Biggest Challenges Faced By An Internal Auditor At Compass Diversified

I primarily work remotely, but there are times when I need to travel. Travel has its pluses and minuses. I don't like being away from home, and it was very difficult when my kids were younger.

In my current role, my company primarily buys companies based in North America. My travel is mainly within the US and is not a significant issue. I might be away for about a week at a time. Some places I don't even have to fly to; I can just drive.

Even though it's still travel and time away, I always felt that was the biggest challenge in this role. In a couple of previous companies, I worked for international organizations. When I traveled, I had to go all over the place.

In one respect, it's great. There are pluses and minuses, and I've seen places I never expected to see. I've visited amazing cities. However, I've also been away from my family for up to three weeks at a time. There were times I was going to China, Thailand, or Australia, which you can't do in a two-week trip.

I found myself spending closer to three weeks there to get more work done and to recover from the trip itself. Many trips back and forth to Europe, and some to South America, I could do in two weeks. Again, seeing incredible cities was a plus. I also visited colleagues, as I'm an internal auditor. They worked at my company and would look out for me.

They would take me out to nicer restaurants and show me around. If I was there over the weekend, I would always do some kind of English-speaking tour and see the local sites.

As far as challenges go, even at our current company, we have ten companies, plus add-on companies that roll up into them. Our work is time-critical. We have to file with the SEC within a specific period. We need to test the internal control environment and ensure the controls we rely on are in place and effective. If there's a problem, we need to report on it quickly to address it.

A lot of our work is time-critical. I could be working at one company, and then something could pop up at another. You have to be able to balance the requirements of several clients simultaneously, even though they are all owned by my company.

The work is very detail-oriented. You have to get into the details and make sure these controls are properly worded. We're not taking a superficial approach; we're getting into the details and testing at that level. I think that's another challenge.