On the ninth episode of Inside the Auditorium, I speak to Janette Taylor, Head of Professional Practices - Internal Audit at Santander UK, and we discuss her journey from retail banking into internal audit roles, the purpose of professional practices in a bank and the skills required for the role, as well as advice for women within the profession. 

This episode explores:  

• Passion for internal audit: Janette shares what’s kept her in internal audit and her true passion for the industry. She emphasises the privilege of gaining deep insights into diverse aspects of business operations, a perspective unique to auditors. 
• The value of professional practices: Professional practices in a bank involve developing audit methodology, providing training and support to auditors, and ensuring that auditors deliver the right level of quality assurance.  
• Giving back to the audit community: As a member of the Chartered Institute of Internal Auditors and the banking and financial services sector advisory panel, Janette discusses giving back to the audit community through volunteering opportunities including feedback advice, training, engaging in valuable networking, to name just a few. 

Don’t miss this episode, as it promises to inspire and empower internal audit professionals, providing valuable insights into the evolving landscape of the industry. 

Note: The views expressed by Janette are her own and do not necessarily reflect those of her employer. 

Jeanette and welcome to a season of Inside the Auditorium, and thank you for joining me as a guest today. Perhaps you can just introduce yourself and let us know who you are.

Great, thank you, Hazel. Thank you for inviting me. So my name's Jeanette Taylor. I head up the professional practices team for Santander in the uk,

And you've been at Santander, and previous to that you worked for Nationwide, and your career has been very much within internal audit. Perhaps you can let us know how you've navigated your career to be in the senior role that you are in now.

Sure. Yeah. So I didn't start out as an auditor. I joined a retail bank. So I joined Halifax Bank of Scotland a few years ago now, Halifax Bank of Scotland is now part of Lloyd's, and I started there in retail bank and worked my way up to assistant branch manager there and met the auditors one day and decided that actually I quite liked what they did and the work that they were involved in. So applied for a role in internal audit and basically haven't looked back since. So I worked in internal audit for Halifax Bank of Scotland for a few years, got an opportunity to go over to Australia for six months, which was fantastic opportunity. Came back from there and thought, actually I really like this international travel stuff and the opportunity to get involved in different things. And I had the opportunity to go and work at Barclays in internal audit as well. Spent quite a few of the years there, had a fantastic time there, learned loads, met some amazing people, and then I moved into Mira. So the Japanese investment bank, again, fabulous opportunity to see something different, learn new skills. From there, I moved to Nationwide, again, internal audit. And then just over four years ago now, I moved here to Santander. So all through that time it's been about internal audit, both audit delivery, but also working quite a lot in professional practices, which is obviously what I do now.

Sure. And how did you navigate getting into professional practices from more of being a product auditor?

Yeah, so in Barclays they had a really good arrangement where it was almost expected that you would spend some time in your career in professional practices in Barclays, and that was really about building the skills that auditors would need in terms of delivering quality work, having a broader perspective of the internal audit function. And it was sort of expected in the time I was there that if you were seeking promotion, that you would go in and spend a secondment period within professional practices. And that's what really got me into professional practices and I really enjoyed it. When I left Barclays, it was for an opportunity with Mira, which was purely professional practices, so looking after methodology and quality assurance for the internal audit function. And then I stayed there when I moved to Nationwide in professional practices. After a few years in nationwide in professional practices, I moved back into an audit delivery role, which again, using my existing skills. And then when I came to Santander, again, it was purely to do professional practices. So it's something I really enjoy and something that I feel that uses the best of my skills. So I'm enjoying what I do and rather than delivering audits is supporting the audit team through the professional practices work.

And just for people that may be listening to this podcast that doesn't really understand what professional practices do or works for a smaller organization that doesn't have a dedicated professional practices, can you please explain why we have that in a bank? And also as well, why is it that people think you should do a stint in there? What sort of skills you would then come out with?

Sure. Yeah. So professional practices is probably different for different firms and it depends on how individual firms divide up the work responsibilities. So in Santander uk, myself and my team, we take responsibility for developing an audit methodology and working practices that support the auditors in how they deliver their audits. We provide training, support, coaching on how to deliver audits to auditors, and then we provide, a key part of our role is the quality assurance. So that means providing independent assurance that the auditors are doing their audits in line with methodology. But probably more important than that is that in our view, whether or not they're doing the right piece of work or have done the right piece of work to provide the assurance that's in there. Audit report, for example, the IT is particularly in financial services, once firms are over a particular size, the regulators expect there to be an independent function that looks after quality assurance particularly, and the institute of internal auditor standards talk about quality assurance and improvement program that is expected.

Now, some firms will do that as part of that will maybe divide that work up between their existing team and won't have a separate team. But I think particularly in financial services, there's an expectation that you have a separate team to do that piece of work. And the financial services code, which is something that obviously financial services firms need to adhere to that again talks about a quality assurance and improvement program. Some other firms will include things like committee reporting, mi, that type of thing, or within their professional practices work. Different firms split it up in different ways. I think in terms of skills, certainly coming into professional practices, I think if it's something you haven't done before, it gives an audit. We'll get a broad view of an organization when they're auditing an organization within professional practices. We have a broad view of the internal audit function, how it's working, where the risks are.

And I think a big part of the role is obviously we provide assurance to the chief internal auditor and then subsequently to the board audit committee that things are being done in the right way, the risks are being managed appropriately. But I see a big part of our role as well as being supporting auditors to do their job. So auditors are professional individuals. They go out there every day and give senior people assurance over how things are operating, where the risks are being controlled within the business. And for me, professional practices helps to support those auditors to do the right thing and to make sure that they're delivering the right piece of work and providing the right level of assurance.

Sure. And so really the myth has gone that if you're doing a bit of, I know that you have a bit of QA within your teams as well, but professional services isn't just the tick box exercise, you actually do get involved.

Yeah, definitely. Yeah. So I mean sometimes I think obviously the methodology the audit teams have is very much about the structure, if you like, of an audit, the processes that you follow to deliver the audit for a QA function as well, I think it's really important to be able to give some level of assurance that the auditors have done the right job. So I have a relatively small team. Some firms will have a much bigger team. We can't know everything an auditor would know because we can't be subject matter experts in every topic, but it's about using our auditor skills to ask questions, to think about what should this audit look at, what should have been in scope, and to use those inquisitive skills that an auditor would use to make sure that we understand why the auditor did what they did. And sometimes we can bring in subject matter experts from other audit teams or we can use co-source, for example, if there's a particular topic where we feel that we need more specialist knowledge or understanding. And I think that is a key part because you can have followed a methodology perfectly, but if you haven't delivered the right audit, you are not given the right assurance and that's where gap, that's where there could be problems if you don't do it properly.

So do you think then really that this are getting into a professional practices, a e type position really whether whatever products you may have audited, it's better to you have been for you to have been in an actual internal audit role previously than to move into professional practices? Or could you come out of maybe a big four or an other position and pick up this role quite easily?

It's a good question. I think it depends on the type of role that you'll be doing within the professional practices team. So I think to provide quality assurance because you are effectively auditing the auditors, so you are challenging an auditor about the piece of work they've done. And that can be a really difficult conversation because the same way auditors go out and audit the business, that can be a really difficult conversation. So I think for me to do a quality assurance role, you do need to have had experience at delivering audits. Now it can be external audit because they often do similar things. They will look at control type testing. I don't think you have to have worked, for example in banking. So I have people on my team who haven't come from a banking background but are experienced auditors and they bring different perspectives, but they still understand what audit's about and then they can learn about banking and about financial services.

And for me it's about having a mix on my team of people with different backgrounds. So I think being able to quality assure a piece of work, you need to be able to speak the language of an auditor. You need to be able to understand the terminology that they use and you need to be able to talk to them as an equal if you like. But then the wider piece of work that we do in professional practices, so methodology training, I think sometimes then if you haven't done as much audit work, sometimes you can bring fresh ideas to how we do things. And I think that's where we get a lot of benefit from people who perhaps haven't been involved so long in order because they'll ask the questions, why do you do this? Why do you follow this process? Could we do it differently? And I think that's where we get most value as well. And particularly from my perspective, and I'm sure other firms are the same, we're always looking to how we improve our processes and our working practices, how we become more efficient, more effective, and if there's fresh ideas and new ways of doing things, that's where I think we can get some really good value from people coming in.

And where does data analytics fit within your team then? Because with continuous monitoring and with the different audits that you do, I'm assuming that data analytics would play more of a bigger part into your team so you can assess where the risks are and where the training is needed.

And over the last few years, that's certainly something that we've invested a lot of time and effort into. So similar to a part of the business, we use computer systems, so we'll have data within systems related to our audit. So we have tests that run continuously against that data so we can understand what's going on with the audits, the plan delivery, et cetera. And that can help alert us to actually, we might need to go and have a look in this area. It can also help us to do some sort of basic checks. And what that does is that frees my team up to do more of the work that requires their knowledge and skills rather than sort of check in that this piece of data's right or this piece of data's been filled incorrectly. And that to me makes their job more interesting, not just trying to tick through a whole checklist of stuff.

They're actually using their thought, their skills and their experience and their thinking to make an assessment. The other thing that we're looking at now particularly is using artificial intelligence and other tools because that's a key thing that I think internal auditors can use both to deliver audits, but also from a methodology perspective, a quality assurance perspective to help make some of the tasks simpler, more automated, which again, will give us more thinking time, more time to do the things that probably you need a human for as opposed to a machine. So that's something that we're actively working on at the moment. And I'm pretty sure other firms are doing the same. And that's a really exciting change to the way we've always done audits, and I think that will make us more efficient, more effective, make the job more interesting, et cetera.

Sure. Unless you're standing at the tools and Tescos with shopping full of shopping.

Exactly. Exactly. But yeah, no, it is so different. And I think, I guess what we can do with it is only limited by what we can imagine we can do with it. And I think that's just, it's a whole step change I think for audit and for the business as well, but particularly within my roles. Lots for us to think about as we move forward.

In all of your roles, you've been promoted in pretty much all of your positions within each company that you've worked for, but you haven't really tended to move into the business at all and to come back. Is there any particular reason for that or what has attracted you to stay in within internal wool debt?

Yeah, I mean I did start in the business, so I have that experience. I think I just personally love working in internal audit. It's where I get my challenge each day. I like the work that we do. I love the fact that within internal audit, I think you see so much of a business. We are in a very privileged position as auditors. We get to know a lot of what's going on within the business that if you work within a particular team within the business, you wouldn't necessarily see that. And I think I enjoy that insight and that opportunity, and I enjoy getting out there, meeting different people. Every day is different. I dunno if it's a cliche, but that's what I enjoy. And I don't think I would get that so much from the business, which is why I see myself staying in internal audit. But that is where I get that other people will move out of internal audit out into the business and back again. And I think that's good for some people. For me, internal audit is where I find my interest.

Sure. And so from a leadership perspective then, where do you think or what do you think are the key characteristics of a great leader?

Good question. I think it's about working as a team. So being able to have a team of people for me, coming from different backgrounds, having different perspectives, different views, different ideas, and being able to get that team to work together as a team and to deliver on those objectives. So for me, it doesn't really matter where you've come from, but what you have to say and your views for me are always of interest because I think sometimes if you've been in a business for a long time, you don't always see the different ways of doing things. So I think bringing those things to light are really good. And I think that's where I have the most effective teams is when you bring that together and make sure everybody feels that they have a voice and a right to say something and listening and then being supportive. I suppose a big part of being a leader is helping people to unblock the things that are stopping them, doing what they need to do and then supporting them so that they can deliver some great work and finding them things that, again, for me, I need to find activities and jobs that excite me and challenge me helping others to do the same as well.

And is there anything then that you think you might have done a bit differently that may help other women in their audit careers?

Anything I would've done differently, I guess? I think for women it's about having the confidence to know that you can do a job. I think sometimes women especially sometimes feel they have to tick all the boxes for all the skills to be able to step into that job and do a good job, whereas I think sometimes men are a bit more, well, I can learn that or I can do that. I think for me it's about helping to support people who perhaps are more junior and thinking about their next step and thinking about, well actually I can do that. I can step into that and haven't always, I've taken some different turns in my career, albeit all as internal audit, but I've moved into different areas. I haven't always moved up. Sometimes I've moved sideways, and that's because I wanted a challenge and an opportunity. And I'd say to people, try that. It doesn't mean to say that you can't. I went to Mira, I didn't really have experience in investment banking and I knew that would be a steep learning curve, but I thought I'll try it. And it sounded really exciting and I did it. And I'd say to other women, just try it. If it's something that interests you, go for it. True.

So what do you think has been the greatest joy in your career then?

I think the opportunity to travel before Covid happened, and that was fantastic. I've met some amazing people all over the world and I have worked in many different countries doing lots of different audit work. And I think just meeting those people and seeing people who have different perspectives on life, different ways of working, but we're all ultimately trying to do the same thing. And that to me has just been fantastic. So I've seen some amazing places, had some great experiences, and for me that's what excites me about my, or has excited me about my career less travel these days we don't really do that so much, but I think for the time that I had it, it was amazing.

So where do you see internal, the internal audit or what makes a good internal audit function?

So for me, I think it's made up of a variety of people. So I think you don't want an internal audit function that's made up of pure auditors. I don't think that's a very good idea. I think you need a mix of people from different backgrounds with different experiences. So here at Santander we bring in people who are, some are experienced auditors, some are subject matter experts. Some people come from the business who bring that business experience. And I think when you bring that set of people together who can work together and they can deliver great audit work and really make a difference to the business, I think you bring fresh ideas, new ideas, and different people to challenge how we do things.

And if we can just, I know that you're very heavily involved in the Chartered Institute of Internal Auditors and you're a member of the writing Group volunteer, which is very interesting. And I think if you could just explain what that is and what you do.

Sure. Yeah. So obviously I love internal audit, so that's where my passion is. And about 10 or so years ago, I had qualified through the Chartered Institute of Internal Auditors, converted that to a certified internal auditor through Global Internal Institute of Internal Auditors. And it felt to me it was a good opportunity to give something back to the profession and to help others who were starting out in their profession. And I had the opportunity to join the volunteer writing group for the institute, and that's a UK thing. And basically it is a group of individuals who all auditors come from different backgrounds. So there are financial services people, some from private sector, public sector charities, a real variety of people. And we come together and we write guidance for the institute that they then publish on their website. So if anybody's been into the Institute of Internal Auditors website, you'll see guidance on how to audit this or top tips for doing this thing. And some of it relates to audit, some of it relates to managing an audit function, quality assurance, that type of thing.

That's a way of, for me, I like giving back, so being able to do something for future auditors, but it's a great networking opportunity as well. So I've met people there from different backgrounds that I probably wouldn't have come across working in financial services, and they bring a whole different perspective to how we order, and that's a great opportunity. And then I've also had the opportunity to join the banking and financial services sector advisory panel, which is a really snappy title, but that's purely financial services auditors. And we have a committee that basically supports the Chartered Institute of Internal Auditors in how we develop the profession, particularly focused on financial services. So sometimes we give feedback on papers or initiatives, we run some lunch and learn training sessions, and then we also help the institute when it sets up its annual conference to provide the financial services streams of that conference. So that's a great opportunity. Again, networking, meeting different people, hearing different perspectives. So that's another thing that I do that I volunteer for, and that's something I really enjoy.

And do you think that, just going back to the writing group, I've had some people that are pretty much stuck in their career. They may be, let's say a big fish in a little ponds running a smallish department, but really need to make the next step would, as this is a volunteering service, would this be quite good for, even though it's not banking and financial services, but for this person to be able to go and be able to write and learn how to write the frameworks and give advice to go into the next role?

Yeah, I think it's, for me, it gives me a broader perspective. So financial services, we are in a privileged position. We have obviously a lot more resources and smaller functions. I think getting involved if you are an auditor, and we are often looking for right people to write because it is a volunteer thing, you do it in your own time, so you have to be willing to do it, but it gives you that opportunity to get involved. And we tend to write things with two or three people. We'll write a paper sometimes. So it gives you an opportunity to work closely with somebody else, share ideas, you do some research, that type of stuff. So it is a good opportunity for people who want to get involved and to give something back then. Yes.

I noticed there are, in any profession that there is a lot of people that do lack good management skills. Was this something that just sort came naturally to you or did you go on various management courses on how to manage or,

So over the years, yeah, I have done various management training courses with different firms, different workshops and events, I suppose different things that are going on. I mean, gosh, I wouldn't say I always get it right. I try. And I think for me it's always about learning, make a mistake, try and learn from it. I encourage my team to tell me how they're feeling about stuff and to tell me how they want to work, what makes sense for them, what works best for them. And I think as a leader, you try and learn as much as you can and keep learning and keep working on it. I think keep working on it.

You mentioned about AI and data analytics. Where do you see internal audit going in the next three to five years?

I think certainly more use of that artificial intelligence. I think there'll always be that challenge to be more efficient. There's cutting costs, that type of thing. And I think the more we can use technology and tools, including artificial intelligence to help us to do our work better, more efficiently, more effectively, I think that's where we'll be heading. And I think the days of traditional audits of, I'm going to go in, I'm going to check review 20 controls and do some manual testing, I think those days are moving away now. And I think we audit in a different way. Audits use data analytics a lot now. We use robotic tools, do ongoing continuous monitoring to do special pieces of work. And I can only see that become more and more prevalent as we move through the next few years. But I think that gives great opportunities for auditors to learn digital skills. And that's something we focus on a lot at Santander in internal audit is helping the auditors and me included, to build our digital skills. And we have lots of training and support to do that, and I think auditors need that. You can't just come in and not expect to be involved in digital work these days. So I think that's a great opportunity for auditors to develop new skill sets.

And what sort of skill sets do you think make a good or not make a good auditor, but you think people don't realize that internal audit does offer?

I think as an auditor you, you've got to have a questioning mindset. So you've got to be willing to speak to people who they know their business inside out, they're experts in their business. I think as an auditor, you've got to be willing to go up to that person and start a conversation and ask them questions even if you don't know, and you probably never will know as much as they do about their business, but you've got to be willing to do that. And I think being able to ask those questions and keep probing where you need to. But I think one of the key skills for me as an auditor is to be brave, is to have that mindset that you are going to go and challenge people. And sometimes auditing, whether you're auditing the business or you're in professional practices, auditing an auditor, you sometimes have to have very difficult and challenging conversations. And I think being brave to step up, speak out, speak up, speak out, ask those difficult questions, but then maintain a good working relationship with those people, I think is a real key skill. Because at the end of the day, if we are auditing the auditors, those are our team colleagues, we're going to have to work with them tomorrow, next week going forward. And if we're auditing the business again, we're going to see those people almost every day. So you have to be able to have challenging conversations and maintain relationships at the same time.

Yeah, great stuff. Well look, thank you for your time today. I'll just give you a quick fire questions. Okay. What would you like to do on your day off?

So I like nothing better than putting my walking boots on, getting my husband, my dog. We've got a West Highland territ and going off into the countryside, finding a pub for lunch, bottle of wine, walk back home again. That would be my perfect day off. Preferably not in the rain.

Stagger back home then. You mean? Depends on whether you have the second bottle, right? Is there any particular podcast you're listening to or book you're reading at the moment?

So I'm rereading a book that I read quite a few years ago, which is called To Kill a Mockingbird, and it was written, I dunno, about 50, 60 years ago, but it's about topics that are relevant today about around prejudice and tensions within a community. And I just think it's such a great read, even it is that old and I think it just reminds you of some of the stuff that's going on today. So if anybody hasn't read it, I would say it's a good read.

And tell me your favorite holiday destination.

Do you know? It's quite interesting. I have just come back from Japan, so literally last week. And although, so I love the states, I love America, but actually Japan is going up there on the list at the moment. So just such a different culture, different perspective on life and just some amazing scenery. And we were there for the cherry blossom, which is fantastic. Did you go on the

Bullet train? Did you go on the bullet train?

We did, yeah. Again, bullet train, every nine minutes on the dot, no delays, perfect service. So yeah, very different. Very different. Yeah, we

Love it there. It's one of my husband's favorite destinations for skiing as well. So obviously living in Asia, we were very lucky to go there several times. So yeah. Brilliant. And tell me, if you wrote a biography about a biography, what would you call it?

That's a good question. So I think I would call it something like being brave. So I think for me, auditing is about being brave and is about having those difficult conversations. And through my career, I've taken the opportunities where they came my way sometimes with a deep breath thinking, is this the right thing? But it's generally worked out and it might have been tough, but actually it was the right thing to do. So I think being brave would be a good one.

Lovely. Well look, thank you very much for your time today and I look forward to seeing you soon.

Thanks Jose. It's nice to talk. Okay, bye. Bye.