Internal Audit Manager

Building the Future of Open Finance

Payward - the parent company behind Kraken, Ninja Trader, Breakout, xStocks, Payward Services and CF Benchmarks - has spent the last 15 years building one of the most modern and globally accessible financial infrastructure platforms in the industry, built to advance an open, global financial system.

Before you apply, we encourage you to explore our Payward's Audit & Risk function operates as an Integrated Assurance organization, bringing together Internal Audit and Enterprise Risk Management under a unified risk oversight strategy. The function spans Internal Audit, SOX Compliance, and Enterprise Risk Management across multiple regulated entities and jurisdictions. Internal Audit partners with co-sourced providers, maintains direct reporting lines to the Global and Local Audit Committees, and is building in-house assurance capability at the pace of a business that is acquiring and integrating new businesses across the globe.

You’ll partner with Internal Audit leadership to run risk-based operational audits across the business, evaluating the design and operating effectiveness of controls across governance, regulatory, financial, and operational risk - with an immediate priority on post-acquisition integration as the business grows through acquisition. It’s a global, multi-jurisdiction mandate, entity and region agnostic, and you’ll direct specialist support wherever deep-technical depth is needed.

If you want operational audit work with genuine breadth and immediate, high-visibility impact, this is it.

Responsibilities span the following areas:

Operational & integration audit leadership

• Lead risk-based operational audits across the business - governance, regulatory, financial, and operational processes - and help shape coverage across the audit plan

• As the current priority, lead post-acquisition integration audits - readiness, onboarding of acquired entities into the control environment, and the design and operating effectiveness of controls in acquired businesses

• Assess integration and change risk across governance, regulatory licensing and change-of-control conditions, finance and operations, data migration, key-person retention, and conduct and culture

• Perform risk assessments to identify key areas of exposure and prioritize audit coverage across the plan and the acquisition pipeline

• Direct co-sourced specialist (SME) support for deep-technical areas, retaining Internal Audit ownership of judgment and conclusions

• Lead AI-enabled auditing - apply generative AI, agentic workflows, and data analytics across the audit lifecycle to expand coverage and efficiency, while retaining human ownership of judgment and conclusions

Engagement & issue management

• Lead multiple audit engagements concurrently, managing planning, fieldwork, and reporting end-to-end

• Document audit findings, including control gaps and root cause, and draft clear, well-supported work papers and reports

• Track and validate remediation of identified issues, escalating delays or gaps to Internal Audit leadership

• Contribute to the continuous improvement of audit methodologies and frameworks, and ensure conformance with the IIA Global Internal Audit Standards and the function’s quality assurance requirements

• Lead engagement teams, including staffing and coordinating co-sourced specialists, and mentor junior auditors to ensure quality and timely delivery across audits

Stakeholder engagement & reporting

• Partner with stakeholders across the business, Compliance, Legal, Risk, Finance, and Engineering teams to communicate audit results and advise on control improvements, while maintaining audit independence

• Monitor the audit plan, the acquisition pipeline, and evolving regulatory expectations…