Ep 253: AI, Learning, and Leadership in Internal Audit w/ Jessica Rodgers (EY)

Summary

The Audit Podcast | Ep 253: AI, Learning, and Leadership in Internal Audit w/ Jessica Rodgers (EY)

Date: September 5, 2025
Host: Trent Russell
Guest: Jessica ("Jess") Rodgers, Global Internal Audit Leader at EY

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Episode Overview

This episode centers on the journey, insights, and leadership philosophy of Jessica Rodgers, Global Internal Audit Leader at Ernst & Young. Jess and Trent deep-dive into the impact of AI (especially Generative AI) on the internal audit profession, strategies for lifelong learning and leadership, and how to effectively disrupt traditional training and upskilling methods at scale. In a candid and inspiring conversation, Jess shares stories from her own career path, how technology is transforming audit, and why curiosity and critical thinking are foundational skills for the future.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Power of Curiosity & Giving Yourself Grace

• Curiosity as a Core Value:
  Jess stresses the importance of curiosity in both personal life and internal audit, especially in a fast-changing environment.

  “Being curious is…couldn’t be more important. It was important before, I think it’s important now.” — Jess Rodgers [00:00]

• Self-Compassion in Ambitious Careers:
  Jess reminds listeners about the unrealistic pursuit of perfection and the value of unique personal perspectives.

  “We all hold ourselves to this really high bar…striving for this unachievable perfection sometimes. But…collectively, that’s what is most powerful and adds the most value to an organization.” — Jess Rodgers [00:30, 39:45]

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2. Career Journey: Resilience, Risk-Taking, and Purpose

• Non-traditional Start & Grit:
  Jess opens up about starting at community college due to financial difficulties, working two jobs through school, and earning significant scholarships.

  “I’m going to go out on a limb. I’ve never been this transparent with how I’ve gotten to where I am…The money just wasn’t there…I had to figure it out myself.” — Jess Rodgers [10:37–11:10]

• Breaking Into Big 4:
  She leveraged a less time-intensive mentorship program offered by EY to get her foot in the door, since standard internships were not feasible.
• Transition and Leadership Lessons:
  • Early on, Jess switched from external to internal audit, taking a risk by leading a SOX/internal audit function at a junior level.
  • A pivotal mentor taught her key leadership lessons—including the perils of taking credit as an individual and the importance of team recognition.

    “At that point…I was taking credit for the entire team’s work. And that’s just not good. That’s not fair. Everyone’s worked hard...It’s about the team, not about one person.” — Jess Rodgers [19:30–20:00]

• Surviving Personal and Professional Setbacks:
  Jess recounts her return to EY after the credit crisis and her breast cancer diagnosis, underscoring the support she received and the necessity of finding one’s personal purpose, not just professional ambition.

  “I was trying to sort out…and that experience drives a lot of why and how I am the way I am today and how I lead.” — Jess Rodgers [15:00–15:30]

• Curating Feedback Circles:
  She intentionally keeps people around her who provide honest, sometimes tough, feedback—critical for growth.

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3. AI & GenAI: Promise, Risk, and Transformation

• Personal & Professional Integration of AI:
  Jess describes how she uses GenAI (including EY’s proprietary platform, EYQ) for everything from family vacation planning to in-depth meeting preparation.

  “I use Gen AI in almost everything I do...On the work front...I leverage them in every, in really all of my work. Most simply preparing for meetings.” — Jess Rodgers [04:31–04:46]

  • AI as an everyday tool: family voting on vacation plans, college research, automating meeting prep.

• AI in the Audit Lifecycle:
  Internal audit is being rapidly transformed through AI at every stage.

  • Efficiency Gains: Tasks like report writing and stakeholder communication can be vastly improved.

    “Nothing breaks down trust…like going back and forth with a stakeholder on a report with grammatical errors and poor writing. But now with GenAI tools, that’s a thing of the past.” — Jess Rodgers [23:25–23:44]

  • Strategic Value: Focus shifts to analysis, critical thinking, and meaningful stakeholder engagement.

• Risks and the Human Element:

  • Over-reliance on AI: AI outputs are compelling but can be inaccurate (hallucinations).

    “What is required for that is critical thinking skills and patience and curiosity…if you don’t have those critical thinking skills…it can be a challenge and there’s risk in there.” — Jess Rodgers [25:36–26:19]

  • Critical Thinking, Curiosity, Patience: These soft skills are increasingly vital, and audit leaders must invest in developing them on their teams.

    “We have to make sure our teams…have the critical thinking skills and that they’re working on that…When we’re hiring, making sure…they’re curious, they’re skeptical, they’re approaching things differently.” — Jess Rodgers [24:04–24:54]

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4. Learning, Upskilling, & Training at Scale

• Disrupting Traditional Training:
  Formal, static training paradigms are out. Training must be flexible, diverse, and tailored to how modern professionals learn.

  “To sit in front of a web-based learning or…in a classroom, is that really truly realistic?…we have to come up with different mechanisms to keep pace…but without burning our team members out.” — Jess Rodgers [31:19–32:36]

  • Ideas include using podcasts, audiobooks, micro-learning, and leveraging feedback to optimize training delivery.

• Personal Ownership of Learning:
  Jess advocates a “meet your organization halfway” approach—individuals must proactively pursue knowledge.

  “You shouldn’t place complete reliance on your organization…to give you all the learning you need to be successful…you need to invest in yourself.” — Jess Rodgers [33:03–33:47]

• How Jess Picks Her Learning:
  Combines fun and relevance: looks at current risk trends, emerging tech (especially AI and quantum computing), and ensures content is engaging for her style.

  “I also try and make it a bit fun. Something of interest to me…if it’s going to be too painful…even if it’s top-rated sometimes…I’ll pass.” — Jess Rodgers [35:12–36:54]

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5. Interviewing & Hiring for Curiosity and Critical Thinking

• Assessing Curiosity in Interviews:
  Look for candidates who ask deep, probing questions about the role and day-to-day realities.

  “If someone doesn’t come with questions…are they truly going to be curious?” — Jess Rodgers [29:15–30:00]

• Critical Thinking Measurement:
  Ask for real-life or hypothetical scenarios where candidates must demonstrate how they analyze and solve problems.

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6. Practical AI & Travel Insights

• Personal AI Use:
  AI is a daily tool for both personal and professional decisions (travel research, culinary planning).

  “I will say, I want to go to a location that might have a holiday market…that feels like a Hallmark movie. Like, I type in the feel, the look…it comes up with recommendations.” — Jess Rodgers [07:49–08:22]

• Travel Tips:
  Jess and Trent resonate over using both AI and fun media (like “Somebody Feed Phil”) for culinary and cultural research when planning trips.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Jess on Career Resilience:
  “There’s something to be said about how hard I had to work…there was a level of entrepreneurship having to navigate…” [12:50]

• On Leadership Lessons:
  “If you’re going to continue to grow…this is going to trip you up in the future. Let me help you here.” — Jess Rodgers (on team vs. solo credit) [20:26]

• On the Value of Honest Feedback:
  “Keep people around you who will tell you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear.” [16:44]
  “It’s not easy to receive the feedback all the time, and I may not like it…but I stay true to myself and put my best foot forward every day.” [17:48–18:41]

• On Learning from Observation:
  “I’m a firm believer of staying curious. And part of staying curious is watching and observing…There’s a learning opportunity in almost everything every day.” [21:43]

• On AI & Human Judgment:
  “This [GenAI] feels like your best friend…when you get the results, sometimes you have to be able to question: Is this truly right?” [25:07]

• On Training:
  “You have to keep pace with the learning…but without burning our team members out…different modalities that keep it interesting, keeps it interactive, avoids learning burnout…” [32:29–33:03]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Curiosity and Self-Compassion in Audit: 00:00–00:52, 39:45
• AI in Everyday Life (Travel & Work Examples): 03:11–08:47
• Jess's Unique Career Path & Resilience: 10:27–16:44
• Mentors, Bad Habits, and Honest Feedback: 18:43–21:43
• AI’s Impact on Audit Processes: 22:28–26:21
• Human Skills Amid GenAI Adoption: 25:36–26:19, 28:01
• Interviewing for Curiosity and Critical Thinking: 29:15–31:00
• Disrupting Training & Upskilling: 31:19–34:00
• Personalizing Independent Learning: 35:09–36:54
• Food & Travel Planning with AI: 37:55–39:22
• Final Wisdom on Value, Innovation, and Grace: 39:45

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Conclusion: Key Takeaways

• Curiosity and critical thinking are cornerstones of future-ready audit teams—especially as AI disrupts every phase of the audit lifecycle.
• Personal resilience, authenticity, and honest feedback are critical to career growth and leadership.
• Continuous learning must be proactive, fun, and flexible—organizations and individuals both have responsibilities.
• With the right mindset, AI is a powerful ally, not a threat, elevating both personal and organizational value.
• Above all, give yourself some grace, leverage your unique perspective, and embrace the innovation that comes—even from mistakes.

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Memorable final thought:

“There’s innovation in mistakes…with the technology that is available to us, there’s more innovation in these mistakes than was ever possible.” — Jess Rodgers [40:45]

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This episode is a masterclass in weaving together resilience, digital transformation, and human-centric leadership for the next era of internal audit.

Transcript

[Jess Radio Rogers]

From an internal audit angle or from, you know, even just from a personal perspective, you're being curious. Absolutely. Really, really important. Especially now in the environment we're in, where things are moving at this unprecedented, crazy pace. Being curious is, couldn't be more important. It was important before, I think it's important now. I'd also have to say giving yourself a little grace. We all hold ourselves to this, you know, really high bar and we're often really hard on ourselves and we, you know, striving for this unachievable perfection sometimes. But we have to remember that we're all here working in internal audit for a reason. We all bring our own value and unique perspectives and collectively that's what you know, is most powerful and adds the most value to an organization.

[Trent Russell]

Hello everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Audit podcast. I'm your host, Trent Russell. Today on the show we have Jess Radio Rogers. For those that don't know, Jess is the global internal audit leader at Ernst and Young. And on the show we talk about Jess's journey. I think it's always fascinating to hear about partners, especially if they're at like a global level, but nonetheless, partners at big four firms and the like and how they got from where they started to where they are now, some boomerang, some are lifers, etc. And so we wanted to get a little bit understanding of Jess's background and how she got to where she is today. Now, not only just the I went to this school and then I did this thing and then I was at this job, but what led her to be in a leadership, the leadership position that she's in. So was it like, hey, Jess is a super tech, geeky, competent person and so that's how she got to where she is. Did she leverage relationship building? Like how did you get to be where you are more so than like just tell us kind of the stops along the way. If you are connected with Jess on LinkedIn, you will know that she is a huge fan of learning, seems to take the pretty formal route of like online certifications, online programs from universities, things of that nature. And so a lot of those are around Gen AI. She's very much in the know on gen and how it's being used within internal audit these days. And so we just throw that topic out there, hey Jenny is the topic, just go run with it, tell us what you think, what you're seeing. And then kind of in our pre interview process, Jess mentions having to disrupt how we train people because of AI. And so we kind of get the playbook on how she's doing that. Her recommendations especially from the perspective of there's close to 400,000 employees globally at Ernst and Young. And so we wanted to kind of see like what are you guys doing to disrupt how you're training all those people? Well, that said, here we go. What is in your. Either your Internet browsing history or chat GPT history or co pilot history or any of your preferred LLMs. What's what what's been going on in your world. Maybe give us something on the personal side and then maybe something on the professional side and you can even if you want to talk specific prompts, that's perfectly okay too. But what's kind of been going on in your world?

[Jess Radio Rogers]

So I'd have to. So that's a fun question I have to say. And I, I don't think I've, I, I don't think I've actually ever been asked on the personal side, but there's definitely a lot going on. I have to say I use Gen AI in almost everything I do. But on the personal side I have a 16 year old that's entering his senior year of high school, so lots of college research. He's actually, we dropped him off at the University of Michigan for a three week program. So it also puts things in perspective of how fast things go because I know we're going to be talking a lot about how I got to where I am today and you know, we're going to be talking, you know, before I was even married. So it's amazing to see that he's going into college at this point. But then also vacations. I always, our family always takes off between Christmas and New Year's and goes on a vacation. We leave Christmas night and I'd love to find somewhere different. Although my kids would love to lay on a beach, we like to go somewhere interesting.

So now's the time we do a lot of our research.

So we've been doing a lot of vacation research too.

And then we do the family voting and the kids usually have to do.

Their own research is to find out.

What the heck are mom and dad even talking about.

So with that on the work front, professional front, I do favor our own internal from a security perspective and it is, we've developed EYQ which is actually, I have to say it's pretty impressive.

And I leverage them in every, in really all of my work. Most simply preparing for meetings. I don't meet with a client or even internally have a meeting without doing a little Bit of homework. I think folks underestimate meeting prep. It sounds simple and basic, but I think it's extremely important. But then I spend half of my majority of my role, quite frankly, is looking at how can we disrupt the internal audit life cycle through gen AI and emerging technologies. So it's a. It's a fun part of my job.

[Trent Russell]

Yeah, sounds fun. How to disrupt internal audit with AI. Sounds like that's the mission. That sounds like a pretty sweet one.

[Jess Radio Rogers]

Yeah, it's pretty. It's pretty cool. I love it.

[Trent Russell]

On the travel thing, I think I was telling someone else this. Maybe it was on the podcast, I can't remember, but I've always talked about on analytics and upscaling and trying to get people interested in internal auditors specifically interested that for me, what it was was taking at least in learning this new tool that I had to learn that was significantly better than Excel. And it wasn't until like I did not want to learn the tool and. But I knew it was better. And it wasn't until I had a fantasy, a fantasy football draft. And so I would run all these analytics, which ultimately none of them mattered. It's all a crapshoot. But anyway, I had fun doing it. And so what I did was I did all my fantasy football analytics in this other tool and that's how I learned how to do it. And so I always try to tell people, especially when it comes to any kind of LLM, pick like a personal thing and use it for that. And then you'll start to like, pick up on it. And so anyway, why, where I'm about to connect these dots is on the travel piece. My wife's the same way. She does all of the research for the most part. It's just, we can go here, here, here, here. Where do you want to go? And I go, I would like to go to this country. And then she does pretty much everything else. Anyway, we're getting ready to do that to go on that trip. And she gave me the update today. I think it's 22 days. And so she would ask me like, where's the best place to get crepes in this city in France? And so then I would just take that. I literally put it into chat GPT and then I sent her the link and she went, oh, that's how this works. Like, it's that simple. That's how you do it. And I went, yeah, for a year and a half I've been telling you. And so anyway, now that probably for the past two weeks, the Amount of time she has said, yeah, I just put that in chat GPT or I'm going to chat GPT that or something like that. So it finally like hit her on how it works. And I can already tell she's almost over relying on the results. And I had to go, okay, these things are called hallucinations. You can't trust it 100%. You have to do your research. The timing of when that shop is going to be open might not be correct. You need to go to the website and double check it. So long winded way of saying, do what now. You learned it the hard way in.

[Jess Radio Rogers]

That hard way when things aren't open. But yeah, yeah, yeah, but it's really, if you prompt it correctly, it'll. I will say I want to go to a location that might have a holiday market that's open between these, you know, this period that when I get to the country, it feels like a Hallmark movie. Like I type in like the feel, the look and it, it comes up with recommendations, you put in the budget and, and then it goes the. It does everything for you. And it would give you perspectives that you never used to be able to get.

[Trent Russell]

I like the feel thing. Make it feel. I want to feel like a Hallmark movie. Or now that you're saying that we saw the Hagia Sophia years ago and it looked like. We both said it felt like we were in an episode of Game of Thrones. And so now I think my husband's alley, I'm gonna, I think I'm gonna add to mine though. Like, I want a Game of Thrones feel.

[Jess Radio Rogers]

But you can put in any feel that you like. You want it to feel relaxing, calm, you want it to feel more, have more energy, more of a nightlife. And it will tell you which cities, which countries. And that's how we did a bit of research. We were originally going to go to the original trip we were thinking of. We learned it was going to be quiet that, that time of year between Christmas and New Year's. And we completely pivoted to somewhere. We're thinking somewhere different. Just based on. We were asking, what's, what's it going to feel like? What's the energy going to be like? And will it feel, will it have that holiday feel to it?

[Trent Russell]

Hey everybody. We're going to 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. So on the professional side, you mentioned the meeting preparation, and I feel like when we talked initially topics and coming on the show and everything, you mentioned that also. And we're talking about how you got from where you were, where you started to where you are now. I feel like that's one of those things where if you were to give someone advice, it would be, like you said, like prep for the meetings. And so all that as a segue to say or ask, how did you get from where you were to where you are now, like kind of your career journey. And feel free to throw any advice out there for the listeners.

[Jess Radio Rogers]

No, I definitely will. And I have to say that where we are today, and thank goodness, quite honest to where we were, very different.

And it's.

And I think, look, we still have.

Some ways to go and it'll make sense in a few minutes, but I'll be a little bit more transparent in this podcast. I'm going to go out on a limb. I've never been this transparent with how I've gotten to where I am, because I started off when I went to college, the money just wasn't there. And I'm sure there are probably a lot of people, but the money wasn't there. So I had to figure it out myself.

I was on National Honor Society, I played sports, I had great grades. But at the end of the day, the scholarships I received weren't going to even come close to the cost of college. So at the end of the day, I had no choice, but I wanted to keep going. And I knew that I wanted to pursue accounting because I took the AP classes or whatever the honors classes were they offered in high school accounting. And I liked it.

It clicked.

I knew that's where I was going, that's what I wanted to do. So I worked two jobs throughout college, and I started off in community college, but working the two jobs, maintaining the GPA throughout college, Hofstra was on Long island, and they had a great program and they gave me a wonderful scholarship. And that's why I stay active within Hofstra, because they gave me a huge opportunity there. And look, I wasn't able to participate in The EY internship programs or any of the internship programs because I had to work, and I had to work multiple jobs. I couldn't. The flexibility that I would have to give to an internship program. It just didn't work. But EY at the time had a really cool mentorship program that they had, I think, like six events, and you just had to commit to two or three.

And I'm like, well, that I can do.

And I ended up getting an offer into the audit practice. So that's where it all started. I've never shared with anybody in a public forum, the community college, but I'm happy to say, you know, I'm happy that we're in a much different place now where, you know, I'm proud of how I got there. I'm proud of the. How hard I had to bust my butt to pay for everything and just, quite frankly, figure it out myself.

[Trent Russell]

I think your resume is fine now. I think you can tell more people that I think you're good to go.

[Jess Radio Rogers]

Yeah, there's something to be said about how hard I had to work and just, you know, kind of, I. I figured stuff out. There was a level of entrepreneurship having to navigate, I do have to say, started in external. And although I learned a lot of the foundational elements that I. And the structure that I'm just so grateful for, once I received my cpa, I did find my way over to internal audit, and I did take a few risks in my career. And the first risk I took was, you know, I started my career before sox. And once Enron imploded and SOX was just coming to fruition, I was offered a role at a fairly junior level to start up an internal audit and SOX function on Long Island. And on. On the face, I was like, wow, they're offering it to me. That's. That's okay. But I took a risk. It was a big risk given my level, but I felt like this is a. This is a massive opportunity. If I can pull this off, awesome. But the real learning in that was. Is I met a woman who I work closely with, who really taught me a lot of the leadership principles that I still really abide by and, you know, the basics. There's no I in team. She really ixnate some of my bad habits that I brought over from some of my external audit days about FaceTime, you know, almost. I felt like almost a little competition as to who can work more hours, which, thankfully, again, I think that's a.

Big change we have now in 2025. It's not about that, thank goodness she.

Also, you can't control what you can't control. So she really left an important mark.

In how I move forward.

They did succumb to the credit crisis at the time, so I returned to the firm after. And shortly after, I was diagnosed with.

Breast cancer at a really young age. So I had an 18 month old at home, young in my marriage, but the firm was rallied around me, supported me through that.

I was in a race for partner at the time.

And I'd have to say one of the things that I would leave with the audience with is to define your personal purpose. At that point, I didn't have my purpose defined. I knew I wanted to make partner, but that's not everything. And I was trying to sort out.

And I.

And that experience that I went through drives a lot of why and how I am the way I am today and how I lead. But I think, you know, I work through treatment. I did a lot through treatment and I probably did a little bit out of fear because I didn't want to lose my spot and that probably that would have never happened.

So I would just. And I think, and I was trying to, I try to figure out the root cause of that. It's probably because I haven't, I didn't at that time take a step back and define my personal purpose, my direction, how he's going to get there. Because in the grand scheme of things was taking a couple months off really going to have an impact. So. But fast forward to today. I'm very clear on things. I did go back into industry. There was an amazing experience that I couldn't pass up and I felt it gave me the depth of industry expertise that really propelled me to the global role that I have today. So I wouldn't change any of it. But there's a few things I think that have really supported me. I keep people around me that tell me what I need to hear, not what I want to hear. And that is just massive for me. It's very easy to put people and keep those close to you who will make you feel warm and fuzzy. And we all need those people. But you also need the true friends and the mentors that are going to make you better and tell you what.

You truly need to hear.

So that is also has been helping me and, you know, get to the role that I have since I've returned back to the firm. My gosh, almost eight and a half.

[Trent Russell]

Years ago, you said that for those people that will tell you, hey, that's wrong, or maybe you should have done it this way or something like that. Right? That'll give you the feedback as opposed to just patting you on the back all the time. You said that you were lucky in getting those people, and I'm sure you, you believe that. But from your story so far, nothing about it has sounded especially lucky. And it just sounds like you've put the work in and put the effort in. And so with that, with that said, if you looked at it and said, I did do something to get those types of people into my circle, what would that be for those that feel like, hey, I need that also, and I want to put the effort into it and not just rely on being lucky.

[Jess Radio Rogers]

Look, I, I put the. I, I put the effort into it. I. But I do think everything happens for a reason, and I'm fortunate to have these folks. And I, look, I think these individuals that I keep close to me who will tell me what I need to hear, not what I want to hear. And it's not easy to receive the feedback all the time, and I may not like it. I consider myself a people pleaser, an overachiever. I always want to exceed. I always want to go above the bar. And sometimes, you know, that, that can be, you know, that goes to me, putting in the work a bit. But I, I stay true to myself and put my best foot forward every day. I consider myself authentic. And so folks know, you know, I've work hard to stay true to my brand, and I want to operate in.

A way that I can sleep at night.

[Trent Russell]

Okay. The other question I had from. What, from your story is you said you had a mentor that was pretty pivotal. It seems like that would tell you your bad habits, or we call it your bad habits.

[Jess Radio Rogers]

Yes.

[Trent Russell]

I didn't realize, like, I realized some of my bad habits through working with people who had the same bad habits. And I would go, oh, that's what that feels like, or that's how that comes off, or whatever it is. And. And from that I would go, well, I'm not gonna do that anymore. Does that make sense? So what were the. And you've been pretty vulnerable so far. So that's why I almost feel comfortable asking you this. What were those bad habits? So that people who are listening go, oh, yeah, I think I do that too. And is there anything that kind of a top one or two that kind of come to mind?

[Jess Radio Rogers]

Well, I also think it's, you know, there's an element of. I was put into, I took on this role when I was, I was just turning Manager, so very senior to start up an audit function, start up a SOX function. Lots of pressure, lots of demands, and it's very easy. And at that point I would seemingly. I didn't have the self awareness to realize a. I was taking credit for the entire team's work. And that's just not good.

That's not fair.

That's not right. Everyone's worked hard on putting everything together. And it's about the team. It's not about one person. And she'd call it out, but she didn't just call it out. She did it in such a way that she created the self awareness. And it was never mean, it was never malicious. It was almost done in a motherly.

Way, like, you need to understand how.

This could make people feel. But I know nothing, there's no mal intent here. But if you're going to continue to grow in your career and move up, which you know. And she was very supportive. This is, this is going to trip you up in the future.

And let me, let me help you here.

[Trent Russell]

Nice.

[Jess Radio Rogers]

And she was much, she was, she was much older than me and she was just, she was just absolutely amazing.

[Trent Russell]

I had this person that I worked with that was more senior than I was, so I had to ask them, you know, questions. I don't understand this. Can you explain this? Whatever it was? And I like vividly remember this one time, but did it often enough, I guess I asked and I just got this most roundabout answer. There was no answer to the question. And he like, does that make sense? And I was just like, yeah, that makes sense. I'll go ask somebody else. But I realized that I would do that also instead of just being like, I don't know, like, let's go figure it out or whatever it is. And so I recognized that in that person and went, okay, need to make sure not to do that. And if I don't know, I'll just say, I don't know. Like, it's okay. You can't know everything. And so that was my lesson learned through observation of others.

[Jess Radio Rogers]

And I think, and I'm a, you know, look, I'm a firm believer of staying curious. And part of staying curious is watching and observing. You know, I observe the leaders who inspire me. I watch what they do, I learn from what they do. I also, you know, the leaders and the folks that, you know, maybe I see things that could have improve areas for improvement. I learned from that. There's a learning opportunity in almost everything every day. And I try to observe all the details and what's going on, how I can learn from it, how things can be done better and try and take that to be as if I can have be a little bit better the next day. Then that's a win again.

[Trent Russell]

When we talked and we were trying to figure out topics, Gen AI, of course was one of those. And so in my note, it is just Gen AI is the topic. Let Jess talk about it because I know that you know what you're talking about. So I'm going to let you take it where you want to go and then I'll interject.

[Jess Radio Rogers]

Look, I'm excited personally, very excited about Geni. It has incredible promise. It also comes with a bit of risk. So I have a lot of beliefs with that. And you know, I being a risk professional, I'm always looking for the risks, looking around the corner. But I think it's an exciting time so I feel really great about it. From an internal audit perspective, it allows us to really focus on what matters in a strategic fashion. Gen Excel creates efficiencies in some of the stuff that I also believe impacts our credibility, such as report writing. Nothing breaks down trust.

Well, maybe there's some things that break down trust more.

But a breaker of trust is when you're going back and forth with the.

Stakeholder on a report with grammatical errors and poor writing. They lose confidence in internal audit. But now with Genai tools, that's a thing of the past. So that's probably one of the simplest.

Use cases for it.

So there's. It's incredibly exciting to see how it can be used to completely disrupt the internal audit life cycle. And there isn't a component or a portion of the life cycle where it can't be disrupted. And in fact, we have, you know, we're working every day and the use cases that we're coming up with and that we're building and developing are just absolutely mind blowing because it's not only about efficiencies for internal audit. Maybe that's a testing component to get better and faster, but it's really about the effectiveness. It's about adding the strategic value. The demands on internal audit are really important. But one of the things that is a big focus of mine is we're always saying keep the human in the center. Keep the human in the center. You got to watch out for that. But what is required for that is critical thinking skills and patience and curiosity. So we have to make sure our teams are equipped for that, that they understand and they have the critical thinking skills and that they're working on that when we're hiring, making sure that they're, you know, certainly they're curious, they're skeptical that they're approaching things differently. Because what's different about Genai than any of the other tools is it feels like your best friend, you know, all of these, you know, certainly I look at my son who uses note taking. You see a lot of folks using note taking. There's apps he uses to make the class more engaging in addition to taking notes, and it feels like your best friend. And when you get the results, sometimes it, you have to be able to question, is this truly right? And if you don't have those critical thinking skills and if you're not taking a step back to say, okay, is.

This really, truly right?

You, it, it has, you know, it can be a challenge and there's risk in there. So definitely spending a lot of time on some basics now with internal audit functions in terms of more of the soft skills, the human intelligence, critical thinking skills, but then also stakeholder engagement, relationships, building trust. So that's probably the human in the center and the critical thinking skills. Because this, Jenny is incredibly different. And just the feel when you're reading it, it comes across so darn compelling. It's easy to fall into a trap.

Of just saying, okay, this sounds right.

It must be right.

[Trent Russell]

We were talking to today, and that was one of their concerns is if we have this agent that's working really well, the results are, you know, accurate, then the fear from them was the staff. At least we're going to rely on it too much and then just go, all right, here's the prompt. Put it in there, copy, paste, done, move on to the next thing. And so yeah, I do think the critical thinking and the curiosity is important there. The patience is something. I don't know if this is what you meant by it, but. But I know when I prompted to do something and it's not perfect, I'm just like, you stupid thing. Why are you not doing the thing that I want you to do? Even though it's the arguably the greatest piece of technology ever? And that requires patience to where I have to go, okay, let me try this again and again. Okay, now it works. Now we're good to go.

[Jess Radio Rogers]

Yes. And it learns from that. So you have to have patience. And what I really meant with patience was more so not from the prompting, because, yes, you have to get patient, but it'll learn. It'll learn from you. Because now with my prompting, I can even say, okay, that was great, but let's Sound a little bit less Bridgerton like, and make it sound more like me. And it will literally prompt and it will spit it out to sound more in my voice than in a Bridgerton voice. But the patience comes where we're in a. We're in a world of instant, instant, instant. And it's very easy, I think, for maybe junior folks or even senior folks just to say, okay, this looks good, let's go.

And we always want to go, go.

Go, get it done, get it done. Efficiencies, whatever the pressures may be. But you do have to take a step back, kind of breathe, have the patience to apply your critical thinking skills and be skeptical and challenge it to make sure. Okay, yes, this is. This makes sense. We can, you know, we can go.

[Trent Russell]

There was a CAE that we had on. So we're in year five. I think it was year one. It was really early on, and we asked something to the effect of, like, what. What do you look for when you're hiring? Or something like that. A trait, a quality, something like that. And they said curiosity. I mean, like, immediately they didn't think about it. And I've had others say curiosity was kind of a hot one for a while. And then critical thinking has always been up in there, has always been there also. And so I've asked them, how do you. So I ask you, how do you assess for those that are hiring? And they're like, I was actually talking to somebody else today, and they were talking about the difficulty in hiring and making sure you get it right. And so if we say critical thinking and curiosity are like the cornerstones of what we need right now and we have to get the hiring right, is there like a process or a method to determine that, or is it like a gut feeling or some kind of assessment? How do you. How do you know if someone has the critical thinking and the curiosity skills or mindset?

[Jess Radio Rogers]

I mean, the curiosity, you can tell in the interview for me, by the questions that they're asking. They want to have a deeper understanding. One they break down the job. They're digging into it. So I do think you can assess that. I would also add attitude towards all of it because there's. And the. How you interact in the interview is very important because you're going to be dealing. They're going to be dealing with stakeholders. And having that brand, being able to build trust and relationships out in. Out in the field with your business partners are really important. But the curiosity, I do think, comes through pretty quickly in an interview. If someone, you know, if Someone doesn't come with questions. If an individual isn't truly taking the time to understand what this role is going to truly entail, what a day in the life is going to be like in this role, are they truly going to be curious? And I do think from a critical thinking skill you can break that down based on the questions that they're asking. You should ask different scenarios, even that they're new hires, you know, challenging situations. In college we all faced them. How did they get through those challenging situations? And you know, have them talk you through how they assessed and how they went through it and you know, how they came out of it and what they learned from it.

[Trent Russell]

I like to just kind of feel based on questions for curiosity from them. When I was in college, I took every interview I could get just to get the practice in. And I know I went to one and I was just like, I don't even really care to be here. And so I didn't really ask the questions. And so I think that's a really great point. Based on the questions that they asked, you can assess curiosity that way. It's not a quantitative way to measure things.

[Jess Radio Rogers]

No, I agree.

[Trent Russell]

So with Gen AI, another thing that we've been getting a lot of questions on our end has been about training and how to get people interested in doing that. And I know you've mentioned having to disrupt how we train people. Why did you say it like that in terms of disrupt and then, and then how?

[Jess Radio Rogers]

I don't think we can train in the same way we've always been training. And this might be just myself talking. And I know we are evaluating even how we train our internal folks and we're rolling out different and we're soliciting actually client feedback and reactions. But our team members and individuals digest information differently, whether it be podcasts, audiobooks, very different on the go. They're using Instagram, LinkedIn, all different mechanisms now. So to sit in front of a web based learning or to sit stagnant always in a classroom, is that going? Is that really truly realistic? Especially when we have to learn fast and frequently. So we have to come up with different mechanisms to keep pace with the learning, but without burning our team members out. They still have a job to do, but you have to keep them up to date. So whether it be little quick snippets, you know, there has to be different mechanisms and different vehicles to train and.

Continuously give people the knowledge that they need to be successful because things are.

Coming fast in all different angles and.

It'S Creating a lot of anxiety.

Folks are feeling a bit overwhelmed. So how do we take that out and create the training, the knowledge on a more frequent basis, different vehicles and different modalities that keeps pace, keeps it interesting, keeps it interactive, avoids learning burnout, and accomplishes what we needed to accomplish. But I'm also a firm believer in.

You shouldn't place complete reliance on your organization, you to give you all the learning that you need to be successful.

Because we're all human. Trent, you know a lot of different things than I know. You know, we're not all experts at.

Everything that you need to invest in yourself and meet your organization halfway.

I like audiobooks because I'm always running.

Around the city, I'm on planes, I'm on trains, driving to sports games with my, you know, taking my kids to meets or games.

So audio books work for me, podcasts work for me.

But investing in your own learning is really, really important.

I would advise everybody not to just.

Solely rely on your company to provide.

You everything you need.

You need to invest in yourself.

And what I enjoy about that, I can then direct it to what I find most passionate. And that tends to be a lot.

Of AI, a lot of leadership, but also make sure it benefits me.

[Trent Russell]

And I know that that's not, you know, coach speak for me or like partner speak maybe from you in terms of you have to kind of take ownership of your own learning path. And I know that because I see the Updates on your LinkedIn profile that say, Jess just completed this certificate or just finished this program at Harvard or whatever it is. And so I know you 100% believe in that. My follow up question is because this is where I kind of struggle and I was just looking at, I like structured the online trainings also. Sometimes I certainly can't sit there all day and do them, but like 30 minutes a day is a pretty sweet spot for me. And so I was looking for something different, like a new topic. Basically this is either yesterday or the day before. And I was looking at something, you know, I went, is that even going to be relevant by the time I get done, you know, with that topic? Or how relevant is that going to be? Or is it stale already, basically. So how do you go about picking those where you're doing your own kind of independent learning?

[Jess Radio Rogers]

I'll use Gen AI sometimes, so I'll.

Literally Google what are the top risks? And I'll try and correlate that. But I also try and make it a bit fun. Something of interest to me, you know, if there's you know, there folks read every, I think everybody. My Instagram feed was filled with the let them theory, you know, things like that. You know, I'll read, you know, I'll kind of weave those in as well. But there's, I'll look in terms of, you know, the top risks that are out there and try and pick, you know, which are. And I'll look, I'll look at the ratings, I'll. I'll ask for recommendations, which books, and I'll read an excerpt on an audiobook to see like, hey, is this going to. I, I can't, it can't be painful. It has to flow. I have to click with it. So even if it's top rated sometimes I'm going to pass it if it's not, if it's going to be too painful, because it is my free time and I want to make it enjoyable. But I do. I have been staying a lot on the technology because that's where just keeping pace. I genuinely believe it's not going to replace us, it's going to make us better. But the ones who are the individuals who will truly struggle are the ones who really aren't, you know, learning or trying to keep pace or keep up. So that's where I do tend to spend a lot of time with technology, the risks around it, whether it be cyber or any of the associated risks. I'm fascinated with Quantum. So I spend a lot of time reading about that, given the potential, you know, potentially breaking blockchain and all of that. So this, that's how I pretty much go about it. I don't have or if I.

People talk about books, I see them.

In, you know, the Auditor magazine. I'll see them, you know, and I just make notes.

I have a long wish list of.

[Trent Russell]

Different books to read, so I have a similar issue. So I always read at night. Helps me go to sleep. And so I do read a decent amount of books. And maybe this circles back to our travel that we were talking about earlier. When we travel, I like to find like the history of that country or whatever it is and then read those books. And I'm struggling right now. So what I do is I, I, everything. Most 90% of the books that I read are on my Kindle until you can get these samples of the book. So usually it's like, I don't know, 5% of the book you get for free. You can read it, see if you like it, and then, you know, not buy it if you don't want to. If anyone has A Brief History of France book that is not insanely brutal to get through. I would love to hear it. I've tried four samples already, and the only one that I actually liked, I think the estimated reading time on it was like 16 hours. And I went, oh, that's. I don't need to know that much. You know, just kind of give me the highlights. And so I was literally thinking about this last night. I know there's this channel on YouTube. They do these like, cartoonish characters and they'll tell the history of pretty much everything, battles, whatever. And so I think that I'm gonna, I'm gonna switch it up because that. To your point about making it fun, that sounds way more fun than like slogging through this book.

[Jess Radio Rogers]

Well, the funny thing is you go for the history. Similar to my husband, I go for the food. So before I travel to a country, I, you know, I plan out the restaurants and the food and I, you know, there are a few funny TV shows where they go on journeys around the world. And I tend to, if they've been to that country or that city. City. Before we go, I make sure to watch that episode. And I'm furiously taking notes where I could just go on Jenny. I. But he. They are really funny to watch. So, yeah, I do.

[Trent Russell]

That's what we do. We go through all our typical travel shows and we go, all right, let's find. And yeah, we look it up and see, like, did. I don't know if somebody feed Phil? Somebody feed Phil's one of yours? Yes, somebody feed Phil. Where's he been? He didn't go to ours. That's. That's unfortunate.

[Jess Radio Rogers]

No, but we took our kids to Dublin. We took. So we've gone to some of the same places. He. And it's funny to be there and they have the signs up. So. Yeah, yeah, he's just hysterical. So I could get the restaurant locations and we sometimes get them after to make sure we get the address correct. I don't have faith in myself that I'm going to get it all right just by watching the show. So. Yeah, but that, that show is. That's a fun show.

[Trent Russell]

It's a good one. Travel tips and somebody's feet. Somebody feed Phil probably hit on that more than internal audit, but I certainly had a good time talking about that. So with that said, if there's anything else food related or travel tip related that you want to leave the audience with or audit related or whatever it is, the floor is yours. What would you like to leave the audience with.

[Jess Radio Rogers]

So I think it's, you know, from an internal audit, you know, from an internal audit angle or from, you know, even just from a personal perspective, you know, being curious. Absolutely, really, really important. Especially now in the environment we're in, where things are moving at this unprecedented, crazy pace. Being curious couldn't be more important. It was important before. I think it's important now. I'd also have to say, giving yourself a little grace. We all hold ourselves to this, you know, really high bar and we're often really hard on ourselves and we, you know, striving for this unachievable perfection sometimes. But we have to remember that we're all here working in internal audit for a reason. We all bring our own value and unique perspectives and collectively that's what is most powerful and adds the most value to an organization. And there's innovation and mistakes. So we're going to, you know, things are going to happen, but we need to learn from them and see what innovation we can pull from them because there's. Especially now with the technology that is available to us, there's more innovation in these mistakes that than was ever possible.

[Podcast Host/Announcer]

Hey everyone, thank you very much for listening to this episode of the Audit podcast. Whatever platform you're listening on right now, I'm sure there's a subscribe button somewhere, so please hit the subscribe button there. If you're listening through itunes or Spotify, feel free to go give us that five star rating. It only took me about 16 seconds to give myself a five star review and it really helps to get future guests to come on the show, so we'd really appreciate that. Lastly, be sure to check out the show notes and follow us on all our social media channels, on Instagram, on LinkedIn and on TikTok. Also, if interested, please sign up for our weekly newsletter from the Audit Podcast.

[Trent Russell]

Thank you all. Have a great one.