Interview: Peter Elam, president of the Chartered IIA

Remote working is nothing new for Peter Elam, the new president of the Chartered IIA. He has been living and working across borders for the past 20 years – it was this flexibility that got him into internal audit in the first place. And once he tried it, he “caught the bug”, he says.

Like many other internal auditors, Elam never set out to work in internal audit. After gaining a degree in history and modern languages and an MPhil in Russian and East European studies at Oxford University, he became a chartered management accountant and only moved into internal audit because the role he was offered enabled him to live in Hungary while working across Europe.

Having committed to the role, he decided to take the Chartered IIA qualification because “I wanted to see how we were supposed to do this job,” he explains. “The important thing about  professional training is that it situates your work in a wider context,” he adds. “It enables you to see opportunities and ideas about how you could do things differently. It makes you more flexible, which is a great asset in any line of work.”

At the time, he worked for Shell, which was going through a well-publicised governance crisis about oil and gas reserves accounting. This made it a fascinating time to join the internal audit team and provided immediate experience of practical audit work in the field.

“I found I had a natural affinity for internal audit,” Elam says. “I liked the adrenaline rush of getting to grips with something quickly and having to make rapid judgments on this information. When there’s a major crisis, you start to question everything – and each investigation tends to trigger further investigations. I loved that.”

He remained at Shell for several years, moving to be CFO in China with a focus on mergers and acquisitions and business development. However, he soon realised that he preferred internal audit. When he left the company, he had the choice of another CFO role or head of internal audit at Novartis. He chose Novartis and stayed in internal audit.

“For want of a better word, there is a ‘noble’ purpose in internal audit work because you are genuinely trying to figure out what could be done better and helping people who run the company to improve things,” he explains. “These improvements are not for the benefit of the auditors, but for the whole organisation.”

On the agenda

Elam started working with the Chartered IIA at central level after a conversation with the then president and CEO at an IIA Global conference. It was not the first time he had volunteered as a non-executive – he had been on the board of the local fire brigade while working in Rotterdam and he enjoyed the variety and “being involved”.

He was immediately surprised and impressed by the large number of volunteers who give their time and energy to help the Chartered IIA, as well as the commitment, knowledge and professionalism of the staff who make sure that it operates smoothly. He got to know these volunteers even better when he became deputy president.

Elam is likely to have plenty of opportunities to use the business expertise accrued over years in management in the next two years. “The institute is facing challenges – like others, our business model has been threatened by COVID-19 and we’ve had to rethink our growth strategy,” he says. “My first priority as president is to see that we’re on a sustainable track, because if we aren’t we won’t be able to achieve what we need to.”

Rapid responses to lockdowns have led to significant changes over the past year. These now need to be consolidated and built upon. “The executives have done excellent work to pivot and to reposition what the institute does and find new ways to deliver value to members – the Chartered IIA is offering many more meetings, events and forums for members than it did before COVI-19,” Elam points out. “In this way we have actually benefitted from the fact that everyone now works online. It’s easier for people based across the UK and Ireland, or working worldwide, to attend events virtually than it ever was to gather together physically.”

His second priority is to capitalise on “the excellent work that the institute has done, and continues to do”, with its Internal Audit Code of Practice for the Private and Third Sectors and Financial Services Code. Third, he is keen to build on work to attract talent and to make the profession more diverse and fit for the future. In his current role as group head of risk management and business assurance at Anglo American, he is also the diversity and inclusion lead for the group finance function, so this is a key theme for him.

Infinite variety

“Internal audit is at heart about bringing in a different perspective and, therefore, teams should be diverse in background and experience,” he says. “We have a remit to be critical and to challenge management to think about different ways of doing things, so the more opportunities we have to harness a variety of views and a broad perspective, the better.”

This is why internal auditors need to spread the message about what the profession can offer to attract people with more diverse backgrounds. Not least, it can give people the experience and insights they need to rotate back into the business in management positions – “and that’s a good thing for them, the business and audit,” he says.

Diversity has become even more important during the Covid crisis, because the risks and responsibilities exacerbated by the virus and lockdowns have affected different parts of society unequally – women, for instance, have taken on more home-schooling. “We must focus more on what we need to do and on our measures of success for diversity,” Elam says. The Chartered IIA has, for example, set up a Women in Internal Audit group. However, he adds: “You can do lots of good things, but if real and substantial barriers remain then the results won’t change significantly. If one person is running a flat race and the other has to jump hurdles, who will win?”

So how he will measure progress at the end of his two-year term? Elam says that he’d like to see the Chartered IIA in a healthy financial position with sufficient liquid reserves, wholesale take-up of both internal audit codes of practice and real growth in membership.

When it comes to succession planning, he’s keen to get more members involved. “Just get in touch,” he advises. “Don’t worry too much about the time commitment. We want to hear more from younger people. If you are keen to join in, we will try to find a way for you to do it.”

He knows from experience that there is much they will gain in return. “Heads of internal audit deal with boards and when you sit on one yourself you understand better how they think and work,” he says. “It’s different from what you imagine on the outside. Above all, it’s good to know you can do something and have a positive influence. That’s hugely rewarding.” 

This article was first published in March 2021.