Lead - Quality Assurance & Improvement Programme - Internal Audit Function

Role Purpose:

Lead and oversee the Quality Assurance & Improvement Program (QAIP) for the Internal Audit function, ensuring adherence to regulatory requirements, IIA standards, and the organization's internal audit methodology. Drive consistent and high-quality audit practices across the audit lifecycle, including planning, fieldwork, reporting, root-cause analysis, issue closure, sustainability testing, and stakeholder engagement.

Key Responsibilities:

- Develop, implement, and continuously enhance the QAIP framework, covering ongoing assessments, periodic reviews, and thematic quality assessments.

- Establish audit quality standards, review criteria, and checklists for evaluating audit assignments and reports.

- Ensure consistency and adherence to defined standards for audit scoping, testing, documentation, working papers, and supporting evidence.

- Conduct independent reviews of audit findings and their closure, ensuring appropriate validation and supporting evidence.

- Review audit planning and risk assessment documents, including scoping matrices, risk assessments, sampling approaches, and audit programs.

- Assess and confirm adequate regulatory and policy coverage within individual audit assignments.

- Challenge the adequacy of sample selection, testing methodology, testing depth, and audit evidence.

- Evaluate whether scope exclusions are adequately documented and justified, including assessment of centralized oversight of decentralized activities.

- Review the quality and robustness of root-cause analysis, impact assessment, and identification of underlying system, process, and control weaknesses.

- Ensure appropriate identification and assessment of repeat, overdue, and persistent audit issues, including sustainability testing of previously reported observations.

- Validate the appropriateness of audit finding ratings, recommendations, management responses, and agreed action plans.

- Identify opportunities to strengthen the audit methodology, templates, tools, and control libraries, incorporating data analytics and automated testing wherever relevant.

- Identify recurring quality gaps and systemic themes across audits and recommend corrective and preventive actions.

- Prepare and present QA dashboards, audit quality scores, key observations, trends, and systemic themes to the Head of Internal Audit and Audit Committee.

- Partner with audit teams and stakeholders to promote a strong quality, consistency, and continuous-improvement culture within Internal Audit.

Job Specification:

- 10 - 15 years of relevant experience in Internal Audit, Audit Quality Assurance, Audit Methodology, or Second Line of Defence functions.

- Strong understanding of Internal Audit frameworks, IIA standards, regulatory expectations, risk and control frameworks, and audit methodologies.

- Experience in QAIP, audit quality reviews, thematic reviews, or audit methodology would be an added advantage.

- Strong analytical, review, challenge, documentation, and stakeholder-management skills.

- Ability to independently identify audit quality gaps, recurring issues, and systemic control weaknesses and drive improvements.