Head of Internal Audit at Robert Walters

Description

• In this senior-level role reporting directly into the Regional Head of Audit for EMEA, you will oversee the work of Ghana, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Gambia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria, with extensive people management duties, as well as responsibility for front-to-back Internal Audit strategy.
• Ensuring a robust line of defence for business activities in this complex West African environment, you will be central in mitigating risk across the entire region, whilst maintaining independence and professional objectivity. You will not only catch current lapses but also proactively add value to the future, multinational, control environment.
• Key objectives for the role include excellent internal customer experience, effective management of change, seeking efficiencies and minimising business disruption from external audit. You will sit on the senior-most country leadership forum (the ExCo)

Qualification for Head of Internal Audit:

• Undergraduate degree, and ideally Master’s degree (no subject specified)
• Fully qualified professional accountant (ACCA or Institute of Chartered Accountant for Nigeria, etc.)

Non-negotiables for Head of Internal Audit:

• Qualified accountant (This is a regulatory requirement)
• Min. 22 years’ post-qualified experience overall
• Min. 15 years’ experience within Finance and audit, this can be split between Banking & Financial Services Audit 50:50
• Experience Internal and/or External Auditor within Financial Services
• Strong understanding and experience of the West African market (ideally Nigeria, but wider locales will be considered)
• Regulatory experience; able to handle a highly visible and a highly intrusive regulatory presence
• Experience in managing 10+ direct reports

Key duties:

• Full design and ownership of the audit plan, with ongoing monitoring of all regions/countries
• Delivery of internal audits that cause as little as possible disruption to the business
• Budgetary management
• Build excellent relationships with the Senior Audit Committee and other key stakeholders
• Team resourcing and staffing
• Escalation of risks in a timely manner
• Ensure governance
• Establishing partnership with Audit functions globally (Nigeria specifically)

Personal qualities:

• Strong and proven leader, able to deal with highly demanding stakeholders
• Confident communicator on all platforms
• Extremely credible, persuasive individual
• Strong moral ethical code, as befits an internal auditor
• Someone with the gravitas to engage effectively all the way up to group level