Senior Internal Auditor

The Senior Internal Auditor is the in-charge of an audit. You plan it against the risk assessment, brief and supervise the team, run the opening and closing meetings, and own the report that goes forward to the Audit Committee pack. Where the Internal Auditor is accountable for a process area, the Senior is accountable for a conclusion about a business.

The hardest part of the seat is rarely technical. It is holding a defensible position with a senior process owner who disagrees with a rating, while keeping the relationship intact for the next cycle. Functions in Singapore judge Seniors largely on whether their findings land — accepted, remediated and closed — rather than on how many were raised.

Regional scope is common at this level: leading fieldwork across Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam or China entities from a Singapore base, often with local teams whose control maturity varies widely. That variation is what makes the seat a credible preparation for management.

Where this sits: the third rung of the Internal Audit & Risk pathway, between Internal Auditor and Internal Audit Manager. The equivalent practice-side seat is Audit Assistant Manager, and the common finance-side exit is Assistant Finance Manager in the Accounting pathway.

• Plan and lead assigned audits end to end, from risk-based scoping through to the issued report.
• Supervise and review the work of executives and auditors, and coach on evidence and writing standards.
• Run opening, progress and closing meetings with process owners at director level.
• Own the audit report: findings, ratings, overall conclusion and the agreed management action plan.
• Lead regional fieldwork across Southeast Asia entities, adapting the approach to local control maturity.
• Design analytics routines that can be reused across entities and audit cycles.
• Support investigations and whistleblowing follow-up where independence and discretion are required.
• Contribute materially to the annual risk assessment and to Audit Committee reporting material.

• A degree in accountancy, business, finance or information systems.
• Four to seven years of internal or external audit experience, including in-charge responsibility.
• Demonstrated ownership of an issued report and of a contested finding held at director level.
• CIA, CA (Singapore) or ACCA completed; CISA where the function has an IT audit remit.
• Practical analytics capability and the ability to standardise routines across entities.
• Regional travel availability and comfort operating across differing control cultures.

• Lead with an audit you owned. Scope, team, conclusion and what management actually changed afterwards.
• Defend a rating. Describe a finding a director pushed back on and how the position was resolved on evidence.
• Show regional judgement. Explain how you adapted an approach where local control maturity was weak.
• Demonstrate coaching. A Senior is assessed on the quality of the team's papers, not only their own.
• Ask about the plan's independence. Whether management can remove audits from the plan reveals the function's real standing.