I can summarise what I enjoy about being an internal auditor in two words: accessibility and variety. In Internal Audit we have direct and unvetted access to senior stakeholders and albeit from a control angle, we tackle a variety of topics from operational to financial and increasingly more, from a cyber/tech standpoint. Therefore, in order to be credible and relevant, you need to challenge yourself and strive to develop a portfolio of skills and knowledge.

Probably the main challenge I face as an internal auditor within Telco/Tech (but not only) is how to effectively integrate AI and “Big Data” within the audit workflow to offer enhanced assurance. While the direction of travel is clear, it is sometimes challenging to translate the vision into consistent ways of working, either because of a skill gap or sometimes just because the legacy data models in place cannot support an automated or analytically effective audit workflow. Once successfully embedded, AI and Big Data will surely enhance the level of assurance that we give as auditors, but in my view, there is still a little bit of work left to complete this transformative phase.