Regional Audit Director, Africa, VisionFund International
VisionFund’s work seeks to end intergenerational poverty through financial products and services. We’re about the long-term change that ensures children can break free of the poverty cycle, for good.
By supporting people and communities living in poverty to develop and grow their livelihoods, VisionFund is catalysing sustainable economic growth to break the cycle of poverty, so that children can reach their potential as communities thrive.
Learn more about us: visionfund.org
Location: Applications are welcome from any country in Africa where WVI is registered to operate
Application Language: All applications should be submitted in English
Overview
VisionFund is World Vision’s microfinance provider serving vulnerable clients through loans, savings, and insurance. We enable families to grow their livelihoods in hard to reach, rural locations in 28 countries so that caregivers can create secure futures for their children. We believe in brighter futures for children; empowering families to create incomes and jobs; unlocking economic potential for communities to thrive. Join VisionFund as we seek to end intergenerational poverty through microfinance.
The Regional Audit Director (RAD) for Africa plays a crucial and strategic role in the execution of the VFI Internal Audit department’s strategic imperatives.
He/she is responsible for setting mid- to long-term strategic goals and objectives for the region, and serving as strategic advisors to the Executives, and Regional/MFI Leadership and Boards on Governance, Risk Management and Controls. It is, therefore, imperative that he/she has the seniority, credibility and executive gravitas to fulfill this role.
He/she highlights significant potential risks that could be impacting the MFIs, and provides the Regional or MFI Leadership with strategic and value-adding insights, recommendations, warnings or advice to manage those risks. He/she, therefore, deals with significant complexity taking into consideration diverse range of business processes, geo-political risks, etc. He/she engages with senior external stakeholders such as local donor representatives.
The RAD has a direct reporting line to the Global Director for Internal Audit, with a dotted reporting line to the Regional Director, and leads the Internal Audit function across the whole Africa region, covering 11 MFIs, ensuring that Internal Audit delivers on its mandate to enhance and protect the organisational value and assist VFI to accomplish its objectives by providing risk-based and objective assurance, advice, and insight to improve the effectiveness of VFI governance, risk management and internal controls.
Role Responsibilities
Strategic Leadership, Stakeholder Engagement, & Planning and Communication (35%)
- Proactively engage, closely collaborate and partner with key stakeholders including Executives and Regional/MFI Leadership and Boards, and provide insight and pragmatic, forward-looking recommendations on matters related to risk management, internal controls and governance, and actively support in managing critical risks that can impact the achievement of Organisational Strategy,
- Present quarterly to the Regional Leadership and the local Audit and Risk Committee (ARC) on audit results, providing strategic insights and key trend analyses.
- Represent VFI Internal Audit and play a key advisory role on the local ARCs and other Committees and forums, as delegated by the Global Director of Internal Audit.
- Strategic and Functional Leadership of MFI Internal Audit Managers (IAM) and Regional Audit Managers (RAMs), and an extended team of Internal Audit professionals:
- Oversee the development of annual internal audit plans in the MFIs, in consultation with the local stakeholders, and present this to the local Audit and Risk Committees (ARC) annually for approval;
- Oversee the preparation of MFI Internal Audit annual budgets, ensuring concurrence by MFI Leadership and approval by local and VFI ARCs.
- Oversee VFI Internal Audit Regional talent management, including working in liaison with MFIs on recruitment of IAMs, staff training, development and well-being. Ensure development of the regional Internal Audit team’s strong understanding of all VisionFund International (VFI)’s operations, the strategic risks (internal and external) that threaten the organisation’s achievement of its strategy and key objectives,
- Oversee engagement supervision activities to ensure internal audit deliverables are in line with the Global Internal Audit Standards (GIAS) and are of high quality.
- Play a key role in developing and rolling out VFI’s Continuous Audit (Analytics) model within the Region and in the promotion of future key initiatives to strengthen/enhance IA activities and methodology.
- Provide support to the Investigations unit of VFI Internal Audit to facilitate investigation of fraud allegations and unethical conduct. Ensuring that reported cases are thoroughly reviewed, discussed and resolved to mitigate risks and losses to the organization.
Promote and Ensure the Regional IA Team and the MFI Internal Audit Teams’ High Performance (15%)
- Regional leadership and oversight on the design, implementation and continuous improvement of the VFI Internal Audit Regional Team’s performance framework to ensure the RAMs, and the rest the MFI Internal Audit Teams deliver on all aspects of a professional risk-based internal audit function in line with evolving best practice and in accordance with the Global Internal Audit Standards (GIAS), the Code of Ethics, VFI Internal Audit’s Charter and VFI’s policies and procedures;
- Continually enhance VFI Internal Audit and MFI Internal Audit Team’s ability to conduct both assurance and advisory reviews to add value and improve the organisation’s operations while considering the organisation’s key initiatives and strategic direction.
- Drive stakeholder relationships and communication and recommend/implement actions to achieve improvements; evaluate the advocacy efforts of the internal audit activity and determine key performance indicators to evaluate the success of the internal audit activity;
Promote and Ensure High Quality Assurance & Advisory Services (15%)
- Evaluate and communicate to Global and Regional Leadership and the local ARCs the collective outcomes of engagements and follow-ups performed by the internal audit activity. Assess the impact of residual risk; communicate management’s acceptance of risk to Senior Management and the Board.
- Recommend improvements to the organisation’s Global and MFI Office governance policies, processes, structures, overall control environment, risk management strategy, strategic planning process, organisational behaviour, performance management measures and techniques and recommend actions to address risks related to the organisation’s business processes.
- Maintain and promote the highest conformance and ethical standards for VFI Internal Audit and promptly resolve any Quality Assurance or Peer Review areas for improvement.
- Implement and continually improve the monitoring, follow-up and reporting of audit finding remediation.
- All VFI Internal Audit and MFI Internal Audit activities conform to the Global Internal Audit Standards (GIAS) and Code of Ethics and VFI Internal Audit manual.
- Audit and advisory reports are focused on areas of highest risk to VFI and are delivered at a high level of quality and contribute to the organisation’s continuous improvement of governance, risk management and the control environment.
Drive Innovation (15%)
- Continually drive and assess innovation/ improvement in MFI Internal Audit teams written and verbal communication skills, soft skills, and projects.
- Partner with VFI leadership on organisational change initiatives in an advisory capacity and provide early input on governance, risk management and controls.
- Be alert to the work of and drive collaboration with other assurance providers.
Lead Global Centre Internal Audits (20%)
- Lead and manage Global Centre Audits of MFIs, including overseeing Global Thematic audits, and Advisory reviews.
- Support or conduct investigations as and when required, in liaison with the VFI Investigations Director.
- Conduct Special Audit Reviews as and when required.
Knowledge, Skills and Competencies
Required Professional Experience
- Bachelor’s Degree in Finance, Business Administration, Internal Audit or similar; MBA is a plus;
- CPA and/or Chartered Financial Accountant or equivalent;
- Certified Internal Auditor (CIA)
- At least ten (10) years of internal audit experience, preferably in a “Big 4” firm or large multinational, at least 5 of which should be at a senior manager/director level.
- Proven track record of relationship building at the senior level (Executive leadership, Audit and Risk Committees and Boards)
- Proven experience in risk-based internal audit;
- The ability to think strategically, make sense of complexity and apply “systems thinking”.
- Strong business acumen and understanding of functional linkages.
- Ability to interact with and/or manage cross-functional teams.
- Effectively and independently lead diverse teams for success
- Strong commitment to quality and consistency of work, and to continuously drive improvements.
- Highly developed written and verbal communication skills in English, excellent soft skills, and ability to motivate and influence all levels of management;
- Solid interpersonal skills, including listening, relationship building and the ability to influence at the highest levels in the organisation.
- Excellent MS Office skills (Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Visio)
Preferred Knowledge and Qualifications
- Cross-cultural experience in INGOs, MicroFinance, or Financial Services
- Experience in using Audit Software, Embedded Audit Tools/Techniques, Strategy Implementation
- IT Audit and Fraud Investigation knowledge (CFE is a plus)
- Data mining & analytics, including financial and trend analysis
- Fluency in one or more of Spanish or French is a plus.
Travel, Work and Language Requirements
- May work from home or in a hybrid home/office arrangement.
- Ability and willingness to travel domestically and internationally up to 40% of the time.
- A high standard of written and verbal English is essential
