Interested in this topic? Visit the links below for more resources:
Visit The IIA's website or YouTube channel for related topics and more.
00:00:02 Speaker 1
The Institute of Internal Auditors presents all things internal audit in this episode. The I's Lindsey Patterson talks with Anna Davis of Qualcomm about the crucial aspects of internal audit team formation and dynamics. Their conversation covers hiring strategies in the current market, the importance of soft and hard skills.
00:00:22 Speaker 1
The challenges and benefits of remote and in office work and methods for fostering a strong team culture.
00:00:30 Speaker 2
Let's get started with the beginning of the team formation process.
00:00:35 Speaker 2
Hiring.
00:00:36
Alright.
00:00:36 Speaker 3
Yes.
00:00:38 Speaker 2
So what are you looking for in an internal audit hire today?
00:00:43 Speaker 3
So it's an interesting market right now and.
00:00:48 Speaker 3
For Qualcomm specifically, we.
00:00:50 Speaker 3
We've.
00:00:51 Speaker 3
Had a lot going on the past few years post pandemic, so originally during the pandemic we were fully remote and then we went to two days a week in the office. Then we went to four days a week in the office and we just announced that in October we're going to be doing five days a week.
00:01:11 Speaker 3
In the office and so our recruiting strategy over the past few years has evolved because we didn't know long term that we were going to go to five days a week.
00:01:12 Speaker 2
OK.
00:01:23 Speaker 3
In the office.
00:01:24 Speaker 3
And so at different points in time, we were articulating different workplace expectations. And so it really has been.
00:01:35 Speaker 3
A lot to keep up with that and then also for the different recruits that join along the way, getting them up to speed on the changes and expectations of executive management.
00:01:37 Speaker 2
I would imagine so.
00:01:50 Speaker 3
So currently when we recruit, we have to tell people that we're five days a week in the office.
00:01:57 Speaker 3
And we've always had flexibility. So there is still, you know you can set your own hours essentially and all of that, but that is a big part of how we have to recruit today. And we're based out of San Diego, CA and so.
00:02:12 Speaker 3
It's a pretty big market, but it's not huge and so just getting enough people in San Diego with the skill sets we need that can come into the office five days a week is challenging. And so we do have to go outside and actually like look to relocate.
00:02:33 Speaker 3
Default.
00:02:34 Speaker 3
But I would say a big thing that we're articulating to our potential recruits is really the expectations about adaptability, flexibility.
00:02:46 Speaker 3
We're looking for people with good soft skills and that can really get up to speed from a business acumen perspective as quickly as possible. So I know that a lot of CAE's that you'll talk to will say that knowing the business and understanding the business is really important.
00:03:06 Speaker 3
That I would say at Qualcomm or a company of engineers in our business is a bit complex and technical and so really.
00:03:16 Speaker 3
Looking for candidates that won't be intimidated or shield away from doing the work that's needed to really understand the business and build that credibility.
00:03:28 Speaker 2
That aligns.
00:03:29 Speaker 2
Perfectly with what we're seeing in our own research, we had the vision 2035 report come out. Our foundation did some pipeline research and when you talked to CAE's across the world.
00:03:40 Speaker 2
Build it was those soft skills that really came to the top. It's, you know, business acumen in general. Communication skills. Yes. The the ability to take initiative and we always talk about those as being like these are soft skills, but they're so hard to hire for them. Yes, skills, yes.
00:03:57 Speaker 2
So in that experience, you're trying to find these skills within your new hires. You mentioned five days a week. I would love to hit on that a little bit more. The five days a week, how do you separate yourself from other organizations and make yourself competitive? Yes, for hire?
00:04:14 Speaker 3
Yeah, I mean, we'll see where this goes because it is unchartered territory. Before the pandemic, it was status quo. And so it wasn't as much of a hard.
00:04:24 Speaker 3
Sell.
00:04:25 Speaker 3
But now it really is a hard sell. And so we're looking to promote other benefits of.
00:04:34 Speaker 3
The company and we really do have a lot of cool technology and so some people are attracted to that. So we basically invented the technology that has enabled smartphones.
00:04:47 Speaker 2
Ohh. OK well yeah, that's pretty cool.
00:04:48 Speaker 3
And.
00:04:51 Speaker 3
So that is a draw.
00:04:53 Speaker 3
And it's a fast-paced environment. We have a lot of internal opportunities where you can grow your career.
00:05:02 Speaker 3
I've been with Qualcomm since 2011 and this is my third role, and so there are a lot of opportunities to move around.
00:05:12 Speaker 2
And to move up it.
00:05:12 Speaker 3
Sounds like yes, to move up, yes, I joined as a director in 2011 and then had this is my third role as I mentioned.
00:05:23 Speaker 3
I've been seeing me since 2008.
00:05:25 Speaker 3
Team. So that's a big benefit. And then just giving people exposure to specific areas that they're interested in.
00:05:36 Speaker 3
And we'll see how it goes.
00:05:37 Speaker 2
We'll see how it works out. How big is your audit team?
00:05:40 Speaker 3
My audit team is 23.
00:05:43 Speaker 3
Individuals and we're responsible for internal audit socks and ERM for socks. We do Co source with KPMG, so if you factor in those hours in FTE it's more like 30.
00:05:59 Speaker 2
That's a decent sized team. That's pretty good. We see a lot of, you know, small teams 5 to 10.
00:06:00 Speaker 3
Yes, yes.
00:06:04 Speaker 3
So that's a nice size, yes. And in tech in general, we're pretty lean. We're not a regulated type of business like financial services and insurance that have the huge audit teams. So yeah, it's good and it really forces us to prioritize.
00:06:22 Speaker 3
What the most important risk areas are and also priorities of the company.
00:06:27 Speaker 3
Me. And so that's always a good, healthy thing to do.
00:06:32 Speaker 2
00:06:35 Speaker 3
Yes.
00:06:45 Speaker 3
I would say comfort with technology and so we have our audit.
00:06:51 Speaker 3
Methodology and we've incorporated formally data analytics into it.
00:06:57 Speaker 3
And we also have Microsoft Copilot and other AI applications available to us. We use audit board for our internal audit and socks tool, but someone that really embraces and feels comfortable just going to that on their own.
00:07:06
OK.
00:07:18 Speaker 3
And not as part of an initiative or being reminded or part of the methodology.
00:07:24 Speaker 2
Just incorporating that data analytics into your everyday yes work that's so important in that I keep going back to Anthony's presentation a couple days ago, but that was something else that he talked about seeing, you know, even out of our own research from Vision 2035 that so many CAE's say data analytics is a top skill that everybody needs to have.
00:07:28 Speaker 3
Yes.
00:07:45 Speaker 2
But then very few of them would say that they have that skill, or that their teams have that skill. So how do you foster that culture within your?
00:07:49 Speaker 3
Yes, yes.
00:07:53
20.
00:07:54 Speaker 3
We actually updated our methodology to require steps to consider data analytics and so it's required in our methodology and we have a couple champions DA champions that are essentially the power users and act as mentors and coaches.
00:08:15 Speaker 3
And we have one person that actually has office hours every week.
00:08:19 Speaker 2
Ohh that's kind of them.
00:08:21 Speaker 3
Yes, so that everyone feels comfortable going to these people.
00:08:27 Speaker 3
So that's worked well so far.
00:08:29 Speaker 2
OK, well that starts to touch on culture. So let's move into the culture piece. You've hired these great internal auditors that you know have the skills, they have the hard skills, they have the soft skills. Now how do you get them to work together and be a cohesive team?
00:08:42 Speaker 3
Yes.
00:08:43 Speaker 3
So a lot of that is personality and chemistry and I think it starts with tone from the top and then also my leadership team in terms of expectations, that is the culture.
00:08:57 Speaker 3
That we want to demonstrate and promote and so really being helpful, flexible. I think Qualcomm itself as a company can be a bit intimidating to on board because we have a lot of different parts of our business and it's always changing and dynamic.
00:09:18 Speaker 3
And so.
00:09:19 Speaker 3
A lot of it is relationships and knowing where to go. So we do with our coaching and mentoring, spend a lot of time making sure people get up to speed as fast as possible, but also promoting and leading by example on the type of culture and relationships that we want to build.
00:09:40 Speaker 2
So you mentioned mentoring. Do you guys have a formal mentorship program within the organization? The internal audit team?
00:09:45 Speaker 3
Yep, we have one for the company. You're assigned a new hire mentor and then within our audit team as well, everyone that joins is assigned a mentor.
00:09:56 Speaker 2
I love that and I think that's something that even smaller internal audit teams can do, maybe not within the team itself, but having that mentor within the company because like what you said about.
00:10:04 Speaker 2
Relationships life is all about relationships, and knowing who to go to and what questions to ask, and that's going to be a learned skill, especially with new hires or people fresh out of college who, yes, haven't had that office experience yet.
00:10:18
Yeah.
00:10:19 Speaker 2
Do you see that in your hires that that's like a challenge for a certain generation or any specific group?
00:10:26 Speaker 3
I would say it is a mixed bag in terms of what I see. Some people feel really comfortable embracing the mentor relationship and actually being open about questions that they have in other people are a little more hesitant.
00:10:41 Speaker 3
And so some of it could be culturally, we have a really diverse workforce and so some people are more open and confident and others are a little more reserved. But one thing that I do is I do a lot of skip levels in my organization.
00:10:58 Speaker 2
So important love that you do that.
00:11:01 Speaker 3
Every quarter I talked to everyone in my organization to keep a pulse and how they're doing and then also for our top talent, I do monthly one on ones.
00:11:12 Speaker 3
Them to give them extra attention, support, hear their perspective.
00:11:13
Oh.
00:11:18 Speaker 2
I love that. So how do you identify your top talent?
00:11:21 Speaker 3
It bubbles up on its own, I would say so. The people that take initiative are just going above and beyond of their own.
00:11:32 Speaker 3
Doing and then it turns out those are the people we go to all the time. When something new comes up, we know they're capable and trust them. And so I would say after three to six months, you kind of get a feel for who these people are.
00:11:36
Yeah.
00:11:49 Speaker 2
I would agree on the initiative piece as somebody who has also hired and coached up many staff members over my career.
00:11:57 Speaker 2
The ability to take initiative is such a wonderful skill to see, and I don't think that you see it all of the time. Yeah, and it can be taught a little bit because there's that extrovert introvert dynamic. Sometimes that comes into play, so it may not be natural to everybody, but teaching that skill set and finding it, it's just, that's the Unicorn that you want.
00:12:19 Speaker 3
Yes.
00:12:20 Speaker 2
And for those new people in internal audit or in any career.
00:12:23 Speaker 2
There I think they might be worried sometimes. Like well, what if I do this? What if something goes wrong? And for the most part, I always tell my team I don't know if you agree or if you've told your team this. I'm like, there is very little you can do in taking initiative that's gonna bring this whole company down.
00:12:37 Speaker 2
Right, just try like yes.
00:12:40 Speaker 2
Try something. Let's see what happens. Yes, and.
00:12:43 Speaker 2
Worst case scenario, you might gain some experience.
00:12:46 Speaker 3
Yes, we recently had someone join our team from within the business. We have a 6040 strategy for our talent where 60% we want to be professional auditors that spent most of their career in auditing, but 40% we would want to come from the business. And so we think that balance.
00:13:01
Right.
00:13:07 Speaker 3
Gives good overall talent that we need to connect with the business because the professional lifetime auditors have those technical skills that we need to make sure we comply with IE standards.
00:13:22 Speaker 3
We have our QAR every five years.
00:13:25 Speaker 3
And then we have the business people that join that have the relationships and know the INS and outs. And so together it's a well balanced perspective and we recently had someone join the team from the business and so they were totally new to audit and.
00:13:45 Speaker 3
Trying to get the lay of the land in terms.
00:13:48 Speaker 3
Of how it all works, and I told her it's OK if you make a mistake. The one thing, the one thing that we don't want to make a mistake on is our audit conclusions. So we're a shop that gives an audit conclusion. Not every company does, but we do.
00:13:55
Yes.
00:14:08 Speaker 3
And so.
00:14:09 Speaker 3
There's a lot that goes into making sure we get that.
00:14:12 Speaker 2
Right. And presumably there's going to be some layers of review in that?
00:14:14 Speaker 3
Yes and yes, we do a whole calibration process with our leadership team to make sure that we're assessing this similar to other audits that we do. And so we have a really robust process, I feel like.
00:14:29 Speaker 3
Around reaching conclusions, so I told this person that's the one thing we're going to nail every time. But other than that, if you, you know, you make a mistake along the way, that's how you're going to learn. And the team is all here to support you.
00:14:43 Speaker 2
Right, we all good.
00:14:46 Speaker 2
And I think how you respond to those mistakes as a leader really matters to you.
00:14:50 Speaker 2
Right. You want your team to see that it really is OK that we're not just saying it, but.
00:14:54 Speaker 2
If something is, you know wrong on the website, yes, it's fine. You can fix it. It's usually not going to be.
00:15:01 Speaker 2
The end of the.
00:15:01 Speaker 2
World, yes. So showing that leadership and letting them know it's truly OK to make mistakes. OK, I want to go back to something else. You said that I really liked. Cause you mentioned that 40% of your team is coming from within the business itself and we see.
00:15:13 Speaker 3
Yes.
00:15:15 Speaker 2
You know, across the board in North America, but in many other countries too, especially like Europe, the vast majority of internal auditors continue to come from that accounting background, accounting or finance. We see over 80% of them do. Yeah, we always hear the profession say like we need.
00:15:29 Speaker 2
More, you know, technical skills, more people from engineering or from marketing or from different backgrounds. But it sounds like you 40% is a great number. So how have you been able to recruit those people?
00:15:33 Speaker 3
Yes.
00:15:41 Speaker 3
It's been a journey and we built it into our audit strategy that we specifically want to rotate in.
00:15:52 Speaker 3
A number of folks every year and I share that metric with the audit committee once a year and.
00:15:59 Speaker 2
So the business.
00:16:00 Speaker 2
Unit staff that come in, those are rotational auditors.
00:16:04 Speaker 3
Yeah, I mean, we asked for a three-year commitment and so and they're welcome to stay. So it's not a formal rotation where we tell them when they come in after X time, you're.
00:16:17 Speaker 3
We say we love to have your experience and perspective. We want at least 2 1/2 to three years if you want to stay longer. It's totally open. So that's our perspective. And so our my leadership team is tasked with maintaining relationships.
00:16:37 Speaker 3
And always having a pipeline and discussion with different folks that could be potential candidates to come in. And so it's a lot of networking. We have different employee groups that we network.
00:16:52 Speaker 3
With and some of it is through just word of mouth in terms of people expressing interest that they might be want to come to audit at some point. And so really we just keep in touch with these people and nurture that. And then as opportunities come up, reach out.
00:17:09 Speaker 2
What would you say is one of the driving?
00:17:12 Speaker 2
Actors, or somebody who's within the business wanting to come to internal audit, what makes your team so much better than the others?
00:17:18 Speaker 3
So yeah, I mean, we've recently recruited a couple people into audit from the business.
00:17:24 Speaker 3
And for a big company like Qualcomm, when you're out in the business somewhere, you're pretty much doing one specific part of the company. So you might have a very narrow scope of responsibility. And so one of the great draws is really just the exposure to the whole business.
00:17:45 Speaker 3
That we got.
00:17:46 Speaker 3
We still get to see finance, but we also get to see engineering supply chain. IT really the whole thing and then we do travel for some of our audits and that's also a big draw because I do believe there's nothing like seeing the business in action to really understand what we do.
00:18:07 Speaker 3
And so those are two big draws for us.
00:18:11 Speaker 2
And I think those are things that other businesses and organizations can really lean into as well, highlighting that we talk about it all the time. When you're looking at college students who might be majoring in accounting right now, for example.
00:18:23
Mm-hmm.
00:18:24 Speaker 2
A lot of.
00:18:25 Speaker 2
Us never heard of internal audit in college. Yes, I had never heard of it.
00:18:29 Speaker 2
Had you? Yes.
00:18:30 Speaker 2
You had. You'd heard of internal audit in.
00:18:32 Speaker 3
I mean, maybe briefly in my auditing, but it wasn't a career people were going into.
00:18:32 Speaker 2
College. Yeah, OK.
00:18:38 Speaker 2
Exactly. Yes. The we have to get better about promoting that as a profession. But like you have these great opportunities outside of just going into public accounting in the BIG4, not that there's anything wrong with that. But there are other options and internal audit for the reasons you just said is one of those really great options.
00:18:42 Speaker 3
Yes.
00:18:55 Speaker 3
And it is a great foundational learning place. When you do come into a company because you do get all of that exposure across the whole business.
00:19:05 Speaker 3
And for a company like Qualcomm, we promote rotations, and so we really are a pipeline to sending people out into the business. This is probably a good opportunity to talk about. We did recruit one person straight out of college, so that's not our typical recruiting.
00:19:25 Speaker 3
We normally look for someone with a few years of experience and we do recruit from BIG4 or other companies with internal audit.
00:19:34 Speaker 3
But one of our top performers was someone that we took a chance with straight out of college and really we were able to train them and mold them right to our methodology. They were also super advanced on the technical side. So they're one of our leading.
00:19:53 Speaker 3
Innovators in the use of AI for audit and then also audit board capabilities. So for those audit shops out there that may not really go to universities or hire someone straight out of college.
00:20:07 Speaker 3
It's been really successful for us.
00:20:09 Speaker 2
I'm so glad to hear that one, because I think it is a great example to other shops that there's, you know, there's talent out there and like you said, you can mold them to what you want that individual to be in that role. But also I'm very glad that you said that because I was going to ask how they worked out and it would have been very awkward if you said poorly and then they listen to this podcast later.
00:20:18 Speaker 3
Yes.
00:20:29 Speaker 3
Yes, yes. Yeah. OK.
00:20:29 Speaker 2
So very glad that it worked out well for you guys, so if you were going to tell a individual or an individual who is interested in a career in internal audit, like one thing that they should know, what do you?
00:20:43 Speaker 2
Think that is.
00:20:45 Speaker 3
I would say it's.
00:20:47 Speaker 3
Super interesting. I don't know if I can limit it to one thing, but it is super interesting. It's also, I think we'll build a lot of good skills that you'll need for any role. It's highly visible. It's super demanding, but that also makes it very real.
00:20:52
OK.
00:21:00
Oh.
00:21:06 Speaker 3
Morning. And I love the exposure to the business, the relationships that you'll make, it opens I think a ton of doors for you whatever way way you want to take your career.
00:21:20 Speaker 2
Well.
00:21:21 Speaker 2
Thank you also gave some great advice on like hiring especially college students and taking up.
00:21:27 Speaker 2
For taking the chance there. But for those audit teams that are wanting to really hire great talent and develop great talent, what's the big take away you would give them?
00:21:37 Speaker 3
I would say.
00:21:39 Speaker 3
Look for the cultural fit and for us right now, it really is resilience and confidence that we're looking for more than the heads down technical skills, so.
00:21:53 Speaker 3
It's a lot to go from oddity to oddity. It's not like your typical finance or other company position where you always are working with the same business partners every 12 weeks. For us, you're on to a new project with new business partners and so really looking for someone who feels comfortable.
00:22:15 Speaker 3
That and has tough skin, but yet is polished and have has soft skills, so it's a lot.
00:22:24 Speaker 2
So tough skin. But shiny, yes.
00:22:27 Speaker 2
Vampire.
00:22:28 Speaker 3
Yes.
00:22:31 Speaker 2
Anything else you would want our listeners to know?
00:22:34 Speaker 3
I would just say that, you know, embrace everything that's going on right now. I think it's a really dynamic time between everything going on from a technology perspective as well as just the environment in general as a country.
00:22:51 Speaker 3
In the competitive world, there's everything is changing day-to-day.
00:22:57 Speaker 3
And audits at the center of all of it in terms of thinking about for your business what the priorities are and the top risk areas and so really embrace it and go with it.
00:23:10 Speaker 2
And thank you so much for joining us today, Anna, I really appreciated our.
00:23:13 Speaker 2
Chat.
00:23:13 Speaker 3
Thanks.
00:23:16 Speaker 1
Small internal audit teams boost your efficiency at the 2025 audit sphere. This one day virtual conference on June 17th offers expert strategies and practical tools just for you. Register now at the dia.org.
00:23:32 Speaker 1
If you like this podcast, please subscribe and rate US. You can subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can also catch other episodes on YouTube or at the iaa.org that's theia.org.
