Africa Automation Leader at Ernst & Young Global Limited (EY)

The Africa Assurance Innovation and Digital team is looking to hire a skilled manager to lead our Automation pillar for our Assurance business.

Automation Solutions address particular risk/pain point for the Assurance business using a range of smart technologies such as Robotic Process Automation (RPA), SharePoint, Machine Learning (ML), Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Data Analytics.

As the Africa Automation leader, you will look after all Global and EMEIA developed solutions and drive usage by our audit teams and provide support on these solutions. You will also be responsible for the design and development of Africa Assurance Automation and oversee a team of business analysts and full stack developers that will develop these automation solutions to solve a pain point experienced by our audit teams, and in certain cases the greater Assurance business.

Other responsibilities include:

Business Case Development

• Provide input into the product vision and roadmap for Automation within assurance for Africa (13 countries included) by aligning to EY’S overall company strategy, commercial business unit requirements and key opportunities
• Communicate vision and roadmap to stakeholders to ensure buy in, support and clarity on direction and execution
• Collaborate with key business stakeholders to define requirements and establish priorities for the product team based on business objectives and strategy
• Optimize and continuously improve the experience and the value derived from of the products, journeys and services delivered by the product team through ongoing analysis of customer feedback, user / journey analytics and innovation

Product development oversight

• Participate in the conceptual solution design process to make recommendations to create and enhance solutions that are innovative, scalable, and sustainable and solve complex business problems.
• Participate in User Acceptance testing and guide users to ensure that the designed solution ultimately meets business requirements.
• Participate in the success/acceptance criteria definition using scenario testing and test cases to ensure that testing covers all aspects of the business specification.
• Validate the functionality of all technical solutions in line with business requirements on completion of development to ensure that business requirements are met in the implemented solutions.

Quality Management

• Ensure that projects are delivered within the agreed timelines and in accordance with agreed quality standards and comply with the EY Certification of solutions policy, data protection policy and Information security policies.
• Consider and recommend enhancements for project performance and processes and initiate remedial action where defects are evident

Stakeholder Management

• Be an active member of the EMEIA automation sounding board, which is a network set up across the EMIEA region where you are required to represent Africa, contribute automation ideas that are scalable to be deployed to the rest of EMEIA and also provide insight on how the Africa market is operating and track against automation usage KPIS that are set.
• Report to Assurance Leadership monthly on the automation team’s performance, status of projects, report on automation savings per sector and cluster as measurement occurs at an African level.
• Engage with audit teams and gather and interpret any requirements that they may have based on a pain pointe experienced on their audits that can be automated.
• Provide insights on any new automations that may launch via communication with teams directly or through the Innovation and Digital Newsletter
• Drive usage by providing key insights at Quarterly sector partner and manager connect sessions and Digital account planning sessions
• Act as a liaison between key stakeholders such as audit technical and the quality enablement team to ensure that automation solutions that are being developed makes business sense and will either save our teams time or assist with an AQR or IRBA finding.

Budget Management

• Prepare forecasts and budget for the Africa Assurance Innovation and Digital business unit in line with the overall division.
• Manage and optimize the budget, ensuring all expenditure is in line with the agreed budgets for the Automation and Digital Solutions area.
• Forecast what the automation savings will be for the Audit teams per solution, per country and sector and track monthly how automation targets are being met.

Skills and attributes

• An analytical mind and inclination for problem-solving.
• Highly self-motivated and self-directed
• Logical and efficient, with a keen attention to detail
• Strong verbal and written communication skills
• Ability to communicate technical details to non-technical audiences
• Excellent listening, interpersonal and oral communication skills
• Experience working in a team-oriented, collaborative environment
• Excellent planning, organisational, project and time management skills
• Knowledge and interest in computer systems and the latest technologies

To qualify for the role, you must have

• Bachelor’s degree in the fields of Accounting, Management, IT, IT Audit, Computer Science
• Minimum 3-5 years of experience in the Audit / Accounting / Business environment
• Minimum 2 years Management Experience - comfortable communicating with Junior Developers, Business Analysts and Project Managers.
• Experience in effectively managing the Audit process with appropriate consideration of audit risk issues and accounting technical matters.
• Basic knowledge and understanding of software development life cycle processes, agile development methodologies, software design and testing principles.
• Basic knowledge and understanding of Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) and how it can be used with the audit process.

Advantageous not Mandatory

• Demonstrate expertise in Primary accounting framework (IFRS) and related financial reporting matters.
• Demonstrate expertise in using the EY audit methodology to perform an assurance engagement in compliance to the International Auditing standards.
• Extensive knowledge of the International Auditing standards