How Would You Pitch Internal Audit to Elon Musk?

It is November 2022. You have just been appointed as the new Chief Audit Executive at Twitter.

It is your first week at the social media heavyweight. You are walking through the company’s San Francisco headquarters on your way to an orientation group for new hires that you are supposed to join that morning. You are understandably a bit lost. As you try to find your way, you hop in an elevator, hoping it will put you on the right path to the meeting.

To your surprise, as you push the elevator button to go up, a familiar face walks in. It’s Elon Musk. He turns his head to you, lifting an eyebrow. Your heart starts to race. Your palms start to sweat. You are astonished to see the company’s new owner, Chief Twit, and one of the most famous individuals on the planet in your first week. But here he is, standing right next to you, sharing the small space of the elevator car. Nothing prepares you for what comes next. “So, what do you do here?” Elon asks.

You pause and reflect for a few seconds. Before responding, you quickly remember that Elon has fired a slew of senior executives just days prior to your encounter and has been threatening to trim many more. Twitter has been delisted from the New York Stock Exchange. An internal audit function is no longer a regulatory requirement.

The stakes are high. What would your elevator pitch be to make the case for internal audit? Before exploring, let’s discuss what the internal audit elevator pitch should not be.

A Failure to Communicate

Internal audit is a frequently misunderstood profession. The misconceptions can start when internal audit positions are created. Who hasn’t seen internal audit job postings with the following prerequisites?

• Certified Accountant (CPA) license required. What about the Certified Internal Auditor (CIA) designation?
• External audit experience required. Is it really needed?
• Ensure compliance with regulations. That’s not quite the job of internal audit, but thanks.
• Experience managing SOX compliance. Again, not necessarily of job of internal audit.

From the get-go, there is a large gap between what internal auditors can and should do and what some companies or senior management teams expect internal audit to do.

Misconceptions are ingrained in society and stakeholders at large, too. Internal auditors often try to explain to stakeholders and prospective professionals how exciting internal audit is and how much they can help an organization. Most of the time, their efforts go unnoticed. It often feels like internal auditors are fighting 50 years or more of stereotypes, jokes, and misconceptions about what they actually do at the organizations where they work. You might even say internal audit is trying to sell a “third-pound” burger in a “quarter-pounder” world.

Let us explain. In the early 1980s, the A&W restaurant chain released a new burger to compete with McDonald’s Quarter Pounder. The third-pound burger. Despite A&W’s offering of a larger burger for less, customers largely dismissed the offer. Why? Researchers later found that customers thought a third-pound burger was actually smaller than a quarter-pound burger. And so, the message failed.

Internal audit’s messaging that it is a value adding, vital function of the organization frequently fails as well. So, what can we do about it?

The Art of the Elevator Pitch

Let’s go back to the elevator at Twitter headquarters. What do we want to achieve by answering Elon’s question? Our primary objective is to explain in those few short minutes our unique ability to help the organization achieve its goals. Secondly, it would be important to make our contribution stick in Elon’s memory. Third, we would want to initiate trust and common ground with Elon.

Given the frame we are in, what are the requirements or criteria for our pitch? Let’s consider the requirements from different perspectives:
-What is the science behind any pitch, independent of where and what you pitch?
-What are the externalities or company-specific circumstances that should be considered?
-To whom are we talking?

Internal auditors love logic and often possess high reasoning powers. Unfortunately, our listeners may employ a much simpler, more primitive part of their brain first to process the information that we are trying to convey. That approach is generic to human conversation. The human brain consists of three major parts:

1. The reptilian brain, the oldest part of the brain that controls the fundamental functions
2. The limbic brain, which produces agreeable and disagreeable experiences and
3. The neocortex, which is responsible for our language and our higher reasoning.

The three parts of our brains do not operate independently. There are numerous interconnections through which they influence each other. Every new message is evaluated by the reptilian brain first. It functions as a gatekeeper to decide if the received message is harmful or worth being processed by the limbic brain. Our brain is wired for fundamental risk and opportunity management.

Being perceived as a potential risk to others blocks the way to the recipient’s limbic brain and the neocortex. Being perceived as attractive is the fast lane to bypass the gatekeeper. However, getting past the reptilian brain is a must-have to be perceived with high reasoning.

Getting attention is the first part of any pitch. What follows is best described in the generally accepted AIDA model. AIDA stands for Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action.

Elon or any other CEO will most likely not be scared or highly attracted by the appearance of a co-worker entering the elevator. Let’s secure the millisecond attention when you enter the elevator by a confident: “Hi Elon, I am Jane Doe…”

Holding attention through interest is much more complicated. While it is the key and the art of a successful pitch, there is no one right solution. The art of pitching is about knowing the science of a pitch, knowing the context in which the pitch takes place, knowing whom you are pitching to, and knowing yourself.

If you have a good sense of humor and have the self-confidence to apply it in this situation, holding attention and raising interest at the same time could work as follows: “… I am likely the second most feared person at Twitter and the only one you can trust to tell you the truth …”

Only then is it time to deliver our function and value proposition. We want to be perceived as relevant, make our message stick in Elon’s mind, initiate trust, and build common ground.

Internal Audit’s  Mission

The Institute of Internal Auditors is currently revisiting its mission statement for the internal audit profession. Their statement will be important to our work and how we are perceived in our companies. Still, every internal audit function needs to adjust the generic stated mission of internal audit to the company’s context: Specific risks and opportunities, legal requirements, culture-specifics, and tone at the top. The value proposition of internal audit in a highly regulated industry, such as financial services or health care, is likely to be far different from that of a privately owned tech firm. Twitter is in a unique situation now that forces any employee willing to work for the turbulent company to reduce their function to the core value proposition to survive.

“… As Chief Audit Executive, I will make sure that internal audit will support you and senior management in optimizing the governance of Twitter so it can achieve its objectives …”

To finalize the elevator pitch, two items are open: Internal Audit’s unique selling proposition (USP) and the “call to action.” What is it that only internal audit can accomplish at Twitter and what are the specific next steps to deliver to the new owner.

Both items could be connected depending on how much attention could have been maintained so far and how much time is left on the elevator ride.

“… I’d love to meet after next week’s board meeting to discuss how we can bring transparency about the managing of risks and opportunities to senior management …” Ideally, Elon will nod, shake your hand, and say, “Sounds great!”

Of course, this specific approach will not succeed in every environment. The story is intended to nudge a discussion in the internal audit community about the core value proposition of internal auditing, our USP, and how to better communicate our value proposition. So, we leave you with some questions. Feel free to add your responses in the “Comments” section below.

-How would you pitch internal audit?
-What is your value proposition?
-If you had to choose one single USP, what would your internal audit department’s USP be?

We are looking forward to hearing from you!

Alexander Ruehle, CIA, CISA, is CEO & Co-Founder of Zapliance and has been an auditor at heart for over 15 years. Jon Taber, CPA, CIA, CFE, CFF, is an Internal Audit Manager at Casey’s, based in Ankeny, Iowa.  He is also the host of the AUDIT 15 FUN podcast.