View from the top: Innovation - building a new internal audit team from scratch

The name NEOM is a combination of the Greek and Arabic words “NEO” and “Mustaqabal” to form NEOM – “New Future”. When I was first approached to take on the role of Chief Internal Audit Officer at NEOM, the initial challenge was simply to comprehend the scale and breadth of the ambition.

NEOM is a cornerstone of VISION 2030, which sets bold targets and plans for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). The objective is to develop a new economic and industrial zone in an area the size of Belgium in the north west of the Kingdom. There will be 14 industry sectors, each developed differently – 95% of the land will be nature reserve, all energy will be renewable and there will be no cars. NEOM is within a four-hour flight for 40% of the world’s population, and 13% of global trade passes by the deep water port being developed at Oxagon, via the Red Sea and Suez Canal.

I arrived in KSA in August 2020, in the middle of the Covid crisis, tasked with developing the internal audit vision, strategy and team to support this ambitious project. The traditional internal audit playbooks were not fit for purpose here – we had to be bold and innovative. The opportunity to build on the experience I had gained as Chief Audit and Risk Officer at Tesco and, before this, as a partner at Deloitte, was daunting but exciting.

In 2020, NEOM already employed people from over 60 countries and this figure has since risen to almost 100. Establishing trust with colleagues who have a variety of perspectives on the value and role of internal audit was essential. Sir Dave Lewis, former CEO of Tesco, had turned me into an evangelist for the power of trust and transparency to help teams grow, prosper and deliver at speed.

And speed was vital because the ambition and pace of NEOM drives a delivery culture. Two data points show the scale of this ambition – NEOM will source over 150 million tonnes of structural steel (enough for 221 Eiffel Towers) and, at its peak, NEOM will employ over 300,000 construction workers.

From day one, NIA was clear that its purpose is “to protect NEOM”. Wherever possible, this must be done as partners – not to catch people out. We are there to guide and be the conscience of the business wherever needed. In the early months, developing a team that listened more than it talked and focused on helping rather than assuring was key.

This commitment to transparency was one of two pillars of success in the first three years. The second was the prioritisation of talent development in every decision. Vision 2030 set clear ambitions for KSA to develop young talent and it is at the heart of the NIA strategy and vision. We are developing the next generation of KSA business talent, not “just” internal auditors. All our strategic and operational decisions have “skills/capability/development” as a lens to inform the decision.

One example of this is our “wise owl” model of co-sourcing, which involves bringing global experts into NIA on a contractual basis to help us develop our talent rapidly. Peter Terium, former CEO of RWE leads our energy business ENOWA. I also brought in a retired head of programme assurance at EY (then PwC), who had extensive experience in the energy sector, for a set number of days. The business benefited and it had an immense impact on the development of young KSA talent.

In 2023 we were shortlisted in both the Outstanding Apprentice and Best Innovation in Training and Development categories of the Audit & Risk Awards and we attended the Chartered IIA’s Awards event in London. In both categories, we were runners up to Lloyds Banking Group, which was established 300 years ago. This was an incredibly proud moment for NEOM and for NIA. It shows how much progress and value can be delivered at speed with the right approach.

Our nominee for Outstanding Apprentice, Omar Almoallim, is now on secondment to McLaren in its Technology and Analytics team. This year we will also begin developing a Center of Excellence for Data Analytics with NEOM GRC.

NIA has grown from one to 80 people in three years, and 30 of these are KSA graduates. Almost half (46%) of the team are women and we have developed resilience and wellbeing programmes to drive both psychological safety and performance. We are on track to support our first 60 qualified professionals and have identified our first KSA Head of Audit for a trading subsidiary – Saiel AlMutari at Tonomus.

We have come such a long way already, but, with the launch of the NEOM Investment Fund (NIF) and new offices opening in London and New York, there is still much more to look forward to.

This article was published in January 2024.