Interview: Dev Daworaz - A&R Awards 2019 Best Newcomer

Dev Daworaz was not looking to change jobs. He enjoyed his role in the banking and capital markets team at Deloitte in London. No project was the same and he found it challenging and stimulating. But when a potential job in internal audit at Deutsche Bank landed on his desk he was intrigued enough to go for a meeting with the team.

He was instantly hooked, by the people and by the role. “I was always interested in risks, controls, compliance and regulation, however, the scope of this role focused more on conduct regulation and MiFID II. I thought it was exciting, given the increasing regulatory focus on conduct risk,” he recalls. “I realised that I could still focus on risk and control and develop my knowledge of conduct risk while helping to protect the bank from risks and making it better and stronger.”

He already had qualifications in accounting and risk management in investment banking, but the senior management team in group audit at Deutsche Bank supported personal development, so he decided to qualify as an internal auditor. Not only did he achieve this aim, but he encouraged colleagues to do the same – and went on to win the Audit & Risk Award for Best Newcomer in 2019.

“Doing the qualification informed me about why we do what we do. We all know the internal audit charter, but the qualification explained what the Standards are, why we do certain things and why the charter says what it says,” he explains. “I found that understanding the Standards and principles of internal audit justified why we do things and this really helps if you spot a weakness or control gap somewhere. If you need to challenge something you can say ‘I am guided by the auditing Standards and by the auditing principles’. In some contexts, it’s important to know why you do things to ensure that you are fully competent and adequately resourced to do what’s necessary, rather than just what is laid out in the audit scope.”

Despite his previous experience, he found the syllabus challenging, but relevant at every level of his work. “Even at a junior level you can be contributing to all aspects of the audit, from sampling and scoping to resourcing and testing. The qualification is a mix of common sense and theory, which is really helpful whether you are new to the practical side of the role or already have experience but want to understand it better,” he says.

Daworaz also became interested in the value of a robust quality assessment process and the importance of creating a consistent evidence trail. “I had a good overall understanding of how internal audit in a bank operated, but as a contractor I had never done any internal audit quality assessment. Now I was involved in all parts of the role, from planning to execution and sign off. I realised that even though we had a clear internal audit methodology and I was sure we were doing it all, it would be possible to miss things out, for example, because of time pressure,” he explains. “I created an audit checklist so that the audit team could easily see whether everything had been covered in every audit and that it was all clearly documented.” This checklist has since been widely adopted and is used in most audits by the team.

Shared experiences

Sharing knowledge and expertise was already important to Daworaz at Deloitte and he soon found out about Deutsche Bank’s CSR “volunteering and giving” community programme. He now contributes to three schemes sponsored by the bank, much of this in his own time.

The first of these is “Working in the City”, a scheme to raise aspirations and create access and opportunities in financial services for schoolchildren. The second is the Pathway to Banking programme, run by Deutsche Bank, Boston Consulting Group and Sutton Trust, that supports high-achieving students from low- and middle-income backgrounds in state schools who want careers in banking and finance. He also mentors refugees – at the moment in Germany, but he recently signed up to another mentoring project in the UK.

“I wouldn’t be here today, and I wouldn’t have progressed in my job in the way I have done, without help from many people,” he says. “The least I can do is to invest my time in helping others to progress as well.”

In addition to these projects, he is also a school governor and is discussing with his line manager the possibility of becoming a magistrate, which is a long-term process and commitment. “I feel it’s my duty and my responsibility to do what I can, in some form, for the community,” he says.

Challenges ahead

Rapid changes in technology and in the external environment mean that Daworaz has no fear of running out of challenges. “It could take a decade to master the existing challenges in the compliance and conduct space and there are a lot of new developments to keep on top of as well,” he explains.

This year he will lead a global surveillance-related Suspicious Transactions and Order Report audit and potentially another global audit. In addition, he is co-leading a project to create a designated market activities risk calculator that will help to automate the related risk assessment process.

“I’m interested in how we can use data analytics better across all our audits and automate our processes, testing and risk assessment,” he says. “Whatever we create should not only make sense to us and our immediate team, but should increase efficiency and make these risk assessments simpler and easier for the principal audit managers and their teams.”

Winning the Audit & Risk Award was a bonus, he adds. “The most important thing was that the nomination showed the trust that my line manager and colleagues had in me,” he says. “It demonstrated I was a valued member of the team and the feedback and endorsements from principal audit managers across other teams and country heads made me feel that the work I do is valued and useful. When I won, it was the cherry on the cake.”

The award led to job offers (that he declined) and to personal congratulations from senior management. He says it made him feel more valued and visible and gave him a “platform”. “It’s such a reward for doing an amazing job,” he says. “I feel that I’m now being pulled into other teams and projects for support and help more, but the main thing was the recognition I got from within group audit.”

He tells mentees that internal auditors have unrestricted access to everything in the bank – which gives them power, but also responsibility and accountability. “It provides exposure to the entire business of the bank in a way that no other function or role can. It’s up to you how far you go, how much you learn and what you choose to do with it.” 

This article was published in May 2021.