Internal Audit Officer for a large pipe and railway wheels producer

As one of the largest producers of pipes and rail wheels which encompassed some twenty enterprises, our client needed to increase efficiency, control and risk management. It also wanted to improve the Group corporate governance standards.

The company has a huge work force of more than 25,000 people. Its market shares are quite significant; 35% of large diameter pipes, 60% of railway wheels, and 70% of automobile springs. All of this results in annual revenues of about three billion dollars.

Realizing the enormity of the task the shareholders decided to form an internal audit department to assist the board and the management of the company.

The new head of the department would have to create a service from scratch, coordinate the adoption of a risk management system for the company and its subsidiaries, develop a methodology for conducting audits, form and train a team of specialists, and prepare an annual plan for the audit.

In addition to the obvious experience of building an internal audit service that a candidate would need to posses, the client also wanted him to have excellent diplomatic skills. And as this was a privately owned Russian company he would also have to speak Russian. These requirements further narrowed an already small field of potential candidates.

A systematic search for candidates was begun by first identifying leading companies which had developed their own internal audit services. This led to the formation of a list of possible candidates. Approaching these candidates and communicating with them intimately about the professional possibilities was enhanced by our consultants experience as the chairman of an audit committee for a large Russian corporation.

A fully fledged candidate was presented to the client and he was subsequently offered the position which he accepted.

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