James was formerly Chief Audit Executive for AstraZeneca PLC from 2002-2009. Prior to that he had various corporate and commercial finance roles, culminating as Head of Group Financial Reporting for AstraZeneca PLC and was seconded into HR to be head of Global Leadership Development programmes for two years.

 

He set up a consulting business in 2010 providing training, development and coaching in the following key areas:

 

• Risk Assurance Mapping

• Lean/Agile Auditing

• Auditing Culture,

• Root Cause Analysis for Internal Audit, 

• Influencing and Political Savvy for Internal Audit

 

He runs open courses with various IIA institutes across Europe, including Belgium, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden, Lithuania, Luxembourg and the UK. 

 

He was a speaker at the IIA International Conferences in 2012, 2014, 2016 and 2023.

He has a Masters Degree in management, McGill University, Canada, specialising in organisational effectiveness and culture change. He is CIA qualified.

 

He is the author of “Lean Auditing” (published by Wiley in 2015) and “Beyond the Five Whys: Root cause analysis and systems thinking” (published by Wiley in 2023).