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The Audit Podcast
Ep 263: Building Early Career Goals on the Road to Chief Audit Executive w/ Jamie Meziere
00:27:59
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- [00:00]
A
So when I say elevate audit for everyone, I do generally get the question of, well, what does that mean to me? And that's not only for my department, but that's also for our business partners and the industry.
- [00:14]
B
Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of the Audit Podcast. I'm your host, Trent Russell. Today on the show, we have Jamie Mazir. Jamie is the chief audit executive at FedEx. If you are watching us on YouTube and you're looking at the video, I always thought this was super interesting. FedEx was the. Well, not the first. One of the first clients I had when I was in public accounting, and they pointed this out to me, and now I can not stop seeing it. So if you're looking at my screen or if you ever see the FedEx logo, again, if you're not aware of this, if you look in the white space between the E and the X, there's an arrow. So the arrow represents speed, precision, and moving forward. I just thought it was really cool once I saw. And it's one of those things again. If I see FedEx trucks going down the road, I rarely ever look at the words FedEx. I always look at the white space with the arrow there. The other thing that you might notice, again, if you're looking at. On the video, when we show the episode with Jamie, she's in her office and she has these FedEx block letters on the table behind her. And there is, I think, like a piece of glass between the wood and the logo, so you can see the reflection. And it looks like there's another arrow. Although I couldn't find any evidence of this. I don't think it was done on purpose, but I thought it was pretty interesting. There's another arrow in there. So if you're looking at my screen, people are like, the hell are we listening to have to do with audit at all? But again, if you're looking at my screen and you're looking, looking at the cursor, there's half an arrow at the bottom of the letter D. And so when it reflects off of the bottom of the glass, it actually looks like another arrow. Some of the things that we hit on with Jamie, what does her analytics and AI program look like? If she could grab every auditor or CAE by the shoulders and shake them and say, we just do this one thing, what would that be? Jamie set a goal early on in her career to be a cae, and then she executed on that plan. So it wasn't just, hey, I'm going to be a cae. One day and then wait for someone to or multiple people to leave or retire or whatever the case is. She put out objectives for herself and met those, and that's how she got to be the CAE at one of the largest organizations in the world. And so we talked about what was the plan, what was her plan, how did she get there, basically. And Jamie's now been the CAE at FedEx for almost a year. So December 2024, according to her LinkedIn. And so almost a year now. So, Jamie, you've been working towards this goal most of, if not your entire career. What do you want to do now that you're there? What have you done since you've been there in the past year? And then Jamie mentioned off camera when we were prepping for the show that she had just gone through her first performance evaluation as a cae. So we asked her, hey, if you were evaluating other CAEs, what metrics would you use to compare them against? With that said, here we go. All right, so what's in your. Either your Internet Browsing History or ChatGPT History Copilot History, whatever your preferred LLM that you use both. Something on the personal side so we can get to know you a little bit and then also on the professional side.
- [03:28]
A
Yeah. What a great question, Trent. So let me ask you, would you want me to start with the personal side first or professional?
- [03:34]
B
It is totally up to you. This is your show. I just ask the questions.
- [03:38]
A
Okay, great. Well, hey, I know that you've heard a lot about travel and normally I would have started out with travel, but since you've heard a lot about that, I'm a scuba diver, but I won't start there. I would say say a little bit on the professional side first. When I applied for this job, I knew that it was really important for me to come up with a vision and strategy for the organization. And so after I got into the role and I settled down a little bit, I did use our internal tool. So I should say that anything that's FedEx related, anything that's company related, I do use our own internal tool. But I decided to ask that internal Gen AI tool what it really thought about my vision and strategy. And I will say I was really happy with the outcomes. It thought that it was business savvy and also focused on driving change as well as business, business partnership on the the personal side, a little bit different. So you might think this is a little bit strange and perhaps unique at the same time, but we purchased my husband and I purchased a Different house. About two and a half years ago, we decided that we would renovate the oldest house on the street that was near where my daughter would go to school and also be closer to where my stepsons lived. With that being said, we have a lot of trees on the property and with trees you have leaves. And of course we could buy a tractor to help facilitate, you know, the, the leave pickup. But I thought why not have a mini goat farm. So I researched how to develop an LLC and also a farm for miniature goats.
- [05:09]
B
And so that is active. You have the goat farm going.
- [05:13]
A
So we have an llc. We don't have the goats there yet, but we do have the business. And I also have a logo. It's interesting how much you really can get on logo logos from kind of a marketing pre marketing perspective online.
- [05:24]
B
Yeah, we live on a. It's not super huge, but we have these three oak trees that are. Our house is a little over 100 years old. So the oak trees have to be at least that and.
- [05:35]
A
Right.
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B
Depending on where you live in the country. Where I live, the leaves fall from October through December and it, I mean every weekend it's leaf blow, leaf blow, which I enjoy. So I don't really complain but.
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A
Right.
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B
Because if I don't, it just kills everything. And so goat might be the. I might be your first customer. I don't know if you can get those goats on a four hour drive down here to where I live. But.
- [05:57]
A
Right. I think we, we probably could make a deal.
- [05:59]
B
Perfect.
- [06:00]
A
We could figure something out.
- [06:01]
B
All right. All right. So you mentioned using the AI tool for your vision and your strategy. How does that play relative to your analytics and AI program? What does that look like?
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A
Yeah. You know, I'll start by saying that I'm extremely proud of my team on both fronts. So we've actually been in the analytics space for quite some time here at FedEx. With that being said, we started out really around data analytics usage within the projects themselves. And we assign what we call data analytics champions to every director within the organization. And that's worked out really well just to have someone embedded into the team who knows the business, who could help the team kind of identify pre work for projects. And then we also. I don't know if you and I talked about this before, but we also have what we call an internal audit and data analytics team. And that's more of our data scientist team. So more of the modeling future state strategic activities for the organization. That's really kind of what comes out of that organization. And then they also determine, you know, how do we audit AI with AI. So just kind of a lot of forward thinking from that organization. But it's great to have both sides. The team that works very, very closely with our teams on the day to day business activities and then also kind of the broader based data scientist team as well just to make sure that we're doing the day to day activities, the project execution, but also forward thinking.
- [07:27]
B
I think the distributed model is way more realistic now with AI than it has been historically. There's always been, I mean some of the most common requests we get are like, hey, can you come teach team how to do analytics? And I go, yep, that's great and wonderful. Right? For years you would get like about 10% of people would kind of latch on and become a data champion. And now that we have AI, it's closer to 50% of the people that we work with become like legitimate. Here's a control, I can go test it using analytics or here's a dashboard that I built, whatever the case is. So I think that it. Well, I know that is significantly more realistic than it has been in the past. And to have even then the coe so you have your data scientist center of excellence is fantastic for those that can go that route. And then to put folks in those data champion roles is also great. And so that is, that's something that I hope people are starting to understand is that that is almost every audit department can have some version. Every audit department can have some version of a distributed. Almost all can have a version of similar to yours, but maybe scaled up or down depending on the size of the organization where they have a similar excellence and a distributed. So yeah, I agree you can kind.
- [08:37]
A
Of scale up or down depending on size of organization. But I do think it works out really well because again, you're close to the business, you work on the project execution and then also you have the broader based activities of the COE model and that just helps for future state of the organization as well.
- [08:55]
B
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. If you could grab every auditor in the world by the shoulders and just shoot, shake them and say, we just do this one thing, what would that be?
- [09:34]
A
I guess I should start with a quick, very, very quick disclaimer that I'm not going to shake anyone and no auditors are harmed in the recording of this, this show or this video. But, but certainly we want to make sure that we're providing additional insight and foresight to, to those that are watching today. You know, I think that all jokes aside, I think that I would start by just saying it's so important, important to understand the business, understand, you know, not only the business literacy. And in my case at FedEx, we used so many different acronyms. When I first started, it was really, really interesting to me to come into a professional organization that used so many different acronyms that I'm thinking, I don't know what I've gotten myself into. But the reality is, you know, it's important to understand what that means. But not only just the literacy, understanding the strategy and really how can you insert yourself to drive value for the business and our business part, that's really where you can really drive additional change for whatever company you're at.
- [10:33]
B
I think certainly, and again, it depends on the size of the organization. But CAE knowing org strategy is critical. But as far as understanding the business, start with let's say, if we take like, let's say staff slash senior and then manager, maybe slash director and then CAE approach for them because they're likely not going to be in the conversations around the strategy at that high level, maybe at a business unit level or something to that effect. What advice would you give like the staff senior, the manager slash director on understanding the business and the perspective they should look at? That answer that you gave from.
- [11:12]
A
Yeah, no, that, that's a great follow up. You know, I think it's just really staying close to your business partners because regardless if they're giving you the highest level strategy and in some cases maybe they can't and that's okay, but, but just to understand what's happening in that particular environment when you're going in to plan your audits, maybe it's something that you need to pivot a little bit to change your scope. Maybe it's something that really doesn't have the same value as it did when you were going through your risk assessment process. So that's really what I mean for those team members that are kind of consistently evaluating the space and that those are strategic decisions. But to your point, maybe they're not as embedded in the actual business strategy itself.
- [11:53]
B
A lot of what we do on the show is for current or aspiring caes, you know, like, it's. It's a typical tone from the top, leadership from the top, all that kind of good stuff, and it brings everybody up. And so a large, I guess, maybe mission point of the show is to help current CAEs again or aspiring CAEs become better. And I know you set a goal early on in your career to be a cae and you put in a plan to get there. Whereas I feel like most people, their plan is probably like, let me just stick around, and then hopefully some people retire off, and then eventually I'll get promoted. What was the plan that you put together?
- [12:33]
A
Yeah, this will sound fairly basic, I guess, but certainly we'll share that. But the plan was really just to have a goal for myself. And ultimately, you know, that that goal was to be a chief audit executive, but also to relentlessly work that plan. And I knew that it was really critical for me to set goals along the way to help me get to where I wanted to be longer term. So really, I drove to understanding the business really well. I knew that I needed to be an expert in the field. I really needed to gain credibility, not only to be a trusted advisor, but really a strategic advisor. And I know that we might have talked briefly about this, but the reality for me was I never wanted to leave Internal Audit. But I came to a very critical point in my career. I'd been within Internal audit organization for 10 years, and at that point, I knew that I either needed to leave Internal Audit or to, in my case, move back to Memphis. I was living and working abroad at that time, and I would have been assigned a domestic position that was linked to FedEx, which was great. I was happy that I had a job still within the audit organization, But I really wanted to. To move up and to move into a director role. And at that time, I had to make a decision to move out of Internal Audit. And I'm so glad that I did. I moved into Engineering, and interestingly enough, there are a lot of synergies between internal audit and engineering from just a process and efficiency standpoint. And it was also, I think, great for me to be able to say that I just. Not that there's anything wrong with being a lifelong auditor, but I also was able to move into the business and do something different as well. And I do Think that helped me get to my chief audit executive role.
- [14:16]
B
I think it's a good point. And going back to if you could, you know, shake every auditor and you said understand the business. Well, if you want to understand the business, a really good way to do that is to leave audit for a while and go into the business.
- [14:30]
A
Right.
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B
I know some of the best auditors that I've worked with are those that came from the business. Even if it's a rotational situation, just the amount that they know about what's going on on a day to day basis is really, really valuable.
- [14:47]
A
Yes. And you also change your network too. So by that I mean you really grow your network. You meet people that perhaps you have never had the opportunity to interact with and they know you on a completely different level. If you're doing the work, they know you can do the work. They know that you understand it. And so when, when I came back to internal audit, I think it also allowed me to be a lot more empathetic with the business too, because it's hard. It's a hard job. I also had one other thing that I forgot to mention. If I had, you know, the opportunity to shake all of the auditors, I think it would also be on the front of get used to Gen AI, get used to using it, be very, very familiar with it and don't be afraid of it. You know, utilize it to our advantage. I know that, you know, certainly things are moving very quickly, but it's important for us to leverage that technology and certainly not be afraid of Gen AI or now, you know, the topic of the day I think is agentic AI, but. But really lean into that.
- [15:41]
B
Yeah. And fear, I think is. Well, I know from talking to the experts is the biggest reason that people haven't really adopted it yet. Especially with an internal audit where we have to be like the controls and risk leaders. And I don't want to put something in there I'm not supposed to or do something I'm not supposed to go grab the AI governance policies, procedures, make sure you understand those and then go, all right, I cannot do this. Everything else is game. Like I'm just going to do everything else that I possibly can.
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A
Absolutely. No, completely agree.
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B
I want to come back to the goal setting piece. Was this a. You're talking about, you set goals every year or at some frequency to ultimately, as part of your plan to become a cae, did you sit with a mentor internally, externally, and come up with those goals? Did you develop those yourself? I mean, with Gen AI now you could certainly that is something that can. Is very helpful and be able to do that. But what did that look like? What was the process for you to set goals, to ultimately become the cae?
- [16:35]
A
Yeah, when. When I was really an intern and shortly thereafter coming back to FedEx, we didn't have Genai, so I didn't put my questions in there to develop the plan. I wish that had been the case at that time. But I did have several great mentors, some that were mostly internal to FedEx, but then also some outside of the company. And I do think it's really good to have a good balance of people that are within your own industry, within your own company, people that you really can lean on for opportunities for advancement, and they know you, they can champion you in your career. But then also having people that are outside of the company that are just a little bit of a different perspective too. And I think that that helped me navigate some of the more difficult decisions that I had from a career standpoint, one of which was to move and live and work abroad in Brussels, Belgium. That was a. That was a tough family decision and great. I knew that I needed and wanted to live abroad, and that was a perfect opportunity for me to do that. But still from a personal standpoint, that. That was a tough. A really tough opportunity for me to navigate over those three years of living abroad. And then after the 10 years of being an internal audit again, you're deemed somewhat of an expert. And at that time, I knew I either needed to come back to the US and be committed again to being a lifelong auditor, or I needed to move out of the audit organization. And that's what I did. So it was really good to have people both inside and outside of the organization to talk to.
- [18:00]
B
So you mentioned mentoring. We had Alex on. He represents the IA from the perspective of the mentoring program that people can be a part of, either as a mentor or a mentee. Although at the timing of this episode being published, the window has closed. But go check that episode out. Or if you're interested, go, you know, search for it. You can find it online, see when it's going to open back up. Put a calendar entry in there, save it off so you can apply. I think they basically take everybody as a mentee. But anyway, I know the IA puts on programs like that. And since we're talking about this plan that you put together and how to become a cae, I know that you're also part of, I believe it's Vision U. Is that what it's Vision U?
- [18:38]
A
It is Vision University. Right.
- [18:40]
B
That the IA puts together. And so it is for current and future aspiring caes. I know we've had Jenna Smith on friend of the show who is also part of that program. So anyway, just tell folks about that and maybe the impact it's had on you.
- [18:57]
A
Yeah. So I'm really glad that I had a chance to go through the program. I'll be honest. When I heard about the program, I was very, very new to my seat as Chief Audit executive and I had a friend who used to work at FedEx reach out and she actually was also a facilitator of the program. Virginia Khalil. She actually is again, a close friend now. But there are two different types of programs. One that I went through that actually starts at gam. So you can then continue gam, go through, you know, kind of the, the timeframe that you're there, but then also have about 40 additional hours of CPE following that to basically go through the program. And they give you a lot of different things to focus on and at the end you graduate. So I'm a recent graduate of Vision University. There's another program that's a little bit of a different model where I think you go on more of kind of a weekly cadence. Don't. Don't quote me on that again. My model is a little bit different where we went for a six month time frame, but for a certain amount of time each month. But I think there's also the weekly cadence. But I thought it was a really fantastic approach to really make sure that you had the right foundation for yourself as a chief audit executive, to understand not only about vision and strategy and areas of focus that you would focus on for the particular company that you work for, but also really to have a broad based network. Because of course you meet a lot of Chief audit executives or especially aspiring chief audit executives in the program and have that just kind of self built network from the get go. And I think that that's really powerful to anyone who's aspiring or a new CAE in that role.
- [20:32]
B
Okay. I think, I mean, between the mentoring program, I just. Mentoring so important. And I'm trying to get the word out there around. Yeah. That it. There's. The IA has a lot to offer on that front and people should check that out. It is, I mean, to be able to ask somebody a question that they had to probably learn the hard way from and then go, right, don't do that. Just do it this way. And the amount of, I mean, heartache, stress, anxiety, years of experience that you can save and close that gap just by asking a mentor that's been there is very, very important for a lot of different reasons. But. So we haven't had a chance to talk about Vision University on the show, so I saw that you were there and wanted to make sure that we at least plug that to some degree. So, okay, so you've put the plan together, you put your goals together, you vision, you this thing also. So there's cae, right? What do you want to do in the role now?
- [21:27]
A
Well, Trent, I have a video. Is it okay if I share that?
- [21:30]
B
Excellent.
- [21:32]
A
Welcome to Internal Audit, where our vision is simple. Elevating audit for everyone. We're here to elevate internal audit as a fundamental pillar of operational operational excellence by fostering a culture of digital innovation and serving as a catalyst for positive change. We drive change through strategy, organization, people and automation. And we never lose sight of where we came from. With our foundation of excellence, we're packing up our purple chips and moving forward to create what's next. From executing the business plan to cultivating strong relationships and focusing on technology, internal Audit remains data driven, provides timely, relevant results, and always acts as a catalyst for positive change. Together with the business, we support continuous improvement through three excellence or enhancing audit quality and effectiveness. Innovation by using technology to streamline audits and deliver deeper insights and collaboration, building strong relationships and supporting transformation. We are internal audit. We elevate, we innovate, we collaborate. Together, we create value for everyone. Yes. So. So, Trent, what. What I want to say is here's to elevating audit for everyone. So when I say elevate audit for everyone, I do generally get the question of, well, what does that mean to me? And that's not only for my department, but that's also for our business partners and the industry.
- [22:59]
B
So you had your first CAE performance evaluation fairly recently. If you were evaluating other CAEs, what metrics would you compare them against?
- [23:10]
A
Yeah, great question. And no, no pressure on my first eval. Right. Since I was relatively new to the role, but I think it really would be for me at the highest level, audit quality and efficiency. So not so much about the number of projects necessarily, but making sure that the plan was really focused on risk and going in to audit the right project at the right time. The other area I think that is critically important, which we've talked a bit about today, is on business partnerships. So having some level of stakeholder satisfaction scores. We do that here at FedEx. So after the projects, we do send out surveys Just to gauge how well the project went, regardless of the opinion, just to make sure that if we have areas of opportunity, that we do continue to focus on those. And I think the other thing that would be interesting to me is really on the industry side. So where do we as chief audit executives land from an industry leadership perspective? You know, are there certain areas that we are benchmarking on from kind of a KPI standpoint? Are we contributing to certain forums or publications and really just continuing to drive adoption of new audit tools across the industry?
- [24:20]
B
What new audit tools are you talking about?
- [24:22]
A
Yeah, so I think it depends. I think it depends on company, But I do think that leaning heavier into AI Gen AI and certainly now Agentic AI, I think that those are a lot more progressive for the audit organizations than perhaps what they were even a year ago. And I know that for a while, people thought that AI Gen AI and not even at that point, Agentic AI were just kind of the topic du jour. But the reality is they're here with us. It's not going away. And we certainly need to be able to utilize those tools within our own audit processes. But then also advancing to how do we audit AI with AI?
- [25:03]
B
Large part of the show mission is to empower CAEs, make CAEs better, aspiring CAEs. Lessons learned from folks like that. And I think you've absolutely crushed that. We've heard understand the business from a few different folks before. And I think that is so important. I've told this story multiple times. We had a guest on early on. She's a consultant for herself, and she does internal audit consulting. And so I asked her, and she was not prepared for this question. We used to show a lot differently. It was basically like we're just going to turn on the microphone and start talking to each other. And I asked her, I said, what's more important, knowing the business or knowing audit? And she didn't blink. She said, know the business. And I was a little surprised because I thought, you know, she's like, all right, well, I'm a consultant in audit. I got to be like, audit is very important, but also understand the business. Anyway, she didn't. So that is, again, another message we've been trying to push for years is understand the business. So anyway, with all that said, I'm gonna stop talking. Jamie, I'm gonna throw the microphone to you. What do you want to leave the audience with?
- [26:04]
A
Well, Trent, I'll say that you are leaving the. The group with something that I was going to say. So. So from my perspective, Great auditors don't just check boxes. And, and the, the important thing that I want to say about that is they truly do understand the business. So I think you're, you're reading my mind when you said that earlier. But it's not only understanding the business, but building those strong partnerships driving meaningful change across the company, no matter what company you work in. And when you focus on adding value, real value, your insights are just so invaluable. The other thing that I'll mention is really at the heart of every successful audit is a deep understanding of the business and a genuine commitment to make sure that we're there to help the business succeed. Regardless, again, of what industry you're in. That's really the main thing. And I just wanted to say a huge thank you to you, Trent, for allowing me to come on today. And thanks to everyone who listens to this episode. And here's to everyone for allowing us to continue helping elevate internal audit for everyone. And the last thing that I'll say, Trent, is just remember, if I can be a chief audit executive, I could have set these goals and gotten here. Really, anyone can do it. Thank you.
- [27:22]
B
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. Thank you all. Have a great one.