Hi, I'm Jan
I am currently a/the Engagement Professional at Adept Advisory
About Me
I am a CA(SA) with 25 years' experience in internal audit, internal financial controls, transformation assurance and process engineering, most of it in banking and financial services. I spent over 15 years in Absa Group Internal Audit, reporting to executive management and the Board Audit Committee. My work covered finance, banking operations and large change programmes, including the Barclays Integration and Separation, Digital Banking and Finance Transformation. I run engagements end-to-end, from planning and fieldwork through quality review, reporting and remediation of findings to closure. I currently contract through Adept Advisory. At MTN Group I performed internal audit and IFC work over Procure-to-Pay and Financial Reporting, and conducted Quality Assurance Reviews against IIA Standards. At Albany Bakeries I led a full process and controls review. Earlier in my career I worked at Deloitte in project risk services, at Standard Bank and IQ Business in business analysis and process engineering, and at KPMG in external audit. I apply data analytics in my audit work and build my own Power BI models and dashboards, using AI tools to accelerate development.
Industry Experience
Early Career Inspiration
Early in my career I made a deliberate choice to complete my articles at IQ Business because I wanted banking experience, not just a traditional audit background. That decision shaped everything that followed. My first years were spent in process engineering and business analysis, where I learned how a bank actually works, how processes are designed, where they break, and how decisions get made on the ground. When I later moved into internal audit at Absa and Deloitte, I realised that this operational grounding set me apart. I was not auditing from the outside in. I understood the processes I was reviewing because I had designed and improved processes myself. Over a 25 year career spanning process engineering, business analysis and internal audit, that has remained my inspiration: understand the business first, then assure it. It is the reason I still enjoy the work today.
Career Highlights
Skills & Expertise
My Professional Journey
Career Evolution & Experience
My Future Goals
Short-term
Commit to a Senior Assurance Role and Deliver from Day One
My short term goal is to secure a senior internal audit and assurance role where I can apply the full range of my experience across internal audit, internal financial controls, programme assurance and process work. In the first year I want to add value quickly, deliver to a high standard, and earn the trust of management and the audit committee. I also want to complete my Power BI training and put those data analytics skills to work in the audit environment.
Medium-term
Lead an Audit Portfolio and Embed Data-Driven Auditing
My medium term goal is to grow into a role where I lead a portfolio of audit work and take responsibility for how the function delivers, not just what I deliver personally. I want to use my combination of audit, controls and process experience to raise the quality and relevance of assurance work, and to embed data analytics and AI-assisted auditing as a standard part of how the team works rather than an occasional add-on. Alongside that, I want to develop the auditors around me, passing on both the professional discipline and the newer technical skills I have built.
Long-term
Modernise How Internal Audit Works
My long term goal is to make internal audit better than I found it. That means growing into a senior assurance leadership position where I shape how the function operates, its methodology, its use of data and AI, and the quality of its people. I have already done this on a smaller scale by developing the Agile Change and Continuous Audit methodology at Absa, and I want to do it at the level of a whole function. I see a long runway ahead of me, and I intend to use it.
Dream Work Environment
Work Philosophy
Understand the business first, then assure it. You cannot audit what you do not understand.
Understand the business first, then assure it. I do not believe you can audit what you do not understand. My career started in process engineering and business analysis before I moved into internal audit, and that shaped how I work. I take the time to understand how a process actually operates, who runs it, what pressures they work under and where things break, before I form a view on the controls. It makes findings more accurate, recommendations more practical, and conversations with management more honest, because they can see I am talking about their business and not a checklist. The same philosophy applies to how I finish work. Assurance only matters if something changes, so I follow findings through to remediation and closure rather than stopping at the report. And it applies to how I keep learning. The profession is moving toward data-driven and AI-assisted auditing, and I am building those skills now, because understanding the business increasingly means understanding its data.