Operations

Hire an internal audit and risk expert in Greece and Cyprus

Governance, controls and risk for a company that has outgrown trust as its control system: an audit function sized to you, controls that are tested, and a risk register the board actually uses.

Schedule a call How our vetting works

Many companies in Greece and Cyprus run on trust: the owner knows everyone and nothing has gone wrong yet. An internal audit and risk expert builds what trust used to do: an audit function sized to the company, tested controls and a risk register the board uses. The need usually arrives with:

Outside money: a fund, a lender or a listing that expects real controls
An acquisition that brought new entities, systems and people under one roof
A supervisor's expectations, for banks, insurers, investment firms and funds
A fraud or a near miss that showed where trust stops

The internal audit and risk experts on Hellenic Talent are elite professionals who have led internal audit at banks and insurers or run governance, risk and compliance practices at Big 4 firms. What they bring is practice, not legal services, and they say where their remit stops.

What does an internal audit and risk expert actually do?

Set up or co-source internal audit, with a charter and a plan the audit committee owns
Design and test the financial controls, each with a named owner and evidence
Build a risk register with a stated appetite, used in management meetings
Report to the audit committee: what was tested, what failed, what was fixed
Test the control environment before a sale, so the buyer finds no surprises
Redesign controls after an ERP change, when the old ones quietly stopped working

How to choose the right internal audit and risk expert

What to test in the first conversation, whoever you end up hiring.

Has run an audit plan
Has written a risk-based audit plan, taken it to an audit committee and reported against it over a full cycle.
Tests controls, not policies
Samples transactions to see whether a control actually operated, instead of reading the policy that describes it.
Reports above management
Answers to the audit committee or the owners, not to management, and has kept that line when pushed.