Technology Controls Manager (AI & Analytics) in Birmingham

Strengthening the Smiths Group internal control environment is a priority for management and the Board. The Group Internal Controls team was established to address key finance control priorities and controls over the IT environment which include both general IT and segregation of duties controls.

Collectively, this has driven a group-wide internal controls transformation and enhancement programme to support the business meet requirements in readiness for UK Corporate Reform ("UK SOX"). The scope of the programme includes implementing and embedding a standardised financial and IT control framework, enabling this through a group-wide technology platform, executing the annual Internal Controls testing plan, and driving remediation in a pragmatic way identifying opportunities to standardise and automate processes to enable enhanced standards to be achieved efficiently and sustainability.

This is a high-profile role within the business. The ideal candidate is comfortable in operating in an environment where there isn't a pre-existing "playbook", putting their experience into practice to closely work with the Smiths business to achieve practical, pragmatic and sustainable improvements in internal controls. The role holder will work closely with the IT function (BIS), divisional and site IT teams, and external stakeholders (e.g., consultants and external auditors) in advancing the organisation's use of AI & Analytics tools to meet control requirements and implement all the tools, techniques, and resources to ensure these are met sustainably. The ideal candidate for this position will have prior experience of delivering AI & Analytics solutions in the internal audit and internal control fields for a large corporation or as a consultant with a top-tier practice firm. In addition, they will have experience designing and implementing General IT and automated controls leveraging technology, standardisation, and continuous improvement. You will master excellent AI and data analytics skills, hold a qualification with CISA/CISM or similar and preferably be a qualified accountant (ACA/ACCA) with experience with external audit. If you have experience with internal control programmes within a SOX environment that will be highly desirable.

Responsibilities

AI & Analytics

• Identify and implement AI & Analytics opportunities to strengthen controls, leverage technologies to help the business achieve compliance efficiently, and improve the speed and quality of monitoring and reporting by the Internal Controls team. This will include: Developing and deploying analytics scripts and solutions (e.g., Python and ACL) to automate reviews (e.g., flagging exceptions and facilitating resolution), also leveraging continuous control monitoring capabilities of the Diligent platform, and further customise Diligent robotics to evolving needs (handover from Diligent developers will be provided).
• Identifying, designing, and implementing AI solutions to educate and train the business on regulatory and internal policy requirements, and streamline reviews by analysing large, complex datasets against predefined expectations.
• Identify and implement opportunities for standardising and automating templates used for control performance to facilitate the use of AI to review control information contained in standard templates.
• Designing and implementing dashboards to effectively visualise control information. The ideal candidate will have excellent data visualisation experience, enabling them to effectively collate data to convey key messages to different stakeholders within the organisation. This will include: Utilising the Diligent Activity Center to create dashboards and workflows within our internal controls software.
• Working with the Data Service team to improve the quality of existing dashboards used for internal controls reporting and support evolving reporting requirements (e.g., overview of internal control effectiveness based on latest assurance activity to support the internal controls declaration as per UK Corporate Reform).
• Integrating assurance data from Internal Audit and Internal Controls to provide a total assurance overview to Senior Management and the Board.
• Manage the relationship with internal and external stakeholders supporting the AI & Analytics efforts.
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General IT Controls

• Collaborate and communicate effectively with a wide network of stakeholders both internal (across the divisions and Group functions) and external audit to ensure effective two-way flow of information. This will include identifying opportunities to streamline the GITC external audit and incorporate AI & Analytics aspects of the external audit into our ways of working, with a view to extend good practice to financial audit.
• Drive control design and implementation for general IT controls with the goal of automating through AI & Analytics. This will include conducting compliance review to verify that established procedures are consistently adhered to.
• Drive change