Lead Technical Audit

Northwestern Mutual • Milwaukee, WI

10d • $108,160 - $186,600 • Hybrid

About The Position

As a member of the Corporate Audit Department, this position supports the operations of the company’s internal audit department including leading audits, supporting efforts that mature audit operations procedures, supporting regulatory exam requests and interviews, providing department training, and supporting the department’s reporting to various internal stakeholders and external parties, including senior management, corporate committees, Board audit committees, and external industry groups.

Requirements

• Experience executing audit engagement and/or assurance reviews; knowledge of internal audit methodology, procedures & tools.
• Undergraduate degree (accounting, economics, business, or other relevant)
• Minimum of eight years of experience in audit, compliance, data analysis, or related business operations.
• Strong analytical and decision making skills.
• Demonstrated leadership skills and ability to lead others without direct authority, influencing a broad audience to adopt a particular strategy or direction.
• Strong project management skills with the ability to lead or manage corporate wide audit projects or process improvement initiatives with a high degree of self-motivation and initiative.
• Ability to negotiate and build consensus in a way that enables groups of people with diverse perspectives to accept a majority or common conclusion.
• Ability to adapt to change, deal with ambiguity, and adjust (his/her) work to meet changing needs and information.
• Proven ability to build rapport and exercise tact, diplomacy, and understanding of internal customers.
• Experience coaching and mentoring employees or previous experience as a people manager.
• Experience preparing reports for senior management, including use of PowerPoint.
• Demonstrated interpersonal, oral, and written communication skills.
• Knowledge of industry and regulatory practices within internal audit departments, financial services preferred.
• Advanced PowerPoint and Excel skills, PowerBI, Tableau or other data visualizations experience a plus.

Nice To Haves

• CPA, CIA, CIDA, CFE preferred or willingness to obtain.

Responsibilities

• Technical expert in Retail Investments and Compliance, Institutional Investments, or Insurance Business Operations and serves as a resource for Internal Audit staff and business partners on risks and controls in area of expertise.
• Leads audits and consultations by scanning for and assessing risks of a given area, documenting controls, developing testing plans to address the risks, executing on high risk testing, reviewing testing performed by staff, and drafting issues and reports.
• Assesses risks posed by business area and assesses the frequency and depth of future audits.
• Coordinate and lead integrated operational and IT audits by aligning business process objectives with supporting technology controls, partnering with IT audit specialists to assess key risks, and ensuring end‑to‑end coverage across people, process, and systems within a regulated mutual life insurance environment.
• Leverage approved artificial intelligence and advanced analytics tools to enhance audit planning, risk identification, testing efficiency, and insight generation across retail investment operations, while exercising professional judgment and ensuring outputs are used responsibly, transparently, and in compliance with company policy and regulatory expectations.
• Manages audits and projects to ensure budgets and timelines are established and adhered to and monitors staff assigned to project to ensure objectives are met.
• Communicates the audit process, objectives, timing, and outcome to business partners, senior management and where appropriate to entity audit committees and boards.
• Contributes to continuous improvement efforts, leads change management efforts, and supports new and on-going training efforts.
• Provides mentoring, training, and feedback to staff in area of expertise, audit technical matters, and for personal development.
• Supports the department’s executive level reporting, including developing presentation material and regular updates to the Chief Audit Executive on the status of audit issue resolution.
• Demonstrates or develops an appropriate level of organizational, regulatory, and business knowledge.
• Establishes and maintains strong, collaborative relationships within the department and with our business contacts.
• Performs special projects in the department that arise.

Benefits

• Grow your career with a best-in-class company that puts our clients' interests at the center of all we do.
• Northwestern Mutual is an equal opportunity employer that welcomes talented individuals of all backgrounds.
• We are committed to creating and maintaining an environment in which each employee can contribute creative ideas, seek challenges, assume leadership and continue to focus on meeting and exceeding business and personal objectives.
• At Northwestern Mutual, we believe relationships are built on trust.
• That our lives and our work matter.
• These beliefs launched our company over 160 years ago.
• Today, they're just a few of the reasons why people choose to build careers at Northwestern Mutual.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior