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The Audit Podcast
Ep 245: Retired CAE Summer Series – Part 3 w/ Mike Jenkins
00:40:46
This week on The Audit Podcast, we’re continuing our Retired CAE Summer Series with Mike Jenkins, former VP of Internal Audit at Facebook, Gap, and Included Health, and former Director of Financial Audit at Google. Since retiring, Mike has...
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- [00:00]
A
I think most auditors and even CAEs, I think in particular believe that because they have this mandate from the board and this mandate through the audit charter, that people are going to sit down with them. And we have an arranged marriage that was arranged by the powers that be. And just like arranged marriages, those don't always work very well. So you've got to build every single relationship one by one over time, just like you do in your personal life.
- [00:35]
B
Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Audit podcast. I'm your host, Trent Russell, and we continue our retired CAE summer series with Mike Jenkins. After Mike retired, he became an artist. So that's what he's been doing for the past two years. And we actually hit on where this creativity in his art and how he used that as a CAE and some of the strengths that that gave him. He was also the VP of internal audit and the CAE at included health as well as at Facebook and Gap. And then he was the director of Financial audit for Google as well. Like I said, Mike talks about life and art and how that creativity was kind of his superpower as a cae. We also talk about advice that he would give auditors today. And then what does it mean to really interact with the board and the audit committee? We talk about those interactions, but what does that actually mean? How did they go down for Mike and any advice that he could give current CAEs, aspiring CAEs, or really anyone else in the internal audit role. With that said, here we go. I don't know to the extent that you're using maybe a copilot or chatgpt these days in retirement, but so we can include Internet browsing history, all that kind of stuff also. But what have you been kind of looking into as of late?
- [01:52]
A
Well, Chat gtp I think is really fascinating. I. I used it. The first thing I actually used it for was to update my resume with. I'm. I'm semi retired. I say semi because I've learned to never say never in life, but I use it to update my resume to add artist in. And I was like, how do I put something in that like I haven't done? But then I have like 30 years of all these other things I've done. And so anyway, it was kind of cool. And then from that I found I just dabble in it. But Internet history wise, I think the biggest thing that you'd find in mind is I've been as I've begun this artistic journey and no, I do not expect to be in like the mat anytime soon. I Just have started exploring different artists, particularly artists of the 20th century that were pivotal or controversial in some way. Think like Andy Warhol or Keith Haring or Robert Mapplethorpe was a photographer who was very controversial. Or Jean Michel Basquiat, like all of those artists really challenged the status quo and redefined what art was at any given point in time. And I find that super fascinating because, you know, art has existed. I don't know, I've looked that up to like 40,000 years. And yet it's still. Still gets reinvented all the time. And so that quest for sort of learning about the people who found something new and something that's very old has been fun for me. And it's also been funny. It's kind of like doing an audit because you kind of have to figure out, well, who was the artist? How did they come to be, what struggles did they have, and did they effectively overcome those struggles or not? And some of them did and some of them didn't. So I guess that's a little plug for the auditor in us. Always has value, no matter what. So savor it.
- [03:45]
B
So we were talking books before this. So the kind of pre recording, we were just talking books because of the hat you're wearing. That features a kind of a book festival, if I call it that. And so anyway, you also mentioned biographies. You like biographies. And so in mentioning those two, there's a da Vinci biography. I think the guy that wrote it, his last name is Johnson, maybe Paul Johnson. I forget. It's. It's pretty thick, but goes through his entire life. And then the paintings. And then this is why he did this. And this is what this represents. And you can tell it's his because of the curls, that he was kind of famous for his curls. And so anyway, I'd always kind of looked at art the same way Andy does on the Office. Have you ever seen that? When he's like, this art is good. Like, that was me. I know nothing about it. I just. Yep, that looks good. Nope, that looks bad to me. But it was really fascinating to read that and then go, oh, that's why this is good. I never would have picked up on that. And so the kind of like combine the two that you're talking about. I love that book.
- [04:50]
A
Awesome. Awesome. I'll have to look it up. What was it again?
- [04:54]
B
I think if you just look up da Vinci biography, and then I think it's Paul Johnson. I know the last name's Johnson. There's not a lot. I think there's two or Three. And it's probably the more recent one. But then also, if you, if you look it up on Amazon, it gives you the number of pages. It's the thickest one.
- [05:11]
A
Well, that's what's funny. Like, I found biographies are just these beasts usually. And I'm like, I know it's their whole life, but you could distill it a little bit. So anyway, you need like a palette cleanser in the middle of that. So I'll read that for a while and then I'll read something like super simple, like, exactly. We're talking. And beforehand, like, I'll read like some book I read when I was like 10 or something. Just to break things up.
- [05:31]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was a months long read. And there was definitely other books in between that one and the beginning and the end. Hey, everybody, we're gonna take a quick break from our guests. And if you need to get analytics or AI actually working in your internal audit department, or if you already have some of it, you feel like you're not really getting exactly what you need out of it, you know there's more you're not getting that. Go to the show Notes, look for the Green Skies analytics link. Click it on the website. There'll be other links that you can click that'll take you directly to a calendar to schedule time. It's literally three clicks to get the time scheduled to get it figured out. All right, back to the show. All right. Well, I think you set us up for a pretty good solid segue here. So since you've retired, you've gone to this life of art, and you told me that creativity was kind of your secret CAE superpower. What did you mean by that? Like, how. And if you have any examples, I think that'd be awesome.
- [06:27]
A
Well, first of all, thank you for validating that I have a superpower. Like, that's. That's nice to hear. Try like. No, it was actually a great question. And it's funny because I. I've thought about this over the arc of my career, and I thought about it certainly recently as I've sort of evolved from the audit world over into art. But I think the macro point here for folks to think about is the understanding who we really are. And making the most of that is paramount. And that seems obvious, but a lot of times who we are may seem like it's at odds with the things that we want to do, and you kind of have to slow down and flip that into a strength. And so I've always thought of myself As a creative person and I love helping people. I realized that as a kid and I suppose it was confirmed almost using audit language repeatedly during the arc of my career and the Myers Briggs world. I'm an INFP and I'm a mediator and I'm creative and idealistic and empathetic and similarly, Deloitte has a really cool business chemistry assessment that they do. And every time I took that, I came out as a pioneer, which is somebody who likes risks and creative thinking and the big picture. And this one always like triggered people is less concerned with detail and so. But at the same time, I'm an accountant. I mean I'm a, I've been a CPA for, for years and years and years and ultimately was a CAE at multiple companies. And I realized that my quest for creativity and the, I guess you'd call it sort of compliance and accuracy focused world of accounting and auditing are kind of like oil and water. And I don't know that anybody would ever hire like a creative accountant because we know the adage is that that's not a good thing. And even when you, you mentioned the office earlier, even when you think about like accountants, you think of like bean counters and dorky attire and like they're just there to sort of slow you down. And so I think I've always just rejected all of those stereotypes from the front end and with trial and error was really able to find that my difference, my being creative was actually an asset and I tried to think of some examples of that. You actually like took me back into the off site storage of, of my career. So thank you for that, Trent. I feel like complete now and I can do my biography. This is going to be really good. Perfect. The first one was a long time ago. I, I had worked for Ernst and Young for about four years and then I went to work for Sun Microsystems as a super sexy corporate consolidations analyst. I had, I was so excited about my business card. And in any case, one of the main things that corporate consolidations did was we ran the four day financial close process and we were super proud of ourselves because we closed the books in four days. But the reality was the consolidations team worked like a bazillion hours. So you worked till after midnight, over and over. And it was, it was just fucking grueling. I was like, oh my God. So I left public accounting to like do these journal entries all night long. And one of the things that we had to do is we managed also super sexy. The intercompany accounts, and they were never in balance. And so our team had to book all these manual journal entries to balance everything out. And I finally got super PO'd one night and I went over to our IT counterpart, who at the time was on the same floor with us, and I was like, is there some way that you can just like, automate this crap and just move it all into suspense because none of it's material and we're not going to be able to figure it out at 2am on a Tuesday night? And she's like, oh, yeah, sure, no problem. And so she did this, like, little script thing. And seriously, like, the four of us went from having to spend eight hours doing all these stupid journal entries that would just reverse next month, and then you'd still have to research it to get to go do something actually valuable and selfishly for me, get to go home early. And I think that's where I started to realize, you know, there's value and making sure that the numbers are accurate, but there's a lot of untapped potential here in terms of leveraging your creativity. And so, as I explored in my career, what I really found is that where, at least in sort of the finance and accounting and auditing world, internal audit really values creativity. Because if you really want to do risk assessment well, and understand what the company's risks are, figure out how to audit something, certainly in companies today, which are changing so quickly, and then figure out how to fix things, like, if you're not creative, you're probably not going to get very far. So I think that solidified sort of the step over into the audit because it appeased this creative side of me. And then what did that mean? I was also trying to think of examples because I was like, trent's probably going to ask me for examples. And I was like, oh, shit, that's an offset storage too. No, I'm just kidding. Yeah, I really just took the whole process of auditing in terms of how we communicate, how you scope something, what fieldwork looks like in reporting. And I just. I thought it was a vicious formula and a vicious trap. And so there were a lot of times when I would step in to that role and I would see that the work that a team had done. I'm not saying it was all bad. I'm just saying that a lot of times it was turning the crank on things and it missed sort of the point of what was going on at the company and probably wasn't super impactful. And so instead of that, like, here's how we already do everything and here's our standards and practices which I know function needs in order to be compliant. We moved to this idea of like menu of services and it was super fluid. And so we would meet with folks and basically say, you know, what is it that you're trying to do better? Or what is it that isn't working? And then we would very nimbly come up with different ways of helping them answer questions and, or pilot things that they were trying to do and or fix things that just weren't working. And I think that helped a lot, not just in terms of impact, but that was where you get sort of the repeat customers. And so at the end of the day, that different approach was sort of like, well, when you, when you go to a doctor, you can have a doctor who's just going to run the same tests and give you the same answer or you can go to a doctor who really actually talks to you and understands you and can help you be healthier. And I think that helped not just the folks that we worked with, but it made me want to go to work each day.
- [13:19]
B
Things I'm starting to see these similarities between, on this kind of retired CAE series. So you said who we are, like knowing who we are. And we had another one who really harped on awareness, like self awareness and how important that is until that's basically what Mike is saying right here. Also he also talked about how boredom leads to kind of innovation. You get bored doing something and so you like, you go, you go look to change it. Yours, it seems like came out of anger and frustration on that four day close thing. So I got boredom and, or anger as ways to improve processes.
- [13:57]
A
I love it. Yes.
- [13:59]
B
And then I really like the way you talked about the, the assessment that you did at Deloitte and it said that you were what, less detailed. And I've thought about this recently. There's always on like every job description, there's always something that's like, we want someone who's detail oriented. And I gotta imagine nobody's reading that and going like, oh, I'm not detail oriented, I'm not gonna do this. Or like in the interview go, just to let you know, like I'm not very detail oriented. Like nobody's answering that question.
- [14:22]
A
Right, exactly, exactly, exactly. It's. But you know, that's where I think those, those exercises are valuable because there's some people that really love detail and there's value in that too. So that's kind of how you bring all your studies I know I sound like a, an evangelist for that, but it's how you bring your strengths together and get things done.
- [14:42]
B
Yeah. And that's part of the awareness thing also. So if it is through some strength finders or something like that, that brings awareness to what a strength is or a weakness is for you. I mean, we were just planning yesterday or the day before for our conference that we do in the fall, and so we got a couple people helping do that, and I was just kind of like spitting stuff out and choose, you know, one. One of the, the folks that's helping on the project management side is like, yeah, we can create, you know, this project in the software like that. We're tracking all this stuff and then we'll put this as a task and then this can be a subtask and then this. And I just went, I have no idea. Like, you're already too detailed for me. I'm just going to keep talking. And then you put it in the software the way it's supposed to, because it's already making my analytical brain freak out a little too much.
- [15:29]
A
Well, and I, you know, this is back to, like, advice for auditors. You were asking me that, which I think we're going to talk about in a bit. But, but that's one of the things is like, I think as auditors were notorious for sort of launching into things, and you can just look around the room and see people's eyes are glazing over and I'm like, just stop talking. Just, just stop talking. Like it's not going to get better and slow down and, and catch up with where people are. So, anyway, yeah, excellent.
- [15:57]
B
All right. So, yeah, another great segue. And this is probably the laziest question, like any podcast, any interview ever to ask this. And this is the first time we've ever asked it, at least exactly like this. But it's only because when we were talking again, kind of pre recording, you just had, I mean, it was like, that's solid advice. That's solid advice. That's solid advice. And so rather than try to take any individual piece of advice and like, try to get you to expand on that or have a specific question question around it, I'm going to take the significantly lazier route here and go, what advice would you give to auditors today?
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A
If it's not broke, don't fix it. Right. Like, that's a great thing. I, I don't think it's lazy. I think that just shows the durability and the effectiveness.
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B
Yeah, thank you. That Sounds much better.
- [16:40]
A
Yeah, we, we can, you know, that that's what you have to do as an auditor. You respect everything. You know, as I reflected on that, there were a lot of different things that came to mind, but there were, I think, three that sort of bubbled up to the surface. And they're, they're not entirely mutually as collusive, but the, the first one was Learn. And these are going to be super elegant. Like you're going to want bumper stickers of these. I'm kidding. First one is Learn. Much more.
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B
Nice.
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A
And so by that I really mean branch out. So I wasn't just an auditor for 30 years. I don't just believe. I know that if you want to be a good auditor, you need to go do as many things as possible alongside that. And don't be afraid to stretch outside of your current job titles. When I call it don't be afraid to stretch out of your job titles. Comfort zone. And there's a lot of space around that, I think a lot more than most people appreciate. And so as I went on my journey, I didn't just, you know, do different flavors of accounting and auditing. I really, the way that this worked is I just kept my eyes open for what was needed and like, what kind of roles were being created. And then I said, okay, I'll try that.
- [18:00]
B
And what, like, like new roles? Because, like, technology's changed or, or something else has changed in the world and so now there's this new position. Is that what you mean?
- [18:10]
A
All of the above. Like, I, I worked on acquisitions, which of course a lot of times aren't planned in advance. They may come up like there were some giant acquisitions and they're like, oh, we need a team to do that. Or there was a system implementation that was really, really big that was going on for years. And then they're suddenly like, oh, we actually have to revert back to something else, but we want it to be better. Which sounds like completely contradictory things. Or, um, I, I was a, a CFO of the franchise business at Gap, which was like this new extension that they were trying to do and they didn't know how to do it. Or I went into investor relations for two years. I was a, a company spokesperson for two years. And, and it was funny, it was not that different from audit. I remember I went to the first, I don't know what the acronym was, the Investor Relations Conference, which would be something related to the old school gam. And like everyone, there had been IR people their whole life. And I'm like, no, like last month I was doing auditing. But any case, the point in all of that, to answer your question, is that as things open up and the company has a need, like, really be very eyes wide open about, like, well, could I go help with that? And I think there's so much you can learn there.
- [19:26]
B
I feel like there's a fear for sure, people going, well, if I leave, I can't come back. And there's even job security within staying in that same position. So. So maybe for those. Because I was thinking, like, get it even out of your company, maybe even out of your industry. But certainly I think it would alleviate some fears if anyone had those around. Okay, just move within the organization yourself. You still have the relationships with everybody in audit and in all likelihood, you know, hang out for however long outside of audit and then probably be able to boomerang back relatively easy.
- [19:57]
A
It's totally. I hate to use a cheesy phrase that's like fake news. Like, that's just totally not true at all that. Because really, the experiences that I had that were in some ways furthest removed from accounting and auditing were always the ones that gave me the most challenge, the most inspiration. And really, back to your point about people being afraid of, oh, I'm going to be off the track. It actually is what gave me the edge. So, like, when I, you know, I worked in the technology industry and then I went to work for Gap bank for nine years, which is retail, of course, and then I wanted to come back to technology. The reason I got into Google and then ultimately to be the CA at Facebook is because while I was at Gap, I did all these other things. They're like, we don't want somebody who was just the audit guy in this industry for 10 years. We like that you knew how to do foreign exchange, and we like that you worked with it on this. And so I just think that's a total falsehood that I think it's just fear. And look, we shouldn't be afraid of fear, but that's. That's really where that comes from.
- [21:04]
B
Got it. What else? You have other. Other pieces of.
- [21:07]
A
Yeah, two other ones that they all start with learn. Because I wanted to be like, really clever and make this a learning experience. So the, the second one is learn to talk. And what I mean here is learn to genuinely, and I highlight that word very intentionally. Speak a friendly, common sense language that is familiar to the people around you. And I don't mean duolingo. I mean learn the company's language. Learn how it operates, learn what it's struggling with and what it rewards. Learn the backgrounds of all the people that you work with. Learn the backgrounds of the board. Learn the backgrounds of the audit committee. How do they speak? And the more that you, you know, it's kind of like when you're a kid and you learn language as, as you're first going through that chapter. Mirror it and you'll be amazed at how much momentum you get if you're actually mirroring in a constructive way the language of the people around you. And so saying all that differently, I think it's about translating everything through a lens of making it easy and useful. And the other part I would add to that is add a wonderful dose of humility, people, because we all have to learn through the whole arc of our lives. If you expose to them that you're still learning, most people will actually find value in that and they'll invest in you more. I think that's back to the fear. I think people are afraid. Oh, if I show that, I don't know, they're going to think I'm dumb and I'm not qualified for the. This job. And that just isn't true either. The more that you show your, your, I don't know that people trust you and they're going to want to work with you.
- [22:59]
B
Yeah, that was probably one of the greatest lessons I learned from. And of course, it's not a technical thing. You know, it's not about it or anything, but when I was in public accounting, I think it was the first. It's the first, like, really big engagement that I was on. And I had this manager, maybe even he was a senior, and he told me, he's like, hey, look, when you go do these things, like at this organization, you're going to be auditing like eight different kinds of Linux OSs, all other kind of operating systems. There's going to be 15 different databases that we're going to be auditing. He's like, you can't assume that you're going to know everything about all of those. You're not going to know everything about any of those. And so his talk track was always going in. And I've said this on the podcast, although it's been a while to go, hey, you do this every single day. Whatever. Cobol, you know, developer, who, you know, whatever. It was like, you do this every single day. I don't like, I know generally how it works, but, like, you're the expert in this, which I think he coached me on. To say, like, always tell them like, you're the expert on this because it always makes people feel good, like you're the expert on this. I never will be my role, what this is, you know, risk controls all that kind of good stuff. So I'm going to apply what I do from that perspective to what you do and then like, we'll kind of meet in the middle. But I definitely am not going to know everything. And I'm 100% going to ask what you are going to think of as dumb questions. And after that, like, they just completely open up. Like, yeah, it's totally fine.
- [24:19]
A
Like we complete. Because you were being humble and you were being honest.
- [24:23]
B
Yeah.
- [24:24]
A
And shocking. Like, yeah. Respond positively to that. They're like, oh, wow, you, I, you're actually telling me the truth, so I want to talk to you.
- [24:33]
B
Yeah. So I, I taught every staff and senior that I ever worked with that line also. And it take. Really takes the pressure off when you go into kind of an intense environment or where you feel like you do need to know everything. And I just graduated college. I knew nothing, but I had this expectation that I should know everything. So I always really appreciated that.
- [24:54]
A
Yeah. And look, as an auditor, certainly in a CAE role, there's no way you're ever going to know everything. Right. Like, the breadth of audits that the team is doing at any point. Like, I remember at Gap, we had a store audit team and there was something called ladder safety. I'm like, I don't even know really what OSHA does because I work in a corporate office or in the tech world. There's a thousand kinds of privacy. There's so like that, that little, I guess, lie that you tell yourself that I'm going to be able to pretend that I know everything. It's not going to take you down a road very far. That at least feels very good.
- [25:27]
B
I like the way somebody put it. Within the past year or so, they said something like, I just need to be conversational about whatever the topic is. And if for any given audit you can spend 30 minutes talking to, you know, some LLM and just asking it about whatever that topic is to where you'll be conversational enough to. Don't just walk in obviously being like, I know nothing. I mean, literally, I did no research. I have no clue what's going on here. I was just told to be here at 1:30 for this kickoff call. I think you can a few minutes and be conversational on pretty much anything.
- [25:58]
A
It, it is the, the thing that pays the Biggest dividend, I think, which leads to kind of the third cheesy learn that I had. And. And that was, I'm trying to keep this, like, HR appropriate learn to date. So, you know, there. There was. And I think there continues to be this big push in the industry for internal audit to be a trusted advisor to the business. And there's all these presentations and charts floating around about evangelizing that. And the problem is, you know, we'd sit down with our business partners and make a lot of assumptions. We assumed that they knew who we were, we assumed that they trusted us. And quite frankly, we assumed that they even wanted to be in the room with us. And. And I had experiences with folks where I'd be coaching them, where they would get that feedback from someone. Like, I remember there was the CIO one time told somebody on my staff, like, what makes you think I want to even be in the room with you? And, you know, there's poor Scott persons like, oh, my God. Oh, my God. And I'm like, it's okay. It's okay. But the point being here is that, you know, you. You have to spend time to establish any relationship. And so you wouldn't meet someone on the street and say, hi, and then say, oh, by the way, we're in a relationship and we're going steady. The person would step back and be like, okay, first of all, you're really creepy. And secondly, I'm definitely not going to work with you. And so the idea is not bad at all. It's just that I think most auditors, and even CAEs, I think in particular, believe that because they have this mandate from the board and this mandate through the audit charter, that people are going to sit down with them and we have an arranged marriage that was arranged by the powers that be. And just like arranged marriages, those don't always work very well. So you've got to build every single relationship one by one, over time, just like you do in your personal life. And just like in your personal life, you have to realize some people are never going to be in a close relationship with you, no matter how hard you try. And so that doesn't mean you have to give up on that. You just have to figure out how to navigate that particular set of circumstances.
- [28:13]
B
I don't think in the five years of doing this, we've heard that, which is very true. And in that some people just don't want to have that relationship, you know, like it. And nobody's ever really come out and said that before. So I think that's probably a solid takeaway for a lot of people to be okay with it. Yeah.
- [28:33]
A
Yeah. It's like, honestly, when I was reflecting back on all of this, that was one of the scarier moments in my relationship. That was. I wouldn't say the company, but it was the cto. And of course, internal audit was supposed to be partnering with the CTO's team on all kinds of super important things, and he just was having none of it, regardless of how much conversation we had, regardless of how much we really tried to, you know, hear and yield to what they were trying to do. And it. It reached an inflection point because we had hired one of the big four to do a certain exercise, and he, without talking to us, went and hired the big four to do a certain exercise and set the due date to be about a week ahead of hours. And it was probably one of the messy experiences of my career. And I'm generally a super nice guy. Like, that's why I wanted to meet you, because I've always been impressed with sort of your user interface with, with folks. And I literally had to take him in a conference room and sit down. You may want to edit this out. I'm not kidding. But I am kidding. I was like, we're not. We're not fucking doing this anymore. Like, you are not going to take us to the audit committee meeting and drop this assessment in front of them to get us. I'm like, we're just not going to do that. And I was thinking in the back of my mind, well, I wonder how much is in my 401k, and I wonder if I, if I get a second mortgage, like, what. Like, what am I going to do? Right. Because living in California is not the cheapest thing in the world. But the funny thing about it was he actually respected that and the relationship changed. But it literally took going all the way to that place and saying, I, this is just isn't working. Like, we've tried everything. And so something has to change. But I'm glad that that's valuable insofar as, like, you have to recognize there's just going to be relationships that aren't going to look the way that you want them to. Yeah, they just want.
- [30:44]
B
And in those situations, if we lead by example or your example, take them to a conference room and curse them out, then. No, that'll fix everything.
- [30:51]
A
Sometimes, you know, it's, It's. I tried to say it as constructively as I could, and I suppose hopefully that came through in some way, but but 99% of the time, I don't think that's the case. I think people really want to do a good job. People want to work together. But the. But the other consideration alongside that is it's those 1 or 2% of people that can actually take all of your time as a CAE or demoralize the team or really just throw a wrench in your ability to execute. And so you have to go stand into those storms.
- [31:26]
B
Yeah, fantastic. What about with the board audit committee? How do you relationship build there? How do you. What does it mean to interact with those folks?
- [31:37]
A
So I think zoom back is how I think about the board. So the board. Important reminders, I guess, is a different way of thinking about it. Like, the board is there in an oversight role, and they're there to guide the company. Management runs the operations, but the board is oversight. And for internal audit, the part of the board that we interact with the most is generally the audit committee, not exclusively. And so we tend to be more kindred spirits with them. Right. Because we're going to be working a lot of things. But I still think there's a lot of things that you have to remember. One, this is not their day job. Like, they don't come and swipe in every day like you do at the company. Like, they're here a couple times a quarter. They also generally come from different industries. I had a couple of folks that I worked with that were from all over the place, and then some were that were like chiefs of staff for presidents and like. And I'm like, your world has been so completely different from mine. And lastly, there is an inherent, expected, healthy tension between the board and senior management. Right. Like they're there actually to challenge each other. And I think back to kind of the fear. I think a lot of auditors are like, well, I don't. I don't want to be in any conflict, but, like, there's going to be conflict and you have to embrace that. And then I think the last thing is, I would often try to explain this to folks as well, because it took me a while to get in my brain. When you're the cae, you really kind of have two parents. You have whoever you report to, which they always say, it's administratively, it's often the cfo, but that's actually who you spend most of your time with. And then you have the audit chair. And it's really like having two parents. Like, one of them may be like, oh, it's totally fine, I don't care, or One of them might be like, I want everything a certain way. And so, you know, all of those things. The point I'm trying to make is you're gonna have to consider all of those in everything that the team does. You're gonna have to consider those things when you're coming up with your audit plan, when you're doing your risk assessment, when you're thinking of, like, well, what are the issues that we're finding? How are we going to report it? And I'm not saying that you need to have 87 versions of things. I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying you need to remember all of those constituents all the time. A lot of times, I would find that as a function, we'd have, like, seven different processes. Well, here's the thing that we do, you know, for the cfo, and here's the thing that we do for the Chief Accounting Officer. Here's the thing that we do for General Counsel, and here's the thing we do for the Audit Committee. And I was like. And they're like. I'm like, why are you doing that? They're like, well, they all want different things. I'm like, I know, but you wouldn't invite people over to dinner at your house. And, like, I made a separate entree for everyone. Like, what the fuck are you doing? Like, no wonder you're here all the time. Like, you can actually serve multiple guests at the same time. So long as you really embrace that and take it into account.
- [34:53]
B
I know. For sure. I appreciate the relationship with the Audit committee and the board that you just described, because a lot of times it seems, like on articles or LinkedIn posts or whatever, there's this image of we should be, you know, again, holding hands and walking through meadows with management and the Audit Committee. And that's just absolutely not the case. I think there's definitely a difference between a business relationship and a personal relationship, and some. Some people might not know that difference. So thank you very much for speaking candidly about that. With that said, I appreciate that. I would like for you to basically leave the audience with whatever you want to leave the audience with. I'll give the stage to you, Mike. Take us out.
- [35:38]
A
Awesome. Probably two things. One, one super embarrassing, and then sort of, I guess, just a short philosophical thing. So on the embarrassing one, you know, I really appreciated you invited me to this forum because being an auditor is tough. Being a CAE is really tough. I remember the first guidance I got from one of the CES that I was replacing. He was like, it's the loneliest job you'll ever have. And I'm like, well, that sounds fantastic. I'm excited. But with that in mind, you know this talk earlier about trusted business partners, I used to proudly introduce myself and the function quite frankly, to folks by saying, hi, we're internal audit at company. You know, whatever. We're not the police. We are here to help. And most people would be like, oh, okay. Of course, they're sort of skeptical in the back of their mind, as they should be. But as you were asking me to reflect back on sort of the arc of my career, I. I was like, oh, God, what would be, like, the most embarrassing thing that happened to me? So when I joined Facebook in 2016 as the new chief audit executive, they. They brought me in to upgrade the function, and they loved my collaborative approach. And I was like, oh, my God, this is so fantastic. I can't believe it. And so on the first day, the CFO was taking me around and introducing me to people, and one of the folks that he introduced me to was Mark Zuckerberg. And I said something to the effect of like, hi, Mark, it's so great to meet you. And, like, how many billionaires have I ever met in my life? Zero. And, like, you're amazing, and this company's amazing, and I'm excited to be here. And I added in because I thought this would be the beautiful icing for my introductory cake. And I just want you to know that we, internal audit, we are not the police. We are here to help. And it was funny in the way that only Mark can. He kind of paused silently, and then he turned and looked at the CFO and he said, but don't we really need the police to make sure everything's working? And, like, if I could have slid into the San Francisco Bay, I would have just like, self drowning. I don't even know if that's the thing, but, like, I was like, oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God. But the reason I wanted to bring that up is not just because it's cathartic, but because it really, I think, illustrates the uniquely creative, I guess, using my word, challenging role that internal auditors have to play. We are the police in a way. We're also a lot of other things, which I've sort of alluded to. We're. We're doctors. We're like your coach at the gym, helping you be healthy. The. We're counselors. A lot of times we're called in to be the mediators even though we don't get called that. I came up with a cheesy word. I wrote it down. What was it? Solutionnaire. That's not even a word. But I was like, I think we are. People are always like, tell us what the solution is. We wear a ton of different hats using corporate speak. And that's not just okay. I think that's actually really good. And in fact, that's what makes the profession amazing. And, and I think that's what makes these kinds of jobs really amazing. But it's a super delicate balance of doing the right thing at the right time. And I wanted to kind of close out partially with that because I really think that that's what someone you trust would do. They would do the right thing at the right time, and if they do, you'll trust them. The second thing I had, which is much shorter and probably super cliche and cheesy, was have fun. I really mean that. Like, have fun. Have fun in your life. Have fun in your career. If you have that, people will read that. They'll trust you more if you bring levity to things. There's a time and place, but you'd be surprised how much it's needed. Even in boardrooms, if you're not having fun, you're probably not going to be able to do the job very well. And maybe this isn't quite the right thing for you, or maybe you're just not like calibrated in the right way. But if not, why are we. Why are we bothering? So have fun and thank you for the opportunity.
- [40:07]
B
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