Chief Operating Officer – Audit

Join to apply for the Chief Operating Officer – Audit role at Grant Thornton Ireland

Join to apply for the Chief Operating Officer – Audit role at Grant Thornton Ireland

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We Are Grant Thornton

At Grant Thornton, we go beyond business as usual, so you can too. With nearly 3,000 people in 9 offices across Ireland, the Isle of Man, Gibraltar, and Bermuda, and a presence in over 145 countries globally, we bring together local knowledge and national expertise, backed by a global network of over 68,000 professionals.

As trusted advisors, we build relationships that empower businesses to thrive—whether it's working with the public sector to build strong communities, partnering with financial institutions to build trust, or supporting businesses across industries to achieve their goals. At Grant Thornton Ireland, we don't just predict your future, we build it.

About the position:

We are looking for an experienced and strategic professional to join our Audit leadership team. In this position, you will act as both a trusted advisor to the Head of Audit and Chief Operating Officer for the service line, providing strategic direction and operational leadership.

This position is ideal for someone who thrives in a fast-paced environment, enjoys problem-solving, and has a strong ability to manage multiple priorities while ensuring alignment across teams. You will play a pivotal role in driving strategy execution, operational efficiency, and stakeholder engagement across the Audit function.

Key Responsibilities:

Operational Leadership

• Act as a key advisor to the Head of Audit, providing insights and recommendations on critical business decisions.
• Identify operational inefficiencies and implement solutions to improve effectiveness across the service line.
• Oversee day-to-day operations across all sub-service lines and functional areas within Audit to ensure efficiency and quality.
• Implement best practices for operational workflow, project management and resource allocation.
• Work with teams to standardise processes, enhance productivity and reduce operational bottlenecks.
  
  

Strategy Execution

• Support the implementation and execution of the long-term strategy for the Audit service line, with an emphasis on ensuring audit quality and excellence.
• Contribute to maintaining the right balance between short-term performance goals and long-term investments for future success.
• Monitor the progress of each sub-service line, tracking behaviours and key performance indicators (KPIs) to ensure alignment with strategic objectives.
• Conduct research and data analysis, offering insights to support informed decision-making and drive continuous improvement.
  
  

Reporting & Business Insights

• Design and create dashboards and reporting tools to offer a comprehensive overview of the Audit service line's operations.
• Deliver in-depth insights into financial performance, including analysis of actual vs. budget vs. prior year analysis and rolling forecasts.
• Monitor leads, sales pipeline, and business performance to ensure leadership has access to accurate data to make informed decisions.
• Generate and maintain weekly reports on operational performance, identifying key trends and recommending actions to drive performance excellence.
  
  

Cross Functional Collaboration

• Build and maintain strong relationships with senior leaders across Audit, Finance, HR, and the CEO's office.
• Act as a key liaison between the Audit service line and other functions, ensuring alignment and collaboration.
• Communicate clearly and concisely to drive engagement and ensure transparency in decision-making.
• Foster cross-functional collaboration, ensuring the sub-service lines work effectively together to achieve business goals.
  
  

What Success Looks Like (First-Year Goals)

By the end of your first year, you will have:

• Established clear, concise, and consistent reporting to support data-driven decision-making.
• Built strong, productive relationships with senior Audit leaders.
• Identified opportunities for better collaboration across sub-service lines.
  
  

Goals and performance metrics will be reviewed annually as part of our annual review and goal-setting cycle.

Who We're Looking For

We are seeking a proactive, highly organised, strategic thinker who can drive operational excellence and help shape the future of our Audit service line. If you have strong analytical skills, a collaborative mindset, and the ability to navigate complex challenges, we'd love to hear from you.

Experience, Skills And Attributes

• Qualified accountant or appropriate professional qualification preferable.
• Minimum of 7 years' experience in a senior operational position.
• Experience in data analytics with an ability to analyse and interpret data to make decisions and optimise performance.
• Strong commercial business acumen with extensive knowledge of the professional services industry, particularly in the larger corporate and multinational sectors.
• Solid understanding of budgets, financial modelling and resource management.
• Proficiency in efficiently tackling complex operational challenges and responding swiftly.
• Proven track record in managing and optimising operations, resources and cross-functional teams.
• Demonstrated ability to work with Senior leadership and influence strategic decisions making.
• Proven success in managing organisational changes, driving efficiency and aligning teams with strategic goals.
• Excellent strategic thinking, problem-solving, and decision-making abilities. A growth mindset, an openness to new thinking, flexibility and agility in how to achieve objectives
• Extremely comfortable with numbers, unstructured data and with a proven ability to manipulate large volumes of data within excel, visualise in Power BI (or similar) and present in PowerPoint
• Exceptional organizational and project management skills with the ability to manage multiple priorities in a fast-paced environment
• Outstanding communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to influence and build relationships at all levels of the organisation
  
  

Life at GT

Reward and benefits:

Our reward and benefits are designed to create an environment where our people can flourish. We are committed to building a culture where our people have access to the necessary benefits to help promote a healthy lifestyle and thrive.

Inclusion and diversity:

Included and valued for your difference is how everyone should feel at work. Not just because it is right, but because we are all at our best when we are able to be ourselves. So, when you join Grant Thornton, we will work hard to ensure that is how you feel. We want you for who you are. We are excited to see the personality and perspectives you will bring to our team because we know we will all benefit from them.

Diversity of thought, background and experience enables better decision-making, improves the quality of our delivery, and helps us to meet the needs of our clients. Our firm is built on people and their ideas, so we want to hear all the new perspectives and fresh thinking you have to offer.

Recognition:

We want to create a culture of recognition and celebrating success, by saying thank you to people who surpass our expectations and recognising the right values and behaviours. Our Shout Out recognition scheme is our way of highlighting and promoting achievements. Whether you simply want to say thank you, celebrate a special occasion or give an award for doing something exceptional, you can do all of this and more through the scheme.

Seniority level

• Seniority levelExecutive

Employment type

• Employment typeFull-time

Job function

• Job functionManagement and Manufacturing
• IndustriesProfessional Services

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