Agents of Change: Dominique Vincenti of Uber

“Dominique Vincenti: Being an agent of change is baked into the definition of internal auditing. If you go back to the 1999 definition, which is still the definition that guides us all, it says that we are an activity designed to add value and improve an organization’s operations. It’s right there.”

“Dominique Vincenti: Maybe I’ve been lucky or maybe this is what I was looking for, but at all the organizations I’ve worked for there was a match between my vision of internal audit and what internal audit should and could do. Those charged with governance — whether executive management or boards of those organizations that I had the privilege to join — expect it. So I cannot really say that I experienced resistance from management that internal audit would be a partner in change at all the organizations I’ve worked for — that’s even true of The IIA. I remember very, very distinctly when I joined you and Al and Bill, The IIA was again at a turning point and change was on the horizon. **It doesn’t mean that change is easy, but I think that the leaders I’ve worked with were always open to change.”

“Dominique Vincenti: I will share two things that I try to do to be that change agent within internal audit. On a macro level, and usually with the internal audit management team, there are three questions that I like to revisit continuously.”

“Dominique Vincenti: Definitely data and automation is paramount to the multiplying factor that you’re talking about. Interesting enough, not easy to bring at the forefront of internal audit teams. I found it harder to convince our internal audit teams nowadays of the importance for everyone in internal audit to be data and technology savvy, experienced, and competent. Way harder than it was probably when you and I started in internal audit. When you and I had to embrace new technology, it sounds funny, but we started at a time where things were done with paper and pencil.”

“Dominique Vincenti: When I started with technology, there was a separate team that was called CAATs, computer assisted auditing. I would say in less than two years in the nineties, you had to pivot from paper and pencil to having your own laptop and become a pro at Word, Excel, or their equivalent of that time, starting to write macros. Suddenly, we had no choice because we knew that if we were not embracing it, we would be irrelevant. CAATs teams disbanded because now CAATs was all of us.”

“Dominique Vincenti: It could be bright, but it depends on us. Again, let’s not point fingers. If the next ten years turn out not to be as glorious as they should be for internal audit, I think we’ll have only one group of people to blame, and that will be ourselves. When I do my own risk assessment, what keeps me up at night? This famous question that we ask leaders, sometimes we need to ask it for ourselves. There was always one answer. And the answer is relevance. Am I relevant? Is our team relevant? Is what we do relevant? That’s what scares me the most about us as a profession. Are we doing everything that we need to do? Are we asking, “why do we exist?” in ways that will keep us relevant for the business community, the community at large, and the stakeholders in the community — regulators, authorities, the general public?”