Published on January 27, 2025
Internal Audit (IA) Heads from 12 Tata companies gathered at mjunction, Kolkata, on November 28-29, 2024, for a two-day knowledge-sharing summit. Twenty IA executives attended the hybrid event in-person, with an equal number joining online. The summit provided a platform for the IA leaders to exchange ideas, share best practices, and address emerging challenges in the field.
Vinaya Varma, MD, mjunction, opened the summit with a warm welcome. He emphasised the importance of such gatherings in bringing together IA leaders from across the Group to discuss critical issues and share best practices. “The event underscores our commitment to excellence in internal audit and our focus on upholding the highest standards of corporate governance and internal controls,” he remarked.
The summit covered a wide range of topics, including compliance, risk management, independence, objectivity, artificial intelligence, and automation. Discussions centred on enhancing the effectiveness of IA functions across Group companies.
Manish J Mathur, Head - IA, mjunction; and John De Wit, CAE, Tata Steel Nederland, shared practices followed in their respective organisations.
Bhaskar Subramanian, Trustee, Global IA Foundation, presented IA imperatives from The Institute of Internal Auditors.
Satyajit Ghosal, Ex Chief Internal Executive, Tata Chemicals, shared insights on best IA planning and best practices.
Peeyush Vaish, Controls Assurance Leader & TMT Industry Leader, Deloitte, spoke on artificial intelligence and fraud analytics.
In addition to these individual sessions, there were two panel discussions.
1. ‘The effectiveness of organisations and the role of IA’: Moderated by Deepak Garg, CAE, Tata Tele Business Services, the panel discussion featured Sanjay Mathur, CAE, Tata Communications; Vijay Pandit, Tata AIG General; and SY Raman, CAE, IHCL.
2. ‘Challenges faced by the IA function’: Moderated by Vijay Laxmi Pandit, CAE, Voltas, the panel featured Chitranjan Sahoo, CAE, Air India; Saurabh Jain, CAE, Tata AIA Life; Varkey Chakoo, CAE, Tata Elxsi; and Manish Chopra, CAE, Tata Play.
Additionally, Aseem Mittal, CAE, Tata AutoComp Systems, and Bhavin Thakkar CAE, Tata Realty and Infrastructure, explored the potential of a group-level corporate issues repository. Tata Business Excellence Group shared findings of the 37th process benchmarking study on IA, sparking constructive deliberations.
The two-day event concluded on a high note with an entertaining and foot-tapping musical performance by the mjunction band.
The summit reinforced Tata group's commitment to maintaining high standards of governance, risk management, and internal controls. By fostering collaboration and knowledge-sharing among IA professionals, the Group aims to stay ahead of emerging challenges and opportunities.
About Tata Internal Audit Forum
In line with group focus areas, TBExG has instituted group-level forums on internal audit, supply chain, data excellence, treasury, and investment management. TBExG, with the support of Group companies, organises quarterly best practices sessions on subjects of interest for the respective forum. These forums have brought together over five hundred subject experts from more than fifty group companies. Many companies have been able to leverage the learnings from these sessions to improve their existing processes.
The Tata Internal Audit Forum is a congregation of internal audit heads from more than 40 Tata companies. Instituted formally by TBExG in 2023, the session at mjunction was the eighth meeting of this forum.