Ep 259: What It Really Takes to Modernize Internal Audit w/ Ronnie Welch

This week on The Audit Podcast, our guest is Ronnie Welch, Chief Audit Executive at Guardian Life. Ronnie has spent his career in insurance audit, with experience at MetLife, Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, and several Big Four firms.   In this episode, Ronnie talks about how he’s modernizing internal audit and shares the practical steps his team has taken at Guardian Life. He explains his three-tier analytics system, which helps his 48-person audit team work more efficiently and make a bigger impact. Listeners will come away with clear, actionable ideas for strengthening their own audit teams—no matter the size.   We also highlight Ronnie’s achievement of winning Guardian Life’s CEO Award nearly ten years before stepping into his current role, showing the dedication and leadership that have defined his career.   Be sure to connect with Ronnie on LinkedIn.   Also, be sure to follow us on our social media accounts on LinkedIn, Instagram, and TikTok.   Also be sure to sign up for The Audit Podcast newsletter and to check the full video interview on The Audit Podcast YouTube channel.   Timecodes:   1:06 – How Ronnie Uses LLMs 4:38 – Agent Outsourcing 10:04 – Innovating the Team’s Knowledge of AI 15:17 – Who Is Internal Audit’s Customer? Let’s Serve Them 18:20 – Training for Soft Skills 20:45 – Getting the Entire Team to a Basic Analytics Level 27:12 – Tweaks Made to the Three-Tier System Along the Way 30:13 – Ronnie Wins the CEO Award 32:42 – IIA Vision 2035 33:53 – Final Thoughts   *   This podcast is brought to you by Greenskies Analytics, the services firm that helps auditors leap-frog up the analytics maturity model. Their approach for launching audit analytics programs with a series of proven quick-win analytics will guarantee the results worthy of the analytics hype.  Whether your audit team needs a data strategy, methodology, governance, literacy, or anything else related to audit and analytics, schedule time with Greenskies Analytics.