Human focus: Kris Wallace on winning the A&R Award for Inspirational Leader

Kris Wallace was unaware that his team at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) had nominated him for the Audit & Risk Award for Inspirational Leader. When he found out he had been shortlisted, he tried to convince everyone that he had no chance of winning. His team and the chair of the IFRC’s Audit and Risk Commission thought otherwise – they were right.

Nobody takes on a role at the largest humanitarian organisation in the world if they are afraid of sudden change and crisis management. However, most of these crises do not affect the operations of the aid providers worldwide. The Covid pandemic was a crisis of a different magnitude, affecting all the IFRC’s members in 192 countries, and the ability of its people to carry out urgently needed humanitarian work.

The internal audit team was also affected. When Wallace was appointed, he was in Scotland, while his newly restructured team was scattered across the globe and many of its members had never met in person. The IFRC worked swiftly to ensure that its staff could work remotely, but it was several months before Wallace could relocate his family to Geneva.

Furthermore, the IFRC’s then director of internal audit and investigations, who had recruited him to the role, left and was replaced by an interim director, who joined only a week before Wallace started. At the same time, a new IFRC leadership team was also in the process of being embedded.

The pandemic triggered the organisation’s largest ever crisis response, involving an appeal for over 2bn Swiss Francs (over £1.7bn) across the entire network of member Red Cross and Red Crescent organisations.

Team time

“The first question we asked is ‘how do we audit this response?’,” Wallace recalls. “We were about to start on the most ambitious audit programme the organisation had ever undertaken, and I first had to find out whether my team was ok – no one yet understood the real risks of Covid and everyone wanted to help. There was a real danger of burnout.”

The team members were spread across locations including Nairobi, Kuala Lumpur and Geneva, and several new people had joined in Switzerland and Turkey. They were in different time zones and facing varying local challenges. The chair of the Audit and Risk Commission, Kate Forbes, Wallace’s key governance contact, is based in Arizona, USA.

Wallace set up three formal “get togethers” each week and instigated a buddy system to ensure that everyone spoke to someone else regularly on a social basis. “Moving to a Teams platform not only helped us to interact better, but also meant that I could see when people were working late. I couldn’t force them to disconnect, but I could ensure that they were socialising as well as working,” Wallace explains.

The team moved to remote auditing and transformed the audit planning process and methodology. “We introduced a risk-based methodology and risk-based planning. This began before I joined, but it had not been embedded – risk-based auditing requires auditees to trust you and understand the benefits. It takes time to educate and gain the trust of management,” he says.

The team also introduced “rapid risks reviews” that offered managers a few key “suggestions” (rather than the more prescriptive-sounding “recommendations”) for improvements in just a few days.

“It’s all about the impact we have on the front line. Our assets are our people and our money. When a crisis happens, we run towards it, while everyone else is trying to get away. We need to know how we can move the people with the skills to the place where they are needed as fast as possible,” he says.

Diversity of thought

Wallace was keen to increase diversity of thought and lived experience in the internal audit team to help it generate innovations to support frontline work faster and more effectively. This would help him to engage with senior management and demonstrate the function’s value, while reassuring the board and Audit and Risk Commission that risk-based auditing was robust.

“Five years ago, this was a smaller team focused on compliance. We now have 18 people, who between them speak 11 languages, and 53 per cent of the team are women. Very shortly, the senior management team will also be gender balanced,” he says. “But what we are striving for is diversity of thought – to avoid ‘group think’ and ‘western rhetoric’. We need people with different life experiences, which is why I’ve looked for people in other sectors and regions. Once we find the right people, we can teach internal audit skills.”

To improve transparency, he prioritised quarterly internal audit presentations for donors and a full annual report summarising the function’s work and how it has benefited the organisation. He believes it is vital to talk directly to donors and management, because it helps to build relationships for the future.

“We have to reassure donors and managers and learn to ‘sell’ what we do to all kinds of different people,” he adds. “This also helps the team because seeing the difference that our work makes to real people in real situations is a huge motivator.”

Not only did Wallace convince management and Forbes that the team was on the right track, but explaining assurance to major donors has enabled the IFRC to access more complex funding sources. “If we tell a donor that, for example, putting an internal auditor into a country where they want to deliver aid will cost x thousand Swiss Francs for their salary, but will enable them to have this level of assurance over that money and what it is used for, then you give them transparency and a choice. The investment makes sense.” he explains.

Proactive action

Once travel was permitted, the internal audit team restarted field visits – which Wallace sees as essential, despite improvements in remote auditing capacity.

“Working days in the field are incredibly long – with meetings in the backs of Land Rovers and over meals – but it’s motivating to see what our work supports, and the relationships we build pay back later, when, for example, someone remembers a conversation they had with an internal auditor and requests our input,” Wallace explains.

“When we visit programmes building shelters or distributing cash to communities in need we view it independently. They will be passionate about what they are doing now, but we need to think about the long-term; is it sustainable and can it be done better? We are a critical friend. Our first question is always ‘What keeps you awake at night?’”

When people return from trips, however, they need time to recover. In the past, the IFRC generally faced three or four major crises each year. However, the war in Ukraine has followed hard on the heels of the pandemic and its consequences on oil prices, inflation and grain exports are exacerbating the threat of a widespread hunger crisis in Africa, caused by droughts. In addition, the team cannot neglect commitments to work that is still important, but no longer hits the headlines, for example, aid to Syrian refugees and work in Beirut following the explosion in its port in 2020.

Powered by people

Wallace emphasises that the team’s success in evolving, extending its influence and increasing its impact on the organisation’s frontline operations comes from the people around him. He sees one of his key roles as coordinating the immense talent around him and “selling” what they do to stakeholders.

“Kate Forbes, chair of the Audit Commission, has been wonderful. I met her in person for the first time in early 2022, but we spoke every week for two years. She has made my role possible and has been a mentor to me,” he says. “You learn leadership from those who mentor you. She has been my safe space and has helped me to build a strong team.”

In turn, Wallace set up a mentoring programme for potential leaders in his team. When he was promoted to director of internal audit and investigations, he empowered his two deputies,Danielle Eadie, head of internal audit, and Andre Caria, head of investigations. He encouraged them to use the resources of the Chartered IIA – in particular, the institute’s Aspire network, which he sees as a valuable resource for developing emerging internal audit talent.

“A concern for humanity must start with caring for your own team,” he says. “Most leaders get little formal training, so they need mentoring and to learn constantly from those around them.”

He has also introduced an “upward mentoring” scheme, based on his experience at DFID when a junior colleague pointed out that he was now distanced from audit delivery and offered some insights about the effect of his leadership on frontline staff. “This was incredibly brave and some things are hard to hear. It made me realise that you need a culture where it’s safe to give this kind of feedback and that good leaders leave their egos at the door,” Wallace says.

“Leadership is not static. Sometimes you have to be decisive – we had to move fast when the Ukraine crisis began – but at others you have to be inclusive. When you change roles, other people’s perceptions of you change. My natural style is directive, so I’ve had to learn to be more consultative.” A consultative leadership style requires transparency, otherwise people may see you as insincere or inconsistent, he adds.

Those who work for the IFRC tend to be motivated by the humanitarian aid the organisation delivers so motivation is less of a problem than ensuring they don’t overwork. Wallace recently had a conversation with a talented internal auditor who had been headhunted by a private sector organisation and offered a huge pay rise. He couldn’t match the pay, but could offer interesting audit projects and travel opportunities, and he discussed training and development options.“ Ultimately, their work makes the world a better place’ and that is why they stayed,” he says.

Wallace is not resting on his laurels. The team will continue to evolve – he is currently looking to embed internal audit teams in local aid programmes and in continuous monitoring roles to improve responses to interlinked crises. This will become ever more important as the focus moves to impending hunger crisis in Africa and the predicted implications of climate change.

“I love the way the job constantly evolves,” he says. “that’s why I get up in the morning and why I need fantastic people as deputies. The success of our function must never depend on any one person. It’s essential to develop the people coming into the profession to ensure that there is always someone who can take over. I say to people ‘I don’t mind if you leave, but please only leave for promotion’.”

Winning the award was wonderful “but it’s essential to give credit where it’s due. I rise and fall as a leader according to the quality of the team. This award is for the whole team and what they’ve achieved in the past two years.” 

This article was first published in September 2022.