Sophie Forster

Country of origin: United Kingdom

Placement: Deloitte

Within Enterprise Risk Services (ERS) we advised organisations on how to effectively mitigate risk and make informed and intelligent risk decisions to maximise opportunities. This included helping our clients prevent and manage risk-related issues regarding financial and non-financial business processes, technology and operations.

We worked with a vast range of clients across all sectors, including major names that you will come across on a day-to-day basis. This allowed for great exposure to a vast range of industries, working environments and individuals giving huge variety to our work. My clients ranged from councils to banks and television broadcasters – all providing very different but equally interesting experiences.

During the time I was on placement I carried out a number of internal audits and a small regulatory compliance project. Internal audit involves working alongside the client to look at a specific area of the business and the processes they have in place with a view to improving these. This is very different to external audit! I looked at a range of areas including financial systems, contracts, business operations and human resources.

It is a hands-on role, and despite being here for such a short amount of time I was given a great amount of responsibility. My work included attending and conducting meetings, testing the controls in place, drafting recommendations based on my findings, discussing these with the client and writing formal reports.  

ERS is not as well-known or understood as the likes of audit and consulting but is growing at an incredibly fast rate, and I would encourage you to look further into this area.