, reporting and conduct. The current risk universe is comprehensive, yet its categories, assurance sources and plan hours do not always reveal why one exposure receives attention before another. The role will turn prioritisation into an explicit, challengeable judgement.

This permanent appointment owns audit strategy, risk assessment, plan construction, committee reporting and the quality of independent assurance. It must connect top-down concerns with bottom-up evidence, recognise rapidly changing risk between annual cycles and distinguish assurance gaps from risks already addressed by credible providers.

The Global Head has functional authority over internal-audit standards, scope, access, ratings, issue validation and resource deployment. Management remains responsible for risk and control. The role may escalate restrictions directly to the Audit Committee and cannot be directed to omit a material concern for reasons of convenience or timing.

The first year will deliver a reconstructed assurance map, dynamic plan, clarified rating method, two rapid-response reviews and a stronger succession bench. Success will be judged by coverage of consequential uncertainty, earlier committee visibility and management action grounded in independent evidence rather than the number of audits completed.

What you will own

• Rebuild the auditable universe around strategic objectives, material processes, change commitments, legal obligations and cross-cutting risks.
• Establish a prioritisation method combining impact, velocity, uncertainty, control confidence, assurance coverage and time since independent review.
• Create an assurance map that identifies reliance, duplication and gaps across management testing, specialist review and independent audit.
• Introduce quarterly plan refreshes with documented additions, deferrals, displaced work and Audit Committee approval.
• Approve scope, ratings and final reports independently, recording management disagreement without negotiating away evidence.
• Design rapid-response capacity for emerging risks while protecting delivery of mandatory and high-consequence coverage.
• Strengthen issue follow-up through risk-based validation rather than closure based solely on management attestation.
• Develop senior audit leaders able to succeed into regional, specialist and enterprise assurance portfolios.

Candidate qualifications

• At least 18 years in internal audit, risk or assurance, including five years leading a global or multi-jurisdiction audit function.
• Current ACA, ACCA, CPA or equivalent chartered-accountant credential, supported by CIA qualification or demonstrably equivalent internal-audit standing.
• Evidence of replacing a static audit plan with dynamic prioritisation that surfaced a material risk early enough to change action.
• Deep command of risk-universe design, assurance mapping, audit scoping, evidence evaluation, ratings and committee communication.
• A case where you protected scope or reported an unwelcome conclusion despite executive pressure to defer or soften it.
• Experience assessing reliance on other assurance providers without surrendering internal audit's independent judgement.
• A leadership record showing succession depth, specialist development and improved quality rather than expansion of audit volume alone.

Working terms and boundaries

• This is an ongoing appointment with first-year gates after assurance mapping, plan approval, each rapid review and the annual effectiveness assessment.
• Functional reporting, scope, ratings and access sit with the Audit Committee; administrative support does not alter that independence.
• Hybrid presence is concentrated around committee cycles, priority fieldwork and senior-auditor calibration, with scheduled international travel.
• Internal audit will not own controls, design management responses or certify risks it has helped operate.
• Year-one completion requires dynamic planning in use, validated high-risk issues, two rapid reviews and credible leadership succession.

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 5 October 2026. Mandate reference AUD-PER-2026-LON-18.