People Powers – the winner of the 2024 Inspirational Leader Award
Providing strong leadership is never easy, but when you need to make changes and shift culture, the challenges are multiplied. This is why Vanessa Swanton, winner of the A&R Inspirational Leader Award in 2024, believes that people skills and bringing people along with you are crucial not just to her story, but to the future of the internal audit profession.
Her skills in this area enabled her to lead her team through a three-year strategic plan and culture shift that increased staff engagement scores from 40% to 90% and earned the team a glowing EQA report and outstanding endorsements from team members and TSB Bank’s chief executive. Two of her team have since been promoted into first- and second-line leadership roles and, she says, her team is now viewed as a talent source as well as a career destination.
At the same time, Swanton and her team have played a key role to improve the risk and control culture across the business and demonstrate how risk culture works in practice. They have identified three key risk behaviours – ownership, transparency and proactivity – and now report on how these are being demonstrated by individual senior leaders and risk owners. “This has really helped to drive cultural understanding and change through the bank,” she says.
The embedding of risk behaviours has also been supported by the team’s coaching of business leaders to help them to understand what proportionate risk management looks like and how this can be built into everyday work and decision-making.
For Swanton, being shortlisted was a bigger shock than winning – since she had no idea she had been nominated by her colleagues.
“It was lovely to be nominated. I never anticipated it and when I saw the quotes from my team I was incredibly touched,” she says. “You may believe yourself to be a certain kind of leader, but these quotes made me really proud.”
She was aware of the awards, having nominated one of her team, Denise Nuttall, for the Rising Star Award. Nuttall also won, so the team had double celebrations. “It is a tangible acknowledgement that we have put people strategy at the heart of everything we do and made this the driver for being more effective and efficient,” she adds.
Continuous improvement
The journey was not always easy. When Swanton started at TSB four years ago, she inherited a team that had been stable for several years and needed updating. Change created excitement, but also uncertainty. “We went back to basics and asked: What do we do well? What needs to improve? What would we like to improve? What’s important to do now?” Swanton explains. “One important issue was to embed a culture of continuous improvement – if we don’t role model the behaviour we want to see, how can we expect the business to do it? “Continuous development is vital for the future of our function and for TSB.”
People skills were fundamental to building and maintaining relationships within the team and across the business. “Internal auditors must be current, knowledgeable, balanced and pragmatic, and this drives the quality of the relationships we have with management and each other,” Swanton says.
One early task was to create new performance objectives and personal development plans. These helped to reinforce the team’s new mantra of “what does TSB need from me and how can I best deliver that?”
Adding value
TSB’s internal audit function comprises 45 people, and historically all new recruits were experienced internal auditors. Swanton wanted to increase diversity of thought and experience so set a goal of building a team with at least 10% recruited from non-internal-audit backgrounds. Denise Nuttall arrived as part of this initiative. She had years of experience in the business managing branches, but none in internal audit. Since joining the team, she has studied for her CIA designation and has since been promoted.
“We tell the business that just because something has always been done this way, doesn’t make it the best way for now or for the future. We therefore need to do this in the internal audit function as well,” Swanton says.
Her next step was to introduce an Insights and Intelligence role to the function, with a brief to underpin the drive for continuous improvement, and make the team more efficient and effective, while also providing insight which drives tangible business benefit. The team has a remit to scan the whole business to identify opportunities for using data analytics and technology differently and share best practice across functions.
Although improving the team’s use of data analytics was important, Swanton does not believe that technology replaces human auditing skills. “We need to embed data analytics in our processes, but we still need people to understand the critical context – whether findings are material, how we communicate them and how we engage the business to understand the need to develop and change,” she says.
“We must constantly look for new ways to support the business – not just to improve the internal audit function,” Swanton adds. Key to this is a relationship where senior executives frequently call on internal audit because they are confident they will get a constructive, useful conversation, opinions and insights.
Skills for the future
Swanton believes the future of the profession depends on attracting capable people with transferable skills, who draw on diverse viewpoints and experiences. A new induction process emphasises the relationship-building role of internal audit, in addition to technical audit skills.
“Interpersonal skills that enable internal auditors to interpret data and help stakeholders understand what matters and apply these findings pragmatically will become ever more crucial,” she says. “Moving internal auditors into operational management roles is fantastic for us because it introduces people who understand controls and critical thinking into the top of the business. We need cross-fertilisation of ideas into and out of internal audit.”
It also gives senior internal auditors more opportunities to progress their careers than is possible within the internal audit function alone, while retaining their skills and knowledge in the business. This in turn motivates others, Swanton says.
Swanton is TSB’s Executive Sponsor of Gender Balance and has led activities for International Women’s Day and hosted events to encourage women from diverse backgrounds into banking. She is also involved in TSB’s mentoring programme, Aspiring Women’s Network and apprenticeship schemes.
“Having a good culture is about being direct and honest,” she adds. “We’re having lots of conversations about what TSB need us to be and do by 2030.” By starting these conversations now, she hopes to develop changes gradually, so they feel like evolution rather than revolution.
The team also draws on support from a co-source agreement with EY, which Swanton says has been an invaluable partnership for providing specialist skills they choose not to maintain on the permanent headcount, for helping develop new skills in the team and providing a critical external perspective and insight
Leadership
For Swanton, the desire to bring people with you and to know your people is key to leadership. “It’s important to start any conversation by asking if people are ok, because you won’t get anywhere if you don’t understand and address problems,” she says. “If you genuinely care about individuals, you inspire them to care about others. And if you don’t care about the support you provide to the business, then why are you here?”
Honesty can be tough. “It’s essential to treat people like grown-ups. It’s in my interest that people are happy and working well, but to get that, you must be prepared to have hard conversations. It’s not easy, but it’s incredibly rewarding,” she says.
She admits that in her early career she sometimes put processes before people, but she soon learnt that conversations didn’t always go the way she wanted. She says she was fortunate to work for people who showed her there were better ways to do things.
She also credits having a supportive CEO and chair of the audit committee. “It’s not about having friends as a leader. It’s about having constructive and strong relationships,” she says.
A&R Awards
Swanton’s Inspirational Leader Award and Denise Nuttall’s Rising Star Award were celebrated at TSB with notices on the bank’s intranet and praised by the audit committee and by the executive committee. Their success was further shared with TSB’s Spanish parent company.
“It’s seen to have a real value and benefit for the whole bank,” Swanton says. “We’re a small team in the business and in the sector, so we were amazed to be recognised.” She would strongly advise others to enter in future.
“Just knowing you’ve been nominated by peers and management is a powerful statement and makes you feel privileged,” she says. “Reading people’s comments supporting the nomination was amazing and inspiring.”
What people said
“Through her supportive, yet challenging approach, [Vanessa] has developed a significant influence through our board committees and executive committee. She role models a balanced opinion which has engaged her colleagues and built powerful and trusting relationships.
Where Vanessa excels is in her proportionate and pragmatic risk-based approach combined with a sharp commercial awareness. This breadth of view and consideration has resulted in a significant influence over the executive team, which has helped inject pace into our maturing risk and control environment across TSB.”
Robin Bullock, CEO, TSB
“An exceptional role model for our profession, she is trusted, respected and, above all, a wonderful people person. That is the quality which truly sits with me – her devotion and care for her team.”
Gareth Lewis, Deputy Chief Audit Officer and Head of Operations
“I’ve really appreciated the time and insight that Vanessa has provided through our regular ‘walk and talks’. Vanessa shares her expertise, but also her caring nature while supporting my development. This inspires me to be a great leader and pay it forward to others now and in the future.”
Kate McKnight, Senior Audit Manager
“She frequently solicits feedback and facilitates free and open discussions among the team, acting upon suggestions given. This creates feelings of inclusivity and belonging that feels more authentic than any other workplace I have experienced, due to the entire team having a voice regarding the running of the team.”
Beth Watson, Auditor
“Having moved into internal audit from the branch network two years ago, with no previous audit experience, Vanessa has been instrumental in providing an opportunity for me to develop a career in audit.”
Denise Nutall, Auditor
“She brings out the best in us, motivating us to stretch and strive for excellence.”
Jo Kisiel, Personal Assistant
Nominations for the next Audit & Risk Awards open in November.