AVP - Governance

About the Role

The job posting is for an AVP role in Governance at Barclays requiring 13-18 years of experience, with no salary detail specified.

What You Should Know

• •Internal audit's role vs external/statutory audit vs RBI inspection
• •Risk-based audit approach - prioritizing high-risk areas over uniform coverage
• •Common audit findings in banking: KYC gaps, dual-control lapses, reconciliation breaks
• •Materiality - how findings get triaged by actual risk impact, not just rule violation
• •Process-excellence frameworks (Lean/Six Sigma) as applied to banking operations

Interview Questions

1. 1.What's the difference between a risk-based audit approach and a checklist-based one?
2. 2.Walk me through a control gap you identified and how you helped remediate it.
3. 3.How would you audit a branch's cash management process?
4. 4.What's your approach when a business head disputes your audit finding?
5. 5.How do you balance audit independence with being seen as a partner to the business?
6. 6.How do you manage a team through a target miss without it becoming a blame exercise?

Scenario-Based Questions

1. 1.You find a recurring reconciliation break that the branch has been manually overriding for months. What's your next step?
2. 2.An audit finding is contested by a senior business leader who says it's "not material." How do you handle it?
3. 3.You're auditing a new digital lending process launched 2 months ago with no prior audit history. Where do you start?

Interview Tips

• •Bring a specific finding-to-remediation story - this function is judged on real examples, not theory.
• •Know how materiality is typically assessed and be ready to explain your own judgment call on it.
• •Process-excellence roles should be ready to quantify an improvement (time saved, error rate reduced), not just describe it.
• •Expect at least one people-management question (a target miss, a difficult team member, cross-functional conflict) - have a real example ready.