Raven Catlin - Agile Auditing

Nancy Goldberg, friend and colleague with the biggest heart and support in all my pursuits, and through her deep thinking, logic, and thoughtful conversations throughout the years helped keep me focused on the right goals.

Kathleen Webb, friend and colleague, for her support, insightful advice, fantastic brain, and adroit teachings and conversations in Agile and Lean practices, invaluable to my thinking process.

Evelyn Calderon‐Yee, friend and colleague, for her continuous support and belief in all of my innovative ideas, and her effective implementation of our Agile auditing framework.

Judith W. Umlas, my kindred spirit, for her support and feedback and her unstoppable passion for helping the world become a better place by teaching how to be a grateful Agile leader and use the power of acknowledgment.

Raven is an expert in the auditing field and a globally recognized speaker and instructor in risk management and internal audit. Raven possesses over 23 years of diverse audit experience and 19 years of instructing and facilitating a variety of courses. She loves the sciences, especially chemistry and biology, and started her secondary education at 16 years old with dreams of becoming a neurosurgeon. In her freshman year at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia, Raven realized that the medical field wasn't for her and changed her major to Accounting. She joined Beta Alpha Psi, took an overload of classes to catch up to the other accounting sophomores, and hasn't looked back. Like most accounting majors, she was groomed to sit for the Certified Public Accountant (CPA) exam and work for a big accounting firm. Unlike most, after graduating in 1997, she found her way into internal auditing after working as an accounting manager for a small manufacturing company whose number‐one client was Philip Morris. The president of the manufacturing company helped Raven secure an interview with Philip Morris to launch a fantastic career in internal auditing.

Raven performed reviews and audits of not‐for‐profit entities, philanthropic organizations, mutual funds, general banking operations, trust operations, mortgages, real estate lending, construction activities, benefits, compensation, payroll, procurement activities, accounting operations, marketing, governance, information technology, treasury management, cash management, derivatives, secondary marketing, and debt issuance, to name a few. Her industry expertise and audit experience include mortgage operations, mortgage‐backed securities, capital markets, human resources, and shared services.

She worked for NationsBank in Charlotte, North Carolina, and served as an audit consultant through the merger with Bank of America in Phoenix, Arizona. She served as an integral member of the financial restatement team for Freddie Mac in Fairfax, Virginia, where she currently resides. Additionally, she created project plans and coordinated over 150 individuals responsible for correcting security pricing as part of the Fannie Mae financial restatement. Raven performed a business process analysis and redesign (using Six Sigma and Lean) at the World Bank/International Finance Corporation and led an entity‐wide Fraud Risk Assessment for a regional bank and trust company. She developed and redesigned the auditing infrastructure for internal audit functions, including developing internal audit policies and procedures, implementing audit software, designing reporting and time management templates, designing audit committee packages, and implementing databases to report and track the progress of audit concerns.

Raven embraces the definition of internal auditing as a value‐added service and views all forms of auditing as being helpful to the success of an organization. Organizations in all industries have welcomed her fresh approach to auditing. The Agile audit approach explained in this book incorporates Raven's knowledge, experience, views, and people skills to form a fresh perspective to Agile auditing that auditors will find a great tool to add to their own audit toolbelt. In addition to maintaining her CPA license, she proudly displays her dedication to the audit profession by maintaining a Certified Internal Auditor (CIA), a Certified Financial Services Auditor (CFSA), and Certification in Risk Management Assurance (CRMA) designations.

Raven is the founder and CEO of Raven Global Training, LLC, a provider of in‐house, virtual, and on‐site audit, risk management, and interpersonal skills training to corporations, governments, not‐for‐profits, and associations. Raven began sharing her knowledge of and love for the audit profession in 2001 when The Institute of Internal Auditors selected her as a course facilitator. Moreover, Raven has been developing, instructing, and facilitating courses, including Agile auditing, worldwide since 2006 exclusively through Raven Global Training, LLC.

Raven is the proud mother of an 11‐year‐old aspiring actress, Carmen, two ferrets, two horses, one hedgehog, and an adorable Maltese, Pepper Sugar Spice. In her spare time, she enjoys cooking, island hopping, creating and tending a productive, though at times struggling, vegetable garden (a COVID‐19 inspired hobby), rollerblading, bicycling, horseback riding, world‐traveling, and tapping into her inner child at amusement parks (especially Walt Disney World). Her greatest joys are spending time with her family, making memories, and sharing knowledge with anyone who will listen.

Ceciliana (also known as Cecilia) has over 25 years of knowledge, leading multiple projects and performing a variety of audits from sales and use tax to internal audits including compliance, operational, and performance. Ceciliana's proficiency in internal audit and risk management involves directing, leading, and performing a wide range of audit, consulting, and advisory services. She helped her organization with governance, risk, and compliance by providing value‐added solutions to complex business processes and systems. She retired from state service having last served as the manager for the internal audit division for a state government agency that employed over 4,800 staff. She incorporates her hands‐on experience in risk management and government audit with her life experiences to help clients forge logical solutions to daily problems. She thrives on exploring opportunities to increase process efficiency and constantly looks for innovative and creative strategies to lead others in conducting effective audits better and faster. She is fully dedicated to the principle of continuous improvement, as shown through her obsession with nonfiction books, specifically on auditing and anything related to auditing including risk management and data analytics.

In addition to being the first facilitator to expand the Raven Global Training, LLC, instructor team in 2015, she has also been a faculty member in Boston University's Administrative Sciences department, where she has served as a course facilitator for the online Business Master's program, including the Business Analytics Foundation course.

As the project manager for her agency's enterprise risk management (ERM) initiative, she facilitated creation, development, and implementation of their risk assessment methodologies. Moreover, she successfully reengineered the internal audit program using the Agile auditing approach by identifying, evaluating, and implementing changes to each step in the audit life cycle, standardizing audit templates, and developing and documenting policies and procedures, which culminated in a comprehensive audit manual. The Agile audit reengineering project resulted in greater efficiencies in audit performance, increased productivity, and improved quality and timeliness of audits using a risk‐focused Lean audit approach. This approach also provided the flexibility to adapt each audit as needed. Many mistakes were made through the project. However, the lessons learned have been invaluable to the development of the Agile audit framework.