BROSTER BUCHANAN

Broster Buchanan is a specialist recruitment and talent solutions consultancy delivering on assignments nationwide through their network of offices. Core areas of expertise include Finance, Professional Services, IT, Change & Transformation, Marketing, Sales and Energy. In our latest 'Five Minutes with...' series Alistair Illstone sits down with Richard Coward, Head of Audit at National Grid, to find out more about his team and the super charged careers on offer. What is your background? I have come through a fairly traditional route; I qualified with Deloitte and also worked for EY before moving in to industry. Although I have predominately worked in assurance roles, I have also had experience of working in operational finance and I feel this gives me good insight as I have been a receiver of audits. Why are you passionate about working in Risk Assurance? To put it quite simply we are here to help support, improve and help the business achieve its strategic objectives. We are in a unique position where we have a global view of the organisation, our understanding of the strategy, our risk profile and the controls we need to have in place to mitigate this. Audit is not about delivering an audit plan and writing lots of reports; it's about been an assurance partner, working collaboratively across the business and lines of defence to deliver insightful, value added assurance work. Why did you join National Grid ? For me National Grid is the most important business in the UK; without us nothing operates. We work in a highly challenging environment; delivering gas and electric to millions of people; reducing CO2 emissions; use of renewable energy sources and operating in a highly-regulated market with political scrutiny. What does your role consist of on a daily basis?