After a few years in Dublin and London, Chartered Accountant Louise O’Donnell found herself as Head of Internal Audit in Oman Insurance in Dubai, UAE.
How did you get your role as head of internal audit at Oman Insurance?
The role of the Head of Internal Audit at Oman Insurance came up as a result of the company identifying the need for an internal audit division. The role came to me through a former who thought that I could be a suitable candidate. I had to go through a number of interviews both in person in Dubai and via video conference from London with the Head of the Internal Audit Division (IAD) from our parent company. The overall process was fast.
What’s your daily ritual in the office?
After my obligatory morning cappuccino, it is quite important to keep up-to-date with the market, so I have a quick read of the business section of the local papers. Depending on the day, I will sit with the audit team and have a catch up. We go through items which we are all working on, so that we are all in sync and moving in the right direction.I have operated an open door policy from the day I joined the audit team. Sometimes, people can see us as the police and think that they should not tell us everything. It is important to make sure that employees know that we are here as a confidant. We can help them when they need a sounding board. There is also the emails. All emails fall into three categories 1. Do - that is for me to action; 2. Delegate – someone on the team can action; 3. Read and file as I am only being informed and do not need to action.
What are your key responsibilities as head of internal audit?
My key responsibilities of being Head of IAD in Oman Insurance have been to develop and lead a robust internal audit service and to ensure that it is effective. More importantly, that it is being done in-line with the professional standards which guide an IAD function. A core responsibility is to prepare the annual audit plan and strategy to ensure that sufficient assurance coverage is given to the Audit Committee and senior management. One of the most important responsibilities as Head of IAD is making sure that the team of auditors and the audit manager are developing, learning and being challenged to grow. This is what I enjoy the most, making sure the team are working on audits and areas within the business they can learn more about, helping them perform well in the long-run. A head of IAD also needs to manage each of the key stakeholders across the organ-isation. It sounds easy but in a diverse and large organization this can be a huge challenge, so it is important for the Head of IAD to have good stakeholder management and able to maintain constructive and effective working relationships. They need strong networking, communication and negotiation skills.
Where are the challenges culturally, being from a western country?
One great thing about the UAE is it is such a diverse location to work in. It is a melting pot of cultures and nationalities. Dubai is such a cosmopolitan city and the workforce is from all over the world. I think it is even more diverse than London, which I lived in prior to moving to the UAE. That said, I did face a few challenges but I don’t think these were because of culture. The biggest was getting used to the temperatures, especially in the summer months. Coming from Europe, where the hottest temperature I had experienced was 30 degrees, to experience temperatures in the late-40s – and even sometimes hitting 50 degrees – was a huge shock for me. A lot of people have asked me about is the challenges that I faced as a woman working in the Middle East, the perception being that it must be difficult. There is a heavy focus on women in the workplace in the UAE. Our management team now con-tains 16 people, and four of those women. I am very fortunate to have never felt that I was treated differently because I am female.
If you could change one thing about your role, what would it be?
This is a really difficult question. There isn’t much that I would change about my current role but if I had to change one thing about my working day, I would like to work at least one day from home. This was something I used to do in the UK and really enjoyed it.