Internal Auditor

Hi, my name is Martial. I am a senior Auditor and have worked at Societe Generale since 2009.

I joined Societe Generale in VIE in London, working on the commodities markets. Then, I held several positions in market risk, still on the trading floors, but this time in Paris, and then, I joined internal audits in 2017.

Internal auditing is a strategic role at the bank. We are trying to continuously improve the company's operations. We have two ways of doing this, always using a risk-based approach.

The first is to go out and meet the teams. We talk a lot, we discuss, we do short-term job exchanges. We're really try understand what they're going through and what they're doing on a daily basis. And analysis, specifically data analysis. This is why we work a lot with people who have data scientist skills in our department.

What I like most about my job is creating innovative, concrete solutions that we’ll implement. To get them accepted, you have to be able to defend your ideas. To do this, we work a lot with data, specifically data visualization, which makes it possible to reveal facts that were not evident before we intervened.

The first important quality is to be able to work in a team, because we cover very large and complex fields. You also have to be curious and driven to get to the bottom of things. You need a capacity for discretion since we often handle confidential data. Finally, to implement solutions, you need to be able to be proactive, to be a little creative, but also down to earth.

The whole reflection aspect is important. We really have a power to make change, because the purpose of a recommendation made following an audit is always action. Obviously, to do this, we must be able to convince people and negotiate. A strong element of this is a sort of marketing of ideas which increasingly happens by way of data visualization, something we are using more and more.

If you want to join a large company at the cutting edge of innovation, you can join us. We are looking for people who have the ability to develop, but also to reflect, because there are those who are able to implement tools, to innovate, to work with data, and then, there are those who think more about employment. The two fields of action are both important and complement each other.