Regional Assurance and Advisory Director - East Africa Region at World Vision Kenya

Key Responsibilities:

Strategic Leadership, Oversight & Stakeholder Engagement - 40%

• Provide strategic oversight of assurance and advisory services across the region, engaging Regional and Field Office (FO) leadership and FO Boards through Audit & Risk Committees (ARCs).
• Oversee development and execution of a risk-based audit plan and budget aligned to strategic and operational risks in consultation with the Global, Regional, and National Leadership.
• Periodically present audit results, trends, and emerging risks to ARCs and regional leadership.
• In partnership with the Regional Audit Managers, represent GAA on ARC meetings and key regional governance bodies.
• Advise management on governance, risk, and control matters.
• Collaborate with other assurance providers to advance the aligned assurance model.

Promote and Ensure the GAA Regional Team’s High Performance - 20%

• Provide strategic leadership and oversight of the performance framework for the regional assurance and advisory team, ensuring that Senior Regional Audit Managers (SRAMs), Regional Audit Managers (RAMs), and audit staff consistently deliver high-quality, risk-based assurance and advisory services.
• Ensure the performance framework is aligned with evolving global best practices, the Global Internal Audit Standards (GIAS), the IIA Code of Ethics, GAA’s Charter, and WVI’s operational context.
• Champion a culture of continuous improvement by identifying capability gaps and supporting the development of technical, analytical, and communication skills across the regional team.
• Enhance the team’s ability to deliver impactful, forward-looking assurance and advisory reviews that address strategic priorities, operational risks, and organizational transformation initiatives.
• Strengthen internal stakeholder engagement by fostering trusted relationships, ensuring effective communication of audit value, and promoting transparency and responsiveness.
• Monitor and evaluate the team’s performance against key performance indicators (KPIs), drive accountability for results, and lead timely course corrections to improve impact and effectiveness.

Promote and Ensure High Quality Assurance & Advisory Services - 20%

• Evaluate and communicate to Global and Regional Leadership and the local ARCs the collective outcomes of engagements and follow-ups performed by the internal audit activity. Assess the impact of residual risk; communicate management's acceptance of risk to Senior Management and the Board.
• Recommend improvements to the organisation's Global, Regional and Field Office governance policies, processes, structures, overall control environment, risk management strategy, strategic planning process, organisational behaviour, performance management measures and techniques and recommend actions to address risks related to the organisation's business processes.
• Maintain and promote the highest conformance and ethical standards for GAA and promptly resolve any Quality Assurance or Peer Review areas for improvement
• Implement and continually improve the monitoring, follow-up and reporting of audit finding remediation.

Drive Innovation - 20%

• Continually drive and assess innovation/ improvement in GAA Regional Team’s written and verbal communication skills, soft skills, and projects.
• Partner with WVI leadership on organisational change initiatives in an advisory capacity and provide early input on governance, risk management and controls.
• Be alert to the work of and drive collaboration with other assurance providers.

Key Skills and Experience:

• Bachelor's Degree in Finance, Business Administration, Internal Audit or similar; MBA is a plus.
• Certified Internal Auditor (CIA) or CPA and/or Chartered Financial Accountant or equivalent
• At least ten (10) years of internal audit experience, preferably in a "Big 4" firm or large multinational, at least 5 of which should be at a senior manager/director level.
• Proven track record of relationship building at the senior level (Executive leadership, Audit and Risk Committees and Boards)
• Proven experience in risk-based internal audit;
• The ability to think strategically, make sense of complexity and apply "systems thinking".
• Strong business acumen and understanding of functional linkages.
• Ability to interact with and/or manage cross-functional teams (e.g. Operations/ Finance/ Safeguarding/ WASH);
• Effectively and independently lead diverse teams for success
• Strong commitment to quality and consistency of work, and to continuously drive improvements
• Highly developed written and verbal communication skills in English, excellent soft skills, and ability to motivate and influence all levels of management;
• Solid interpersonal skills, including listening, relationship building and the ability to influence at the highest levels in the organisation.
• Excellent MS Office skills (Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Visio).
• A high standard of written and verbal English is essential.
• Ability and willingness to travel domestically and internationally up to 30% of the time. 

Preferred Experience:

• Cross-cultural experience in INGOs, experience in using Audit Software, Embedded Audit Tools/Techniques, Strategy Implementation Basic IT Audit and Fraud Investigation (CFE is a plus) Data mining & analytics, including financial and trend analysis Fluency in one or more of French, or Portuguese is a plus.