The Institute of Internal Auditors presents all things internal audit. In this episode, Erin Benet discusses her transition from Big four Auditor to Internal Audit Executive Benet shares lessons on building strategic relationships, mentoring, rising talent, and strengthening internal audits role. She also highlights creative recruitment strategies, evolving audit committee communications, and how to lead with intention in a changing talent market.
Tell me, so what organization are you representing? I am the CAE of Human Humana. So How long have you been there? I have been at Humana for around six years, but in the CAE role for around three years. How big is your team? We have about 75 FTEs that we, uh, currently operate with. So we have Sarbanes Oxley, uh, and then we have traditional internal audit. And then I have a little bit of risk management from an actuarial perspective. That also reports to me.
Is it primarily North American focused or is it a global organization? Yes, we are all domestic. All domestic. Mm-hmm. So what brought you there into the CAE role? What brought you into the organization originally? Yeah, so I've born and raised in Kentucky. Uh, made my way to Louisville, Kentucky, uh, to work for Deloitte, actually a long time ago. Um, spent about 15 years at Deloitte and thought I wanted to be a partner.
Went through that process and realized I was gonna have to move around a lot. Took really analyzed, you know, what, what did I like about public accounting? What were those skill sets that I learned? What did I wanna continue to grow and, and do? And, um, there was a director opening at Humana in internal audit at the time. And so, um, interviewed for that process.
When I think about Kentucky, for those that that aren't aware, like Louisville is a, is a large market for Kentucky, but Humana's the biggest company there. And so, wow. Um, that was kind of my deciding factor of wanting to take the, the big shop of Deloitte and going to another company where I could continue to grow and, and use all the skill sets that I had learned there. Was coming into Humana, was that your introduction to going into an internal audit role?
Yes, I went directly into a director of internal audit role. Um, when I first went in, I had our SOX team and, um, our healthcare services team, and then continued to have a couple of, um, progressive, you know, positions from there, um, including taking on it, taking on some expanded other roles.
And then, uh, when the CAE role, B role opened about three years ago, um, lucky for me, I'd had the opportunity in the director role for my other three years there to go to the audit committee meetings and present, um, my CAE and I, and I always tell other CAEs, this was great for, for my development.
And so I do the same thing to pay it forward, but having the ability to present in the audit committee at a director level and get that exposure to the audit committee, when the time came open for the CAE role, I had the table pounders, if you will, and the people supporting me to get that role that actually were on the audit committee. When you first came into the role at Humana, was these audit committee relationships kind of the biggest challenge that you saw coming into the role?
Like, was, is that what you felt like you could contribute the most going into it? Yes. I mean, when I think about my, my past at Deloitte, I, I was lucky enough to have the opportunity there to also work with audit committees and boards, um, just through normal course. And so thinking about leveraging that experience, but then also leveraging the experience of coming from a big four and, and having that knowledge of, of working with external auditors and bringing that into my SOX
role, I thought was also helpful. At the time In your background, uh, that you saw in Brent coming into the role, uh, what were some of the strategies that you implemented to ferment those, uh, those relationships? Absolutely. So at Deloitte, you know, one of the big things to try to make my way to partner, continue to grow in the organization, one of the things that I focused so much on was networking and, and building a brand, right? And always, you know, trying to take that next step.
And so bringing that into my role at Humana and, you know, seeing a larger picture, if you will, of where I wanted to go, where I wanted the strategy for my team, um, you know, it did take a lot of those same skillsets that I'd learned at Deloitte and, and networking was huge. Um, I will say that when I first came into Humana, I didn't have a large, you know, network of internal auditors, right?
I came from an external audit world, and you know, honestly for my first three years at Humana, my goal was more internal relationship building, right? To build my brand in the company. 'cause I knew where I wanted to get to in the CAE role eventually. And now having been in the CAE role, I've learned the power of networking outside with other CAEs and others in the industry. And so rely on that network tremendously as well.
What strategies would you give someone going into that role, uh, to, to improve that networking skillset? Absolutely. So I think internal, um, you know, from a building your brand up inside a company, when you think about that, I think that is just having personal connections, right? It's, it's leveraging what you are comfortable with. And if that's not the personal side, it's leveraging your work, right?
Leveraging all the great work you're doing and, and using that to start to build those relationships. And as you're your foot in the door, if you will, and then once you get in your foot in the door, continuing to build upon that, right? Send a, you know, note of how happy you were that you could connect and, you know, could we do this again in a quarter, whatever, right? Keep, keep the pace going and eventually it becomes a strong relationship.
But then on the external side, for me personally, I, I obviously had the relationship with Deloitte and, and pwc or our auditors, but leveraging the big four firms was huge for me in terms of placement of, Hey, who should I connect with and what would this look like? And, and so leveraging other people, um, helped me to build my network.
Um, and so I would say, you know, somebody that, that doesn't have, you know, an existing network leveraging whatever firms, whether it's IA or the big four firms or regional firms, anybody that you have, um, to help you kind of get places and, and meet different people. And then I think it expands from there. It's amazing how quickly that expands.
Now, I'm sure you meet a lot of people in, in areas just like this, and you probably hear a lot, lot of stories about how they're developing their internal audit functions and developing their relationships with external stakeholders. Um, is this a challenge that you kind of see other internal audit, uh, leaders facing?
I do. I think I was actually just having a couple conversations yesterday about, you know, I think there are a lot of opportunities for us as CAEs to network and benchmark a across each other and learn from an external perspective. Where I think the gap exists is actually the level below me, or like the operations manager level or chief of staff level, an internal audit to me.
I think whether it's a firm, whether it's the I a, whether it's one of these awesome companies that are, you know, here, um, I think there is a great opportunity to start having opportunities, whether round tables or otherwise, to build that next layer of networking connections. Have you taken on what you would say is a mentoring role with kind of the, uh, internal otters below you? Are you finding ways to kind of implant these skills into them to expand out?
Yes. So on my team, obviously I, I do, um, quite a bit of mentoring and, you know, love seeing the growth of, of people. Um, when I left Deloitte, I had a number of people that followed me from Deloitte over to, uh, Humana internal audit team. Um, so, you know, that's always building and growing people has always been something that I'm really passionate about. But I also am an IA mentor as well. Um, saw one of my mentees here yesterday, so it was great to actually meet in person as well.
But yes, always paying it forward. That is, um, when I think about mentors across my, you know, career so far, having people that are supportive, having those mentors, having what I call the table pounders as well, that are really wanting to help me advance are extremely important. I see, I actually just came out of a presentation, um, just a few minutes ago actually. Um, that gave a really great strategy involving rotating out talent, rotating into the internal audit function and rotating out.
So not only do you have the experience of auditing, but you have the experience of being audited as well. And I can see a networking relationship kind of developed and whether it's operations or legal or any other aspect of the organization. Um, do you, do you guys have any, any rotational strategies involved in this as well where you can have experience actually hands-on with other aspects of the organization?
We do. So right now we have a formal intern development program for finance, but then we also have a nursing rotation program. Uh, that has been great. It's been a couple year long program for us. Um, six months on, six months off, but it's great to have those nurses come into our organization. Um, but related to thinking broadly and being a talent incubator to the organization, we do have about 25% attrition a year and in, in our team.
Wow. And that is internal attrition, where on purpose, you know, sending people out to various parts of the organization based on their goals, their development, where they wanna go from there, Even if it's on purpose, if the rotation kind of that high. Have you seen any kind of challenges filling in the gaps that are being left behind? Yes, because you have to fill that talent gap somehow.
You know, uh, this is the first year, honestly, like end of 20, 24, early 2025, where we've all been seeing and hearing about talent gaps and the risks there right now, you know, Q4, early Q1 timing is the first time where we've started to see those challenges. And I'd be lying if I said I have a great plan in place for that, right? What we're doing right now is we have every single one of our senior and, uh, staff level positions posted.
Um, so we're, you know, in my opinion, typically Q1, early Q2 is typically a good time to see who's all in the market and who's all looking, right? Because you, if you're in a corporation, you just get finished with the 10 k filing the SOX process, sometimes bonus payouts, big four firms, you're coming off busy season. So I'm really excited to see what the market and, and who's looking and, you know, how we redeploy those.
But, um, one of the things that I've been talking to my peers a lot about lately is, 'cause we all are having these problems and we all have the talent shortages, is how do we really rethink what we're doing? Obviously from, uh, data analytics, ai, there's lots of those type of opportunities for us to really rethink, but even rethinking the talent that we're bringing in.
Um, two things that I heard recently that I thought were fascinating, um, bringing in, um, retired professors and, you know, they're, they're wanting that, you know, next role, right? They've already had this career and they're interested in coming in and, and learning and growing and learning something new. But then the other one is retired military professionals and bringing those in, especially in the cyber and IT areas.
Um, so we've brought in one retired military professional, and he's actually on our SOC side. Um, but hearing his perspectives of coming in and seeing his desire to learn and grow, it's just, it's just such a breath of fresh air. So definitely something that we're gonna continue to expand on there. Now, Going back to the recruitment of young talent, 'cause I, you know, there's, there's the, the older side, but we still have to concentrate on the younger side as well.
You mentioned the job postings. I know that's kind of a fine art, uh, for sure. Uh, but whenever you are writing these and kind of putting them either, either in in the organization or externally, um, what are some of the things that you're really trying to hit to bring new talent into the profession? Yeah, so I would say historically we've been big, you know, had a large focus on accounting backgrounds or audit backgrounds.
I think for us, you know, big four regional talent, local talent from a firm has always been something that we really tried to, to target. I also think for us, a lot of that market has been probably tapped. And so that's why I'm interested in seeing, uh, you know, what's, what's new. Um, I actually, I talked about the importance of a network earlier. We share job descriptions quite a bit amongst our, our network, which is really helpful.
Like for me right now, um, not as much as somebody coming outta school, but I'm getting ready to, to look into more of an operations manager and, and switch up our department a little bit from that perspective. And so when I think about that role, I'm using my network to get the job descriptions of what they're using.
And so I think all of us are really trying to rethink from a right outta college perspective, or a couple years into their career perspective, what does that look like and what is the right answer? And in the case of the retired military personnel, they actually, like our job description was on having more of that accounting background, but we push 'em through anyways and are so glad that we did.
Right. So I think for us, it's, we might not change that like a staff level job description, but we have a lot of applicants come through that don't necessarily always met, meet all the preferred requirements, but really rethinking those preferred requirements when we're screening people and, and you know, having more of a debate internally as well to really rethink.
So if you were, let's say hypothetically, if you were going to like a university or you were, you know, any kind of platform where you were really kind of trying to promote the profession, what would you say to any type of talent that may be considering it? Why should they look into the profession? Yeah, so I, I laugh because my kids both think I have the most, my, I have a 15-year-old and a 13-year-old, and they think I have the most boring job in the world.
Uh, but I mean, I know I don't, right? And so I think really from a, a college student perspective, really explaining that, somebody said it yesterday, how many other places in an organization do you get to go in and see the entire company very quickly, right? And learn so quickly.
Um, and so I think having the goes back to like communication and really building on that and, and network and relationships, and there's a lot of great that can come from that wherever somebody wants to go from there. And so I think it's selling that aspect of it, um, and seeing examples of all the different, you know, ways that, that people have pivoted their career after starting out in an audit field as well.
You coming into the role as, as you did, um, I know you kind of have some, some 20, 20 hindsight now to kind of look back. If you can go back and kind of talk to yourself at the beginning, what would you tell yourself that would've made your journey easier up to this point? Yeah, you know, I think about this a lot because I spent a long time, I spent 15 years at Deloitte and I, I loved my time in public accounting, but I'm using some of that, right?
But I'm not using all of that, that, that I had and definitely didn't need to stay that whole time. And so, um, when I think about the grueling busy season and, you know, the, all the travel, and there's a lot of things I think about those type of, you know, work life perspective that I would really rethink, um, because look like being a hard worker is extremely important.
You know, diving in where you need to is extremely important, but I didn't need to take, uh, all those steps that I took when I was at Deloitte and all that was on a mission to, you know, try to be a partner and, and advance that way. But what I learned is there's so many other ways in the audit profession to continue to grow your career and be just as exciting. So when I thought one door had closed, it actually opened, which was exciting.
What are some final thoughts that you kind of have that you kind of like to take away that we maybe haven't covered? Yeah, Absolutely. Um, so big things, I, I talked about the importance of networking. I'll expand a little bit on the audit committee side and the relationship that the CAE has with the audit committee. Um, so you know, what I've learned through that is having those direct relationships are very important.
Um, I actually met with a separate, not my audit committee chair, but somebody on Sunday, and her, her thoughts were, if your audit committee is not having those meetings and they're not taking the initiative to set up regular relationship, you know, discussion type meetings with you, take the initiative yourself as a CAE, right? And whether that's quarterly or monthly or whatever the cadence, having that direct dialogue with the audit committee chair only makes that relationship better.
Um, also, one of the things that I've learned is ask for the feedback. Ask if you're meeting their expectations or what else you need to do, um, what is their feedback, right? Um, because everybody gets feedback and, and that's a great thing. So you can continue to learn and grow along the way there.
And I think, you know, having that healthy dialogue, um, is just great from a CAE career perspective, because no matter what company we're at in this role, we're always gonna have audit committee chairs to build those relationships. Oh yeah. And so starting those skill sets early and, and building that is, is a great way to go. And especially kind of in a CAE role, I think it's really important to have a thick skin.
Yes. Without going into too many details or specifics, but, um, in these feedback sessions, what are some of those common pieces of feedback that you get to see, see improvements? And I'm sure a lot of those stories, I'm sure a lot of other internal auditors relate to. Absolutely. And I think it's, um, what I've learned along the way is anything that is coming down the pipeline like that open communication is, is very important, right? There should not ever be surprises.
The audit committee is looking to us to help them understand how are we correlating strategy? What does this look like from a risk or thematic perspective, um, helping them with what questions should they ask in the boardroom or the audit committee meeting? What are the, the key things that we're hearing that maybe they don't have a pulse on? And, and really expanding on those things to help them kind of see what we're seeing. Um, so I think it goes back to the relationship.
It goes back to the healthy dialogue and, um, you know, I have regular monthly connections, but couple weeks ago there was something that came up and had to pick up the phone and call, right? And having that relationship and, and having those healthy discussions allows for that. I'll tell you another aspect of communication.
You kind of talked about the, the one-on-one, the back and forth, but a lot of, uh, a lot of the things that I hear from other internal auditors is a dialogue on report writing, you know, and submitting a report to the audit committee. I know we're, there's a big push for more visuals, more mapping, uh, you know, more concise. Um, is that something that you've had to deal with as well? It is. So we've, we've streamlined our audit committee reporting quite a bit.
We've streamlined our audit reports quite a bit, so our audit reports, um, we actually don't provide to the audit committee. Um, what we do provide, so we have a one to two page audit report, so very streamlined. Um, and what we do provide is in our appendix, we list out, uh, all the audits we did from the last meeting, um, or since the last meeting. And then we include the opinion that we had.
We have four different types of audit opinions, so effective, some improvement needed, major improvement needed and unsatisfactory. If we have any audit reports in those last two categories, those are the ones that we provide to the audit committee. We actually don't do it though in the form of here's our report.
Um, we do it in a one pager that shows what we did, what were the themes that we found, and then management actually is required to come and talk about what are they gonna do to remediate this and focusing specifically on who's gonna do it, what are they gonna do, and what are they gonna do it by. Okay. Aaron, thanks for joining me today. Um, it was a fantastic discussion. Um, I hope our listeners get a lot out of it. Thank you for your time.
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