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The Audit Podcast
Ep 259: What It Really Takes to Modernize Internal Audit w/ Ronnie Welch
00:36:22
This week on The Audit Podcast, our guest is Ronnie Welch, Chief Audit Executive at Guardian Life. Ronnie has spent his career in insurance audit, with experience at MetLife, Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, and several Big Four firms. In...
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- [00:01]
Ronnie Welch
I have a perspective that we should not be working on anything that doesn't let that relate to, resonate with the broader company efforts.
- [00:11]
Trent Russell
Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Audit podcast. I'm your host, Trent Russell. Today on the show we have Ronnie Welch. Ronnie's the chief audit executive at Guardian Life and is a career insurance internal auditor. Did a few stints with a couple big four firms, was at MetLife, Blue Cross, Blue Shield of New Jersey before ultimately ending up at Guardian. I knew pretty early on that we were going to have to have Ronnie back. This was a very good episode. The types of initiatives that Ronnie's taken on are similar to what a lot of other CAEs have taken on, but he's actually done it and gives the playbook on how to do it. You should be able to take a decent amount of what Ronnie says and go, okay, now we know high level how to do this. Let's go run with it. A few things that we hit on that I'm talking about is innovating and modernizing your internal audit team. Ronnie's developed this three tier system with analytics. He has a team of 48. He mentions that later in the podcast, but I wanted to mention it at the front to give a little bit more context as you're thinking through. Well, our team is this size, so I don't think that would work. Or it's this size. So team of 48. So keep that in mind as he's talking through these various initiatives. And Ronnie also won the CEO award. So this is the highest award you can win within the organization. Um, and it was roughly 10 years ago, prior to him being a chief Audit executive might be kind of easy to go. Okay, he's a CAE and he won the CEO award. I mean, it's not as impressive, but no, he wasn't the CAE yet. And so I think it is extremely impressive if you have, as you listen to this episode and you're going, oh, yeah, we have somebody similar to Ronnie Welch on our team. Do what you can to keep them. With that said, here we go. So what is in either your Internet browsing history, your ChatGPT history, or whatever LLM that you use, Maybe something professionally and something personally, just so the audience kind of gets to know Ronnie Welch a little bit.
- [02:11]
Ronnie Welch
Sure. I'll start with the personal. I had fun recently as I continue to learn the boundaries of what this AI chatbot or conversation partner can do. I work with ChatGPT quite a bit over the past two months on a home improvement Project. Actually my husband Andrew and I were looking to do some front yard work. Trees needed to be cut down. They were negatively impacting the structure of our house. New solder, brass, a sprinkler system, landscaping, fencing, just all out. ChatGPT greatly assisted me with the planning phase. It had me think through the purpose and goals of the project. So why I was doing discussed with me my budget and timeline. It provided design inspirations in both text and visual forms, even things I didn't think about. So I'm trying to put. Am I trying to put new sod down in areas that do not favor sod and shape patterns and how my house is positioned based on geographical coordinates that it had access to. So some things clearly I did not even think about. From there it made a step by step front yard renovation project and timeline what activities needed to be done each week. And I'm type A through and through, organization and structure. So that was all up my alley. It even checked my town's codes around landscaping. So how high can a fence be, what time can sprinklers run, on which days, et cetera. I mean, you name it. I asked it to research and read reviews from various sites, blogs, my town's Facebook groups, and recommended three companies in my area. It gave me the most efficient way to contact them. Dedicated phone calls, a contact us form on their website. I even asked it, believe it or not, for a phone script. So based on the actual phone call, suggested greetings. What questions should I ask, especially around customer reviews, any customer complaints, the work that needed to be done. It analyzed the three proposals, the cost. I mean it really did it all. It compared or contrast each company. And in the end I have a completed front yard that we're happy with. We receive compliments from the neighbors when they walk by. Quite honestly, and I do have to add this, I think I'm excited to see what agentic AI can do. So actually setting up those estimate appointments for me like based on my availability and my personal professional calendars, for example. So actually taking those next steps.
- [04:36]
Trent Russell
Yeah. And seeing the, the ability now like I know you can just basically set one up, an agent to talk to, even like have the conversation with the other person on the other line or if they're, if it's an agent on that side, then you have your two agents talking to each other, which is anybody who's listen to the show likely knows that scheduling meetings is I. It's just such a pain. It's something I do not enjoy. If I have some access to a Calendar, easy, someone's calendar. But if it's the all right, I'm free Monday from this time to this time and this time to this time and Tuesday this time to this time like and then ultimately I send it and I get a time zone wrong and then we have to start the whole thing over. So anyway, I mean routinely I will look for agents that will just do that for me. So right now it's manual. I just outsource most of that. But to have an agent just go, hey, you talk to Ronnie's agent and you guys get this thing figured out. Here's the parameters of, of when I would, you know, preference on scheduling times and all that kind of good stuff.
- [05:37]
Ronnie Welch
So anyway, sure.
- [05:37]
Trent Russell
I also really like the landscaping one. Yeah, I like the landscaping one and I did a, I, I think you have to have the paid version of chat GPT because the other one did not do a good job but just like took a picture of my lawn and said I like, you know, I don't like bushes, I like evergreen stuff. Stuff that's going to be around year long. I live in this zone, you know, zone 8A I think is mine. So I need stuff that is local and I got. And it's one, it told me everything, gave me links to buy everything and then it showed me a picture of it and I was like, well I, I know myself and I know there's no way it's going to look that good, but it'll look better than it did before. So I really like the landscaping thing. Usually in between, especially working from home that's in between calls. If I need to take like a break I usually go outside and do weed pulling or water something but just an excuse to get outside. So anyway, I'll say love that one myself.
- [06:35]
Ronnie Welch
What about. And I do have the caveat, I do have to. I do have a paid version. I think I have like the mid tier subscription so not the business enterprise one but like the personal use and then professionally 22 bucks a month. Yes. And then professionally trained I would say just as a company we don't have access to ChatGPT directly so I'm limited in what I can experiment with there. But we do have access to copilot as enterprise and I would say that uses a quasi version. I'll call it a GPT5 so currently nothing different than what I'm sure you hear from your peers. To me it's an assistant for various GRC topics, audit topics, the IIA standards, industry trends. I ask questions from quick facts to complex explanations, explaining concepts, rules, regulations, leading practice research. So basically assisting me with, with, with learning something recent I was working on was the eyes vision 2035.
- [07:35]
Trent Russell
And so did you. How did you do that? Were you just like asking it questions, prompting it on what that means, what it entails, or how did. How did you go about.
- [07:42]
Ronnie Welch
That's correct. And it's getting better of recognizing my job, role, things that I gravitate towards. So it does suggestive next steps, like, would you like for me to explain more of this? Or would you also need to know that to contrast what you asked me previously? So it's starting to personalize more the more that I am feeding into it.
- [08:08]
Trent Russell
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 will 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. Yeah, that's important to note. I'm glad you said that because, like, I will use, I have like a business version chat GPT and then I have one that's basically personal use, or I'll use temporary chats or something like that because that way, like, I personally don't want the interference of the two. And so I want it to just go like, hey, here's Trent. And business stuff. This is all in this version. And then all my personal stuff kind of like hangs out over here so that it. The only, the only context I wanted to know relative to business is the business. Like, I don't need it to know how old my kid is for any reason relative to the business side of things. So that's how I've started using them also. Or using CLAUDE for personal and chat GBT for professional. And we don't have to get in for any of the keyboard warriors out there that want to debate the difference between the two and why one is better than the other. They're all good enough for sure right now.
- [09:35]
Ronnie Welch
So.
- [09:36]
Trent Russell
All right, perfect. So with that said, then, knowing you have copilot and knowing there are some limitations relative to some of the other LLMs that are out there, how are you innovating modernizing your team and getting them like up to speed on AI, how are you keeping them up with tech, especially given how fast it's changing? And then any examples that you could share would be fantastic.
- [10:00]
Ronnie Welch
Of course, how I would approach this is, I would say it's definitely been a multi year journey since my appointment. For me, where I started personally is everyone is aware of our department's mission. Historically in our department's charter that's well socialized annually with the ELT and the board. Of course there's been some revisions with that over the past year at independent standards, but that piece has been out there for the most part for years. So what was needed for me first was a vision statement and then a formal strategy for the function. So all of that to complement the mission statement. Those two concepts we've never formally had defined for our function before. And when I say vision, I mean a statement that all stakeholders at all levels can understand when answering why do we exist and what are we actually solving for? So like what is our North Star, if you will. And then from there I define our strategy. To me, strategy answers, how do we get there and what does it include? And that was all transparent in my ELT meetings and in the board meetings. And then from that phase I went into defining a strategic roadmap. Our strategic roadmap has four pillars, or cornerstones, if you will. So one is a customer first mindset guardian as a company through and through is striving to put the customer first each and every day and just going above and beyond for the people who serve. It was intentional on my part that our department's strategic roadmap sort of mirrored or echoed the broader strategy of the company and aspirations. So that was one customer first mindset, two was operational excellence, three was unleashed was possible. And for both of those we thought about how do we courageously shape our future together. And then the fourth pillar or cornerstone was people and talent. Not surprising, but we do believe that people count. And then underneath each of those pillars or cornerstones are initiatives, some larger than others. So you asked, for example, so some quick ones. When it came to the customer first mindset, our first major win was revamping our board material. I worked from the board of directors backwards. So think highly visual, more storytelling as opposed to lengthy narrative based artifacts. I would say on our to do list is an issue management framework that's aligned with compliance and erm, and we can speak on and on about online assurance, assurance, mapping, et cetera. And then we're also working on the early stages of audit software optimization. So for me I think how can I serve my stakeholders better so increase self service? How can they get to the audit data they need and want quicker as opposed to contacting let's say audit operations in my department for a certain report. Just better self serving across the company. For operational excellence we completed a more iterative risk assessment and audit plan approach not new or groundbreaking in the industry. We currently have twice a year 6 month bodies of work as opposed to what we used to have was an annual process, annual board approval with about 15 months of execution. The business is so dynamic, the pace of change is great. I think our audit plan should reflect that. We also align with the new standards like every other shop out there that took some effort. And then what we currently are working on for operational excellence I call agile a little a but pretty much the goal there is to have another set of project management toolkit in addition to the traditional waterfall life cycle. And basically the concept is during planning and engagement with the audit stakeholders collaboratively you would select which works best for you, Agile or waterfall project management framework to execute the engagement. And depending on that answer there's a set of requirements, deliverables, et cetera of course to meet quality and IIA standards. And then for people and talent, which probably was the most time consuming on my part for when I was appointed that included everything from right, sizing talent, right in terms of capabilities and skill sets, repurposing headcount or the type of capabilities I needed. A quick example is we did not have dedicated resources focused on data analytics, automation, AI, continuous auditing, continuous monitoring. Now we have a team dedicated that's small team but rather mighty for those efforts that took repurposing headcount but they also took putting forth business cases by demonstrating the value that this type of work has to the ELT and to the board and having increase in headcount. For me what we focus on is business acumen, data technology and soft skills. Right. And I will wrap that around succession planning. So we are steadfast in succession planning. We have a framework for my leadership team, for management team to making sure that we have the adequate bench strength as we need. So in the future, all right, we.
- [15:15]
Trent Russell
Might spend the rest of the show on follow up questions just on that one because that was a lot of good stuff in there. We'll try to knock these out pretty quick then. So customer first. When you first said that I thought in end user customer of your organization but I believe what I heard was customer first Being who is internal audits customer, let's serve them. Is that right?
- [15:34]
Ronnie Welch
Absolutely, absolutely. So what we do is a conscious effort from taking the company strategy and aspirations, strategic pillars and we say how does that map back to resonate with us? Or how can we support that? So we might not have a customer on the street or in the market, but we definitely have our internal stakeholders that are our customers and there's many of them, there's thousands of customers we have in the company. And how can we make the experience with us frictionless, less painful? How can we reduce barriers to execution? So all of the overarching enterprise efforts directly maps back to what we are working on as a function. I have a perspective that we should not be working on anything that doesn't map back, relate to, resonate with the broader company efforts. Yeah.
- [16:30]
Trent Russell
So, okay, so you took the organization's four pillars and said from the internal audit perspective, how can we support these? What does that mean to us? I think that's the same way a lot of folks do. Like that's how agile within internal audit starting or auditing with agility, we could even say is agile was software related, project management, that's where it came from. And then somebody came along and went well, we can't follow that exactly, it doesn't make sense. But we can use a lot of the concepts and leverage a lot of, you know, agile principles, etc. Within the internal audit process. So it sounds like you guys did the same thing there, which segues me to the next thing I want to talk about. So when you said that they have the choice between agile and waterfall, is that the, let's call them auditee maybe for lack of better words, or client. Is that their decision you were saying? Or are you saying the individual auditors go, I like doing it this way, I'm going to do it this way.
- [17:18]
Ronnie Welch
It's both. So I mentioned collaboratively. So I think that when we say the word team, it shouldn't be audit team. I think team is auditees, excuse me, auditee and the auditors. And so collaboratively going through each framework. Right. What works best for that engagement and behind that trend is a set of decision tree criteria to help the stakeholders and the auditors to get to that decision. But we did want to arm or provide an additional toolkit to get through things in a more iterative, collaborative way manner. My vision is, you know, some quarter, some year we are seeing most of our audits done in a more agile methodology. But there may be cases where a traditional waterfall process where you do your planning, followed by your field work, followed by your reporting does make sense and we're still on that journey, so we're still managing our learning curve as well.
- [18:22]
Trent Russell
The collaboration of what works best for this engagement, based on the criteria that you mentioned, either agile or waterfall is in itself like the most agile concept ever. It's kind of meta to think about, but I like that. Okay, last thing around, around this topic you mentioned the business acumen, the soft skills, analytics, some of the other things. But on the business acumen and soft skills, how are you guys rolling that kind of training out? Is there internal? Hey, if you're part of this organization, you can go to this internal learning module and this is where you can learn about the business or do you guys have something set up outside of that? Similar with soft skills, is it we have these resources internally, we should leverage them or are you going to different places to do that? Because that business acumen and soft skills are two probably the most important skills that we can have. And with soft skills I would throw in relationship building as part of that. But how are you guys actually like rolling that out and getting that implemented? Those two specifically?
- [19:21]
Ronnie Welch
Yeah, work in progress. So it's short answer is yes to all of the above. Some context around that is we are seeing the feedback come through in our voice of the customer surveys. Right. We can always know more about the business. And also when I focus on people and talent, I see that we are hiring more individuals that aren't necessarily from the insurance industry, which I think is okay. So what we're currently working on, spearheaded through my audit operations and professional practices team, is putting together a training curriculum, a syllabus to help individuals become comfortable, at least with the basics of the insurance industry. That is a collection of internal resources, trend as well as external resources. It is also us, I would say, building a stronger affinity with some insurance groups such as Limra, for example. And then the last thing we did is work on career competency framework. So that was introduced maybe 18 to 24 months ago. So that's a mix of insurance and IIAs competencies. So at least our individual contributors, our staff can clearly see what they need to demonstrate and ultimately master at their level in order to be prepared for second or subsequent, excuse me, levels in the organization.
- [20:40]
Trent Russell
Super helpful. And, and I know you've mentioned analytics a couple times and you have this three tier system with analytics on your team that it seems like everyone took off with to some degree. And, and maybe it's hey, some of these People never made it past the first tier, but that's okay, at least they did the first tier. Tell us a little bit more about that and how you're able to get the entire team at least at the basic analytics level.
- [21:06]
Ronnie Welch
Sure. That one was another multi year journey for us. I think first some context just on where we were a few years ago or at least where we started. So I would say think, you know, the use and or application of data analytics was ad hoc. It depended on the individual's knowledge, experience or comfort level. We had limited training in our department, not consistent with it, especially as we had new joiners and terminations. I would say we had no dedicated resources focused on analytics. Regarding tools, we had very few people that were accessing acl. ACL was the tool of choice before we embarked on our journey. The root cause on the limited usage was just intimidation, user friendliness or lack thereof. And then the last probably attribute I would say about our environment at that time was inconsistent reporting of the analytics, whether in an audit process, audit reports and org material. So where we are today, if I were to break it down into the traditional, let's say people process technology categories, from the people standpoint, the biggest impact is the structure you mentioned that we have today is three tier resource framework. What that is, just simply put, is first I decided on the operating model that will work best here for us, which is decentralized. So the expectation is that every talent colleague is expected to perform some level of data analytics. So the tier one are our individual contributors or our staff. The expectation is that they perform data analytics on their audit engagements, advisory engagements, et cetera. What those use cases look like are the more common straightforward use cases. I would say the level of use or complexity varies from auditor to auditor, but there is an established baseline on what they're expected to perform. And that baseline was established by us. And we trained everyone and continue to train everyone through a mix of lunch and learns, office hours, evening to be able to perform that tier one service. So you have to help yourself. Tier two is I establish a champions program. What we did was took talent that had an affinity for big data. It may have been individuals who were getting a master's degree in data science on their own time. It may have been people who were teaching themselves Python on their own time. What I did is I took those individuals and I consciously reduced their audit workload. I didn't want them to be focused on this as a stretch assignment or off the side of their desk and nights and week, weekends. So we reduced their workload to about 50% or reduced it to about 50%. So half of their year is on assurance or advisory engagement execution, and the other half was becoming a data analytics champion. So working closely with this core data analytics team, Tier three resources, which I'll get to in a minute and upskill yourself, working on projects, collaborating with them, et cetera, the thought is that these champions are, as a cohort will graduate from the program, go back into their specific teams. Within my audit function, I'm about 47, 48 individuals department wide, on a good day, and be a tier 2 support system for that tier 1 support. If they come across more complex use cases so that they're not automatically running to the tier three, which is the coordinated analytics team. And then as they graduate, we will build a new cohort, upskill them, they would go back into their audit teams, et cetera. So there's resident champions that exist. The reason I did that because for tier 3, the core data analytics team, the team needs bandwidth to focus on innovation and change. It's a challenge to do that if they're bogged down with BAU or execution. That is what I was faced with over the last year, year and a half. And so with that is if there's a specific use case or a certain engagement on the plan where a level of sophistication is expected. Day one, from an analytics perspective, a member of that core data analytics team is paired with that integrated audit team on that review from beginning to end. Or it could be that things come up in an audit where their service wasn't expected, but because if something came up in the audit, they're asked to support it. But we try to minimize their BAU or RUN efforts in order to maximize their innovation or change efforts. And so far it's working out well. How I got there was this core team or this tier 3 system. I took one person and repurposed them fully as a data analytics person. Me and that person worked together to demonstrate the value that data analytics could provide for a function like ours to the ELT and to the board, then I said, if you like this value, then I'm going to go ahead and repurpose another individual. So a team of one became a team of two. And then once we show the value there through our board materials, then I said, I don't feel that I can repurpose any more roles. I would need an increase in headcount. And if you're willing to entertain that, here's a business case on increase in headcount. So out of that and definitely with the board support I was able to double the team size. So from two individuals to four individuals and four individuals is where we sit today. And then recently in our August board meeting it was also a pitch to say we're going to move from four to six, which requires some increase in headcount. So it's a journey for us, Trent and all of that is supported by formalized training, of course. And data analytics is tied to performance management. So think goals, objectives and key results.
- [27:08]
Trent Russell
For us all the it's similar to the way we implement a decentralized model that works effectively. Everybody's going to do things a little bit differently of course, but like I just on the high level there wasn't, you know, anything in there where I went that's going to trip you up. But I was curious in these, in all of these. And you can take any given operating model on how to do this and implement it 50 times and there's going to be a tweak in every one of those just because the people are different. Different as probably the biggest thing is going to be on the people side. What was the maybe one, maybe two things that you said? Okay, if the expectation is this thing's going to work perfectly where there was something that you had to adjust and tweak a little bit along the way in the process of rolling out the.
- [27:51]
Ronnie Welch
Three tier system, my head goes to technology. I mentioned ACL earlier, right. That was the tool of choice. A quick conversation discussion survey with the department showed that we needed more friendly, user friendly tools, suite of tools. My decentralized model was going to be effective. We have a certain audit software and so there's an extension, there's an analytics software package that's an extension and it looks like Excel. So everyone in my department is very comfortable with Excel. So then we purchase that add in. Right. So it was just two steps forward and then we move to Power Query and then most recently databricks. So I would say our suite of tools available for our individual contributors or staff is teammate analytics is Power Query as databricks. So getting individuals comfortable with utilizing technology and having them believe that with the proper support and training that they can master these feeder tools is probably the biggest thing and the tweaks that we had to make and then you're never done. So I mentioned earlier the consistent training, the lunch and learns, the office hours. These tools come out with new capabilities, new functionality. We map the functionality to like our existing data analytics use case library. So there's maintenance to it. But that was probably the biggest tweak if I had to think of people across this technology. It was on the technology side. And then we still have challenges trying to. I'm sure you hear all the time understanding the data, discovering what to focus on, all that leads to having sufficient time to perform data analytics. Sometimes an audit and engagement can take longer. When you're trying to apply data analytics in a perfect world, yes, you get the data earlier before the audit starts and you know where you're going to focus before you kick off the planning in a perfect role. It doesn't always happen that way. And then I also would say to data accessibility and data quality validation. Well, those are still our challenges today. And as the company has these enterprise data lakes and things of that nature is just how do we engage with those concepts as well.
- [30:10]
Trent Russell
So I know you won the CEO award and I don't know if it's for the analytics side or not. I could certainly see them being like, yeah, you kind of crushed on the analytics side. Here's this. But as I recall, it's not that. And so there had to be something that was even better than this analytics initiative that you rolled out to get recognized by the CEO. What was the, what was the nature of that project?
- [30:30]
Ronnie Welch
Sure. Just so everyone has proper context, I mean, the CEO Award here at Guardian is the company's highest annual recognition honor. What it's designed to do is celebrate colleagues who go above and beyond and demonstrating Guardian's values and ways of working and whose impact is spelt in supporting the company's strategic priorities. It's facilitated by a recommendation committee that supports the ELT and selecting the winners. I received that honor some time ago. So I joined bard Eater in 2014. I think it was 2016 or 17. So it was well before my appointment as Chief Audit Executive at this data analytics effort. The year I was nominated and won, I was recognized for my leadership contribution within our internal audit functional I would simply put increasing the effectiveness of and the value provided by my team. I would say at Guardian's aspiration and strategic priorities evolve and mature, including expanding our reach and serving more customers. How I answer the question how is internal audit contributing, supporting and enabling that we made conscious efforts through our services in continuing to assess risk and ensure appropriate checks and balances are in place to support new capabilities, new products, new services provided to our customers? I believe that all resulted in enhanced customer service and improved customer experience and that was recognized. Our semi annual risk assessment and audit planning is risk based, but it's also customer centric again I said earlier putting a customer first. I remember when I found out I was nominated yet alone earned or won the reward. I was definitely surprised. I was excited. I was humbled. It was truly an honor for me but also speaks to my team because you can't do it alone and the people I work with day to day here in Internal audit and maybe even more importantly Trent, how the impact of even a third line function can have and be felt holistically across the organization. It's great. I think IT convert confirms colleagues contributions, you know, and how they demonstrate their commitment for the company.
- [32:40]
Trent Russell
So I know you mentioned IA's Vision 2035 earlier and you've been talking to Copilot a little bit about that. What advice could you give other caes that are heading in that direction also.
- [32:54]
Ronnie Welch
Start now. No it to me it takes time to create the future you want. It takes time to create the future together. What resonates with me the most is I would say one elevating perceptions for your stakeholders to view you as a trusted advisor, a change agent, to be strategic dynamic as opposed to compliance focused, a validator assessor. Just providing that foresight and strategic value and not just compliance. I think that's the major highlight in the Vision 2035. 2 I would say the expectation to embrace and leverage emerging or advanced technology. I know we spoke a little bit about this on this podcast, but to deliver timely and forward looking assurance and guidance is an is a major highlight to me. Concepts like quantum computing, real time analytics, augmented or virtual reality may not be that far off as people think. And three Talent and upskilling. I know that is often said a lot, but you need a workforce that is tech savvy, working collaboratively with AI technology that is data literate, has business acumen and refined soft skills. That's several dimensions you're asking for that you're requiring and to have a workforce of that makeup in five to 10 years, you have to start now.
- [34:13]
Trent Russell
Ronnie, like a lot of really good stuff in there. The playbook for the three tier analytics. I think there's a lot that people could just take from what you said and run with it. And of course they're going to have bumps along the road because you didn't. This isn't a, you know, an hour long tell us exactly how you did everything within there, but I think that was extremely valuable to the listeners. So thank you a ton for that. With that said, I'm going to hand the mic to you. Close us out. What do you want to leave the listeners with.
- [34:44]
Ronnie Welch
Yeah, I will say a a few nuggets I strive to live by. Number one is laugh, have fun. Sometimes I forget that I think this profession can be seen as very serious. It doesn't have to be. If that's the culture you're in, impact the culture, change that. I also would say innovate, change, learn, fail fast. I just think that what got you here won't keep you here. And then the third thing I would focus on is empathy and relationships. Just genuinely understanding perspectives, challenges, needs, concerns, constraints, motivations as stakeholders. In this role, there's so many stakeholders. Even if those challenges, concerns, perspectives are different from yours, even if you don't agree with them, quite frankly. Just stay connected beyond formal engagements and follow through on commitments.
- [35:39]
Podcast Host/Announcer
Hey everyone, thank you very much for listening to this episode of the Audit Podcast.
- [35:43]
Trent Russell
Whatever platform you're listening on right now.
- [35:45]
Podcast Host/Announcer
I'm sure there's a subscribe button somewhere, so please hit the subscribe 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 On It Podcast.
- [36:12]
Ronnie Welch
Thank you all. Have a great one. It.