# Why a General Counsel Pursued the Certified Internal Auditor (CIA)

An episode of [All Things Internal Audit](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1758983201), 23 Jun 2026, 26 min.

Audio: https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/1984d534-f92f-4772-a722-6ac47400e67e/ATIA_-_Why_a_General_Counsel_Earned_the_CIA_MP3.mp3?dest-id=3677289

The Institute of Internal Auditors Presents: All Things Internal Audit In this episode, Christina Brune sits down with Randolph Sergent, executive vice president and general counsel at CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, to discuss why he decided to pursue the Certified Internal Auditor (CIA) designation despite spending his career in the legal profession. Sergent shares how earning the CIA helped him better understand audit planning, enterprise risk management, and the role of internal audit within an organization. The conversation also explores leadership, continuous learning, professional development, and why executives should invest in understanding the functions they support. • HOST: • Christina Brune Director of Certifications Outreach and Engagement, Institute of Internal Auditors • GUEST: • Randolph Sergent, CIA Executive Vice President and General Counsel, CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield KEY POINTS: • Introduction and Career Journey \[00:00:42-00:01:15\] • Why a General Counsel Pursued the CIA \[00:01:16-00:03:00\] • What He Learned About Internal Audit and Standards \[00:03:01-00:05:00\] • How the CIA Improved Conversations With the CAE \[00:05:01-00:07:25\] • Balancing Executive Leadership and CIA Studies \[00:07:26-00:10:00\] • Customer Service and Communication in Internal Audit \[00:10:01-00:11:04\] • Study Strategy and Preparing for the Exams \[00:11:05-00:12:14\] • Enterprise Risk Management and Audit Planning \[00:12:15-00:13:59\] • How Audit Knowledge Changed Leadership Conversations \[00:14:00-00:14:51\] • Creating a Culture of Continuous Learning \[00:14:52-00:17:01\] • Leading by Example as an Executive \[00:17:02-00:18:14\] • Why Leaders Should Invest in Understanding Their Teams \[00:18:15-00:21:16\] • Advice for Executives Considering the CIA \[00:21:17-00:22:49\] • Thoughts on the CIA Challenge Exam \[00:22:50-00:24:34\] • Final Thoughts on Career Growth and Lifelong Learning \[00:24:35-00:25:30 IIA RELATED CONTENT: Interested in this topic? Visit the links below for more resources: • CIA Challenge Exam • Global Internal Audit Standards • Vision 2035 • Become a Certified Internal Auditor (CIA) • IAP (Internal Audit Practitioner) • Certification Candidate Handbook • Certificate Programs Visit The IIA's website or YouTube channel for related topics and more. Follow All Things Internal Audit: Apple Podcasts Spotify Libsyn Deezer

## Transcript

[0:02] The Institute of Internal Auditors presents All Things Internal Audit.
[0:06] In this episode, Christina Bruhn sits down with Randolph Sargent, Executive
[0:10] Vice President and General Counsel at CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield,
[0:14] to discuss why he decided to pursue the Certified Internal Auditor
[0:18] designation, despite spending his career in the legal profession.
[0:22] Sargent shares how earning the CIA helped him better understand audit planning,
[0:27] enterprise risk, and the role of internal audit within an organization.
[0:31] The conversation also explores leadership, continuous learning,
[0:34] professional development, and why executives should invest in understanding the
[0:38] function they support.
[0:43] Randy, welcome to the podcast. We are so excited to have you here today.
[0:47] Good morning.
[0:48] I understand that your background is law and
[0:52] not internal auditing. So I was curious if you could just tell us a
[0:56] little bit about your career journey and why you felt it
[1:00] was important to pursue the CIA.
[1:03] Absolutely. I am the general counsel for CareFirst BlueCross
[1:07] BlueShield. So I have been a practicing lawyer for 25 years
[1:11] now. I was doing the math. It's longer than I
[1:14] would like to admit sometimes. In that role, I've
[1:18] been a firm counsel, I've been government counsel.
[1:20] I've risen through the ranks of being a corporate counsel.
[1:23] But as you step into the general counsel role, our role is formulated,
[1:27] it's perhaps more similar to a chief legal officer.
[1:30] I have audit,
[1:31] the compliance teams, the government relations teams, a team we call
[1:35] regulatory operations, which is sort of
[1:37] regulator-facing responses to audits or external
[1:41] inquiries, all under me in addition to the legal department.
[1:45] And to be a good leader, you need to understand
[1:49] how all of the teams that work for you do what they do, why they
[1:53] do what they do.
[1:54] Otherwise, you're not going to be able to adequately support them, and you're not
[1:57] going to be able to adequately hold them to account.
[2:00] So I try to be a good coach when coaching is
[2:03] warranted. I try to push folks towards excellence, and without
[2:07] understanding those areas, you're not going to be very effective
[2:11] at it. So I decided I needed to
[2:14] know more about audit, having worked with auditors for years.
[2:17] I hadn't actually been required to delve into, beyond reading the reports, how are
[2:21] you a good auditor? What makes excellence in the audit field?
[2:24] And I thought the CIA
[2:27] examination was a way for me to understand the field in a
[2:31] comprehensive way, as opposed to just reading some books.
[2:34] I could hold myself to account, I could see the field from end to end, and I
[2:38] could ask all kinds of questions of our existing audit team that they weren't
[2:41] expecting then. I also love to learn new things.
[2:44] My theory is if you're not
[2:46] getting better, you're getting worse, because nothing stays the same from moment to
[2:49] moment. So I would advocate everyone for their career planning to look for what is
[2:53] the next stage of growth that you should be.
[2:56] Not just advancement in terms of position, but growth that you should be looking
[3:00] towards.
[3:00] Wonderful. Well said.
[3:02] So I'm curious what
[3:05] you learned about internal audit standards.
[3:08] What did you learn about the profession in general that you didn't know
[3:12] going into this process?
[3:14] I think there's sort of a number of layers.
[3:16] I knew the basics of what internal auditors do as they're
[3:20] working externally with folks outside of the audit team.
[3:23] I didn't have a grasp on the planning.
[3:26] I didn't have a good grasp on how would you manage the overall
[3:30] scaling and collection and evaluation of risks when you develop the audit
[3:34] plan,
[3:35] or the need to do your quality reviews.
[3:39] Or the other elements, I'd say, of the internal workings of how do you
[3:43] make your audit program effective as opposed to individual
[3:47] audits. So I had a sense of how to conduct individual audits, having worked
[3:51] with auditors on individual audits. So I'd say the biggest piece.
[3:55] There was a piece that resonated with me, having run a legal department
[3:59] for many years. Audit and legal are
[4:03] similar. We are functions that are necessary to a
[4:06] company, but we're not in the mainstream of operations.
[4:10] You are a set of professionals. You have clients that you
[4:14] must both press to make sure that they're doing the right thing and that
[4:18] you're holding to account to some extent, but also you're working with
[4:22] them and you're making sure that they are happy with your services.
[4:25] So I think the CIA does a very nice job of
[4:29] getting out that customer service proponent, that element, to
[4:33] the auditor's work. It definitely is true with the lawyers, too.
[4:36] And the way to keep your customers happy is to be excellent at your job, not
[4:39] necessarily to tell them good things.
[4:41] It's to give them the bad news when they need the bad news, but to do it
[4:44] effectively and to communicate well.
[4:46] And I think that was something from the CIA exam.
[4:48] I was very pleased to see that emphasis.
[4:50] Excellent. Some of the things you mentioned that you learned about audit
[4:54] planning and quality are really over the CAE's level.
[4:58] So I'm wondering if you're pursuing the
[5:02] CAE, what you learned has had any
[5:06] impact on your communications with your CAE?
[5:09] It has. I'm the executive sponsor for the audit and compliance committee at
[5:12] CareFirst. We have assigned each of the board committees as a sort of ELT,
[5:16] executive leadership team member, who is sort of the sponsor for
[5:20] that, helps coordinate and facilitate it.
[5:22] Our chief audit executive reports to the audit and compliance committee with
[5:26] a dotted line to me.
[5:28] So a big part of the impetus was, if I'm responsible for the
[5:32] audit team, at least as a dotted line administrative level, I'm able to have,
[5:36] I would say, much deeper conversations with
[5:40] the CAE than I otherwise would because I can press for is
[5:44] this element of the program or is this the most effective approach or why did you
[5:47] do it this way? But also, the CAE can explain to me why he
[5:51] or she needs a certain number of resources in an area,
[5:55] and I would be able to understand that more easily and then
[5:59] advocate why are they doing what they are doing to the rest of the leadership
[6:03] team. So because of my role in the middle there,
[6:07] not interposed between the audit committee and the CAE, but for administrative
[6:11] purposes and facilitation, I'm often going back and forth to make sure
[6:14] everyone gets on the same page. And it's enabled me to be an advocate
[6:18] also for, is the chief audit executive doing a good job?
[6:22] If so, it's my job to help them make sure that is recognized
[6:26] throughout the company. And if they're not, it's my job to work with the audit
[6:29] committee to help them be satisfied and get a
[6:32] CAE that they are satisfied with. And
[6:36] I'm actually in the process now of trying to lead the
[6:40] hiring of a new CAE. We just lost ours.
[6:43] He was excellent, but he went to an opportunity at a larger
[6:47] company. So I'm actually also going to have to put those skills to work
[6:51] to
[6:52] help the audit committee come up with a new chief audit executive.
[6:56] Sure. Actually, I can see that being quite valuable that you know what you're
[7:00] looking for now in your next CAE, right?
[7:03] Yes. That's very much my hope.
[7:06] We're just starting the process.
[7:07] Great. I'm sure many other CAEs would love to have an advocate like you
[7:11] understanding their world and advocating for resources and making
[7:15] sure that the quality program is in place and supported.
[7:18] I hope so. I also might ask them the questions that they were hoping that I
[7:21] wouldn't ask, though.
[7:24] Right. Double-edged, right? You know a lot.
[7:26] So can you tell me a little bit about your experience pursuing the
[7:29] CAE as a senior executive and balancing that with
[7:33] work and your daily job?
[7:35] I have three children who are all in their 20s.
[7:38] They're all in their mid to late 20s, and they have jobs, and they don't live in my
[7:42] house. So having gone through the raising children, I find myself
[7:46] with time in the evening to undertake projects that when you're younger,
[7:50] would be more of a burden. So I don't want to not recognize that fact for many
[7:53] folks who are in an audit department and looking at this, that it was a luxury
[7:57] that I very much appreciated and put to good use.
[8:00] But I got a study class. I would spend time on the
[8:04] weekends taking the practice tests,
[8:07] reading over the standards and the guidebooks.
[8:10] I think if you have
[8:13] good business, like a good business background.
[8:15] I was immensely helped by the fact that many of the
[8:19] questions are tying what you do as an auditor
[8:23] to what the business is trying to accomplish and how the business
[8:26] works. So if you understand a strategic planning
[8:30] process and what is entailed in that for a business, it's going
[8:34] to be easier to, I'd say, dive in and say, well, what is the role of the audit
[8:38] team in the strategic planning process?
[8:41] Or what is the role of the audit team in observing the risks that
[8:45] come out of, that are identified in the strategic planning process and determining
[8:49] the best way to develop an audit plan.
[8:51] So it helped, I think, being a senior leader, that I was able
[8:55] to bring to bear all this information on how the company works.
[8:58] I think it would be more of a challenge for someone new
[9:02] to the audit field, but I'd say it's probably more rewarding if you're
[9:06] early in your career to go and learn those things before you have to.
[9:11] As opposed to wait 25 years just to introduce yourself to
[9:14] those ideas. You'll probably need to study harder because it'll be more
[9:18] unfamiliar to you. But there's a lot in that test
[9:22] about how a corporation works that you need to put into your toolkit, and it will
[9:26] make you a better auditor. It's the exact same thing I have done for years with
[9:30] attorneys, is to say, if you don't understand our client, if you don't understand
[9:34] the business plan or the direction or the threats to the industry,
[9:38] you're not going to give good legal advice.
[9:40] It's true for the compliance department, and it's true for the auditors.
[9:43] We really need to understand the business and what the business needs to
[9:47] accomplish in order to be effective in our roles of making sure the business
[9:51] accomplishes it within the bounds, right?
[9:54] In a compliant way, in a risk-managing way, or in a legal way.
[10:00] All right, excellent.
[10:01] Was there anything that surprised you during your studies?
[10:06] I'd say surprised is not the word, but I'd say the emphasis on customer service
[10:10] was perhaps not a surprise, but welcome. If that makes sense.
[10:14] I was like, once I started reading the materials and I saw how much they were
[10:17] focused on
[10:19] really working as a team member with other departments, it reinforced
[10:23] what I have seen in working externally when working with audit departments.
[10:27] It reinforced the behaviors that I had noticed just sort of
[10:31] organically as these are the best.
[10:33] The best auditors do this, and the best auditors do that.
[10:36] And I thought the test was very well aligned with what my experience had been.
[10:40] The auditors who communicated most effectively, or the auditors that
[10:44] understood the risks most really had been most effective in their roles.
[10:48] So I'd say perhaps not a surprise, but it was very welcome.
[10:51] That I said, this test is testing, in my view, just from the outside, testing
[10:55] the right things for effectiveness.
[10:58] So people always want to know a little bit more about the study
[11:01] process, your routine, and how long it took you.
[11:05] You talked a little bit about having the extra time in the evenings, but if
[11:09] you could tell us what your study process was like, how you tackled the different
[11:12] parts, the order, and how you did it.
[11:16] I spread it out over almost a year, maybe four months per exam, just
[11:20] to make sure that I had enough time. I was pretty methodical.
[11:23] I would sort of say, how much do I want to work through the materials in a week?
[11:27] And then leave time for review. I'd used the Becker's review course,
[11:31] and they had some tools for calendaring how much time you spend on different
[11:34] tasks that were helpful. So I was very, I'd say,
[11:38] methodical about it. I'd put in my time where I'm going to do so many practice
[11:42] questions today, and I would do my questions and then go on with something else.
[11:45] And I think that worked very effectively.
[11:47] It was not a huge try to pile on study towards the end.
[11:50] It was more
[11:52] spread out your time over the four-month periods because you're going to want to
[11:56] have to live the rest of your life. And if you have children, you're not going to
[12:00] want to forget them for an entire year. I think that's basically it, really.
[12:04] Most auditors, I think, probably that's going to fit with their mindset, where it's
[12:08] a field where we're balancing our schedules and thinking in an orderly
[12:12] manner.
[12:13] Excellent. Yes, well said. Was there a moment during your studies when something
[12:17] clicked for you or changed how you view
[12:21] internal audit and its role?
[12:23] I'd say it was around the audit planning because
[12:26] the enterprise risk element, the CIA does a nice job of
[12:30] going over the role of enterprise risk, which is not always in
[12:34] the audit department. I think currently in CareFirst, enterprise risk
[12:38] is in the financial team. It's under the financial team, and we have
[12:42] to work with them to develop the plan.
[12:44] But this examination gave a view of
[12:48] how enterprise risk management works and how it fits with the audit team
[12:52] that's incredibly useful. And I think to most people in a
[12:56] company, enterprise risk is kind of this opaque function where people show up and
[13:00] they ask you to assign numerical categories to risks in a
[13:03] taxonomy of risk that you've never seen before, and then they might disappear for a
[13:07] while, and then they come back, and they have a heat map.
[13:10] And I'd say the thing that clicked for me was
[13:14] seeing how I know how it should work or how it can most
[13:17] effectively work, and what the output from enterprise risk
[13:22] should be used for with the audit and compliance committee, with
[13:25] the audit plan, and elsewhere in the company.
[13:29] So I think that's for someone that wants to rise through
[13:33] the ranks of auditing, having that understanding, even if
[13:37] enterprise risk is not in your area.
[13:39] If you're a chief audit executive, one day you may want to make the case that it
[13:42] should be in your area, but if not, you'll certainly want to be working with
[13:46] that and hand in glove with that process.
[13:50] So how has earning the CIA changed the
[13:53] conversations that you have with others in your
[13:57] organization, the compliance committee, and other executive leaders?
[14:01] It's probably not for me, in my role, the earning of the CIA
[14:05] changing it, it's the
[14:06] basic understanding
[14:08] of what audit should be doing.
[14:11] The confidence of saying, "I know where
[14:14] the audit team can help out with this." Right?
[14:16] Or, "I don't know if this proposal that you
[14:20] have is the most effective use of the audit team. Let's talk with them.
[14:23] I suspect this might be a better approach." Or just giving the
[14:27] team encouragement for, "These are important enough issues.
[14:31] I know you're getting resistance.
[14:32] Here's the path forward to getting those issues elevated." I'd say the general
[14:36] approach is understanding the area.
[14:38] I'm less worried about making a foot fault or
[14:42] proposing things that are nonsensical, and we can get to the nub of what is the
[14:45] problem and how do we resolve it most effectively, I'd say in
[14:48] those discussions.
[14:51] All right. Excellent. So how did others in your organization react?
[14:55] I wonder if you motivated anybody else, it gave somebody else the
[14:58] courage to pursue the CIA.
[15:01] I have been talking about it with the audit team, and I think
[15:05] we're moving to a direction where it's been encouraged.
[15:08] It may, in the future, be sort of required.
[15:11] But even beyond the CIA, if you have the CIA
[15:14] and you are a mid-career auditor, are there other things that you should be
[15:18] looking at to develop? So I'd say not just the CIA exam,
[15:22] but looking at other certifications, other ways to sort of show that
[15:26] you're developing and growing in a career.
[15:28] I guess now I'm a corporate executive, so one of the
[15:33] biggest things that I do is, including the audit team, we have about
[15:36] 215 people in our, we call it the corporate governance division, and
[15:40] they're all qualified professionals in compliance, audit,
[15:45] law, registered lobbyists. Every one of them has a professional
[15:49] field, and they're hired for their
[15:51] skill set. If you're in a company for or five, 10 years, people start to
[15:55] assume they know everything that you can do.
[15:57] And when there's a chance to move up, there's always a bright and shiny
[16:01] person who comes from outside where you're just seeing the good parts of their
[16:04] resume and you're competing, and you've been sitting in that chair for maybe the
[16:08] past five years, and you've been with the company for 10.
[16:10] So I encourage all of my team members in their various fields,
[16:14] what do you need to go out? What do you need to know about the company, and what do
[16:17] you need to go out and burnish your credentials?
[16:19] I want to be able to feel certain that when I'm promoting you, I'm doing
[16:23] so because you've beaten the competition, because you're as current as
[16:27] anybody out there, and I have great confidence that my team members are as good as
[16:31] anyone out there. But that I'd say continuous improvement or just continuous
[16:35] growth is something that I think perhaps using the CIA has helped to
[16:39] inspire people. I really mean it. I assign this to myself as well as to
[16:43] everybody else. So I've had a number of lawyers getting
[16:46] certifications in privacy and the auditors.
[16:50] I'm making sure at budget time that each department is leaving enough
[16:53] money to help pay for people to take certifications and
[16:57] develop personal development plans.
[16:59] I'd say those are sort of where it shows up.
[17:02] Great. As a leader of your team, as an executive,
[17:06] what message do you think it sends that you are leading by
[17:10] this example? Continuous learning.
[17:12] Yeah, I think that's it, that I'm not just making it up.
[17:16] I've tried telling people, explaining to people that if the budget cuts and I have
[17:20] to let you go, you need to have a backup plan.
[17:22] So get your certification for that reason.
[17:24] And they're like, "No, you'd never let us go." I'm like, "Okay, fine.
[17:27] At least I'm getting certifications.
[17:29] I'm serious about it." But no, it's hard, right?
[17:32] People have inertia. It's easy to start viewing your job as I'm
[17:36] doing excellent at my job, then I go home to my family.
[17:38] Development can seem extra, right?
[17:41] I've been involved with the Maryland Bar Association for many years, and
[17:45] it's hard to get in-house attorneys to go in for the same reason.
[17:49] Because they go to work, they go home to their families.
[17:51] You're like, "You should do this extra.
[17:53] You need to grow because one day you're going to want an
[17:56] opportunity that's not the thing that's literally in front of you." So
[18:00] I'd say people take me seriously about that.
[18:03] It's good for folks to get out in the audit field, learn something new.
[18:06] I'd say I encourage people also to become involved in their professional
[18:10] associations and build their network for the same reasons.
[18:14] Very good advice. So do other leaders
[18:18] sometimes underestimate the value of truly understanding the functions
[18:22] that they're responsible for supporting?
[18:24] I would say yes, in the sense that every organization has.
[18:27] You have a range of leaders. You have good ones, and you have bad ones.
[18:31] And there's some short-term thinking that you see sometimes.
[18:34] Like a leader looks at the team, and they look at the five items that they
[18:38] have to do, and then they say, "I only need my team to understand these
[18:42] five items, and therefore we will most efficiently accomplish our five
[18:46] items." But as a leader, your job is generally not to do five
[18:49] items, right? Your job as a leader is to move the organization forward.
[18:54] And maybe there are five key things that you have to do right
[18:58] now with your team, but that's not the future. That's not all time.
[19:02] And how you do those things is going to be greatly enhanced by the
[19:05] quality of the people that you have.
[19:07] So there are leaders with short-term thinking that are not
[19:10] investing appropriately in their team from day to day.
[19:14] To me, that sort of investment is really an ongoing process.
[19:16] You do a certain amount every year, the same way you contribute a certain amount to
[19:19] your 401 . You don't say, "I'll just do it all at the end."
[19:24] Right? You have to do it as you go along.
[19:26] So yes, I'd say it varies, good leaders and bad.
[19:28] But good leaders invariably, I think, want opportunities for their team
[19:32] members to grow. They want opportunities for their team members.
[19:35] Look, I hate to lose somebody at CareFirst, but if somebody has a good opportunity
[19:38] and I've helped develop somebody and they can move on, that's not necessarily a
[19:42] bad thing to me. Right? I'm sorry to lose someone.
[19:44] I'll have to develop somebody new.
[19:46] But nobody wants a team of people who couldn't get a
[19:50] job somewhere else, right?
[19:52] Right.
[19:53] Would you say that that's changed over time?
[19:55] You think it's more important in today's environment than it was, say, 10 years
[19:59] ago?
[19:59] I do, actually. That's what I've told my team is specifically, don't assume
[20:03] that I'm never going to let you go. Look, I don't want to. I love you guys.
[20:07] But it's a world where we all have our careers and our skill sets and our
[20:11] portfolios, and we don't know. We're in health insurance.
[20:15] The healthcare system is very expensive.
[20:18] It is changing rapidly. The insurance, the payment system
[20:22] for healthcare is changing rapidly, and there's regulation changes,
[20:26] there's technology changes. Artificial intelligence is coming in.
[20:31] There's no part of my industry from year to
[20:34] year that isn't undergoing change.
[20:36] Which means every one of our jobs is changing from day to day.
[20:39] You need to be thinking of yourself as, I am a very small firm of
[20:43] one person who's developing the skill sets to be valuable here or somewhere
[20:47] else, because we all have our missions in life.
[20:51] We all have our families to support.
[20:52] So I think looking at it both as a leader, I want the
[20:56] best-developed people, but looking at it from the perspective of my folks
[20:59] themselves, I want them to be in a position of not being afraid of every change
[21:03] that comes down the pike because it's going to change whether or not.
[21:07] How we feel about the change isn't going to dictate whether it happens.
[21:10] So the best way to accommodate that really is build your skill set,
[21:14] stay current, keep growing.
[21:17] Great. So what would you say to another executive who works
[21:20] closely with internal auditing but has never considered
[21:24] pursuing this type of education or development or
[21:27] certification for themselves?
[21:29] That's an interesting question. Nobody has asked me that.
[21:33] I would ask them what they wanted to do with it, and what were they
[21:36] trying to understand? Because there's a number of places where
[21:41] they perhaps get in the CIA, they don't work enough with audit
[21:45] for it to make sense. But if they wanted to branch out, or if somebody was younger
[21:48] and they wanted to get into audit from a different field, a different part of the
[21:52] company. If you really looked at what the auditors did and you had a good,
[21:56] strong business background, that would be one way, I think, of evidencing
[22:00] interest and showing that you understand what audit does.
[22:04] I think that's the biggest piece of it.
[22:06] I think other areas that are related, like I said, I was working with audit to such
[22:10] a degree. If you're a compliance officer and you wanted to get the
[22:14] CIA, I think that would be excellent.
[22:16] Because at least in our company, the compliance team and the audit team,
[22:20] they're different parts of the three lines, but they're working very
[22:25] closely together in terms of handing off which risk is being monitored
[22:28] by compliance versus set for an audit by the audit team.
[22:32] So I think that would be a good growth opportunity.
[22:34] So I think I would ask them, what is it that they want to get out of it?
[22:38] How does it fit in their career plans?
[22:39] And for folks that either would like to move into audit or
[22:43] work deeply with setting the planning and the goals collectively with the
[22:47] audit team, I think it may make sense.
[22:49] Well, that's a great segue. I was going to ask you a little bit about our
[22:53] CIA Challenge Exam, and if you're aware of it.
[22:57] It's really an opportunity for experienced
[23:00] professionals to, it expands access for experienced
[23:04] professionals to obtain the CIA through a one-part rigorous
[23:08] exam as opposed to the traditional three-part exam that you
[23:12] took. So I wonder if something like that was available to
[23:16] you at the time that you started this journey, would you have perhaps
[23:20] gone the one part, or do you like breaking it down to a
[23:24] three-part exam?
[23:25] I think for me, I would have done the three part, but I think the challenge
[23:29] exam is an excellent idea, though.
[23:31] And the reason is for me is I'm not really an auditor, right?
[23:34] I had seen it from the outside. If I do the short exam, I
[23:37] might miss something. But if you've been in the...
[23:42] I have a member of my team who's planning to take the challenge
[23:46] exam in September, I believe. And he's
[23:50] been an auditor for many years. I think it's an excellent idea to give
[23:53] a way for somebody that has worked inside of a corporation for many years,
[23:58] like I mentioned before, knows the strategic planning process and where audit fits
[24:01] in with the other business processes.
[24:04] It makes real sense that there could be a shorter rigorous exam
[24:08] that
[24:10] acknowledges the fact that many of those basic skill sets should have been
[24:13] mastered just through somebody's job.
[24:15] For me, I might have gone the opposite way, saying, "Well, you don't know what you
[24:18] don't know." You're looking from the outside looking in.
[24:21] So I would probably still take the three-parter.
[24:23] But for the key folks, I think, on my team who have several years of experience,
[24:27] I would encourage. I think that's a great opportunity for them.
[24:30] And I will probably be having some conversations along that line.
[24:34] All right. Wonderful. Well said. We've reached the end of my questions.
[24:38] Was there anything else that you'd like to share that maybe I didn't ask already?
[24:42] I would say the theme that you've heard from me about
[24:46] professional development, it's genuine. It's real.
[24:49] I talk about this all the time because I really find the folks that delve
[24:53] into their career, and they know why they are doing what they're doing, not just
[24:57] collecting a paycheck, but they really genuinely like what they're doing.
[25:00] I think that's important. It's important to your quality of life.
[25:03] It's important to your contribution to the world and how you feel about it.
[25:07] I would just encourage everyone. We all get lazy.
[25:10] We all get in a rut from time to time.
[25:13] Look at it as the time we have is an opportunity and a resource.
[25:16] And I'd say never turn down the chance to learn something because it's
[25:20] incredibly rewarding.
[25:21] All right. Fantastic. Thank you so much again for your time today,
[25:25] Randy. It was wonderful talking with you.
[25:28] Thank you. It was my pleasure.
[25:30] Earning the CIA usually means three separate exams, but
[25:34] it doesn't have to. The CIA Challenge Exam is designed for
[25:38] experienced professionals who already hold a CPA, CISA,
[25:43] or have a background in internal audit.
[25:46] You qualify through one of three pathways, including a pilot option
[25:50] for people with 10-plus years of experience.
[25:52] That pilot closes September 30th, 2026, so
[25:56] don't sleep on it. Becker study materials can help you prepare for this
[25:59] exam, and if you're interested, you can find a link to the Challenge Exam in the
[26:03] show notes.
[26:05] If you like this podcast, please subscribe and rate us.
[26:08] You can subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
[26:11] You can also catch other episodes on YouTube or at the iia.org.
[26:15] That's T-H-E-I-I-A.O-R-G.

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