Chief of Staff – Audit
We Are Grant Thornton
At Grant Thornton, we go beyond business as usual, so you can too. With nearly 3,000 people in 9 offices across Ireland, the Isle of Man, Gibraltar, and Bermuda, and a presence in over 145 countries globally, we bring together local knowledge and national expertise, backed by a global network of over 68,000 professionals.
As trusted advisors, we build relationships that empower businesses to thrive—whether it’s working with the public sector to build strong communities, partnering with financial institutions to build trust, or supporting businesses across industries to achieve their goals. At Grant Thornton Ireland, we don’t just predict your future, we build it.
About the position:
We are looking for an experienced and strategic professional to join our Audit leadership team as Chief of Staff to the Head of Audit. In this key position, you will act as both a trusted advisor and Chief Operating Officer for the service line, providing strategic direction and operational leadership.
This position is ideal for someone who thrives in a fast-paced environment, enjoys problem-solving, and has a strong ability to manage multiple priorities while ensuring alignment across teams. You will play a pivotal role in driving strategy execution, operational efficiency, and stakeholder engagement across the Audit function.
Key Responsibilities

1. Reporting & Business Insights

• Design and develop dashboards and reporting tools to provide a clear overview of the Audit service line’s operations.
• Deliver detailed insights on financial performance, including actual vs. budget vs. prior year analysis and rolling forecasts.
• Track leads, sales pipeline, and business performance, ensuring leadership has the right data to make informed decisions.
• Maintain and run reports on a weekly basis, identifying trends and recommending actions to drive high performance.

1. Operational Leadership

• Act as a key advisor to the Head of Audit, providing insights and recommendations on critical business decisions.
• Identify operational inefficiencies and implement solutions to improve effectiveness across the service line.
• Foster cross-functional collaboration, ensuring the sub-service lines work effectively together to achieve business goals.
• Oversee key projects, ensuring deadlines are met, risks are managed, and strategic objectives are achieved.

1. Strategy Execution

• Support the implementation of the Audit service line’s long-term strategy, with a focus on audit quality and excellence.
• Help maintain the right balance between short-term performance targets and long-term investments for future success.
• Monitor the progress of each sub-service line, tracking behaviours and key performance indicators (KPIs) to ensure alignment with strategic goals.
• Conduct research, data analysis, and provide insights to support decision-making and continuous improvement.

1. Stakeholder & Relationship Management

• Build and maintain strong relationships with senior leaders across Audit, Finance, HR, and the CEO’s office.
• Act as a key liaison between the Audit service line and other functions, ensuring alignment and collaboration.
• Communicate clearly and concisely to drive engagement and ensure transparency in decision-making.

What Success Looks Like (First-Year Goals)

By the end of your first year, you will have:

• Established clear, concise, and consistent reporting to support data-driven decision-making.
• Built strong, productive relationships with senior Audit leaders.
• Identified opportunities for better collaboration across sub-service lines.

Goals and performance metrics will be reviewed annually as part of our appraisal and goal-setting process.
Who We’re Looking For
We are seeking a proactive, highly organised, and strategic thinker who can drive operational excellence and help shape the future of our Audit service line. If you have strong analytical skills, a collaborative mindset, and the ability to navigate complex challenges, we would love to hear from you.

Experience, skills and attributes

• Strong business acumen and a deep knowledge of professional services industry with a focus on the larger corporate and multinational part of the market
• Appropriate professional qualification or MBA
• Strong executive presence and an ability to maintain confidentiality and handle sensitive information with discretion
• Excellent strategic thinking, problem-solving, and decision-making abilities. A growth mindset, an openness to new thinking, flexibility and agility in how to achieve objectives
• Extremely comfortable with numbers, unstructured data and with a proven ability to manipulate large volumes of data within excel, visualise in Power BI (or similar) and present in PowerPoint
• Demonstrated leadership and team management capabilities
• Exceptional organisational and project management skills with the ability to manage multiple priorities in a fast-paced environment
• Outstanding communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to influence and build relationships at all levels of the organization
• A self-starter with an ability to work on their own initiative, but knowing when to seek assistance and work collaboratively
• Energy, enthusiasm and passion for a new challenge

Life at GT
Reward and benefits:
Our reward and benefits are designed to create an environment where our people can flourish. We are committed to building a culture where our people have access to the necessary benefits to help promote a healthy lifestyle and thrive.
Inclusion and diversity:
Included and valued for your difference is how everyone should feel at work. Not just because it is right, but because we are all at our best when we are able to be ourselves. So, when you join Grant Thornton, we will work hard to ensure that is how you feel. We want you for who you are. We are excited to see the personality and perspectives you will bring to our team because we know we will all benefit from them.
Diversity of thought, background and experience enables better decision-making, improves the quality of our delivery, and helps us to meet the needs of our clients. Our firm is built on people and their ideas, so we want to hear all the new perspectives and fresh thinking you have to offer.
Recognition:
We want to create a culture of recognition and celebrating success, by saying thank you to people who surpass our expectations and recognising the right values and behaviours. Our Shout Out recognition scheme is our way of highlighting and promoting achievements. Whether you simply want to say thank you, celebrate a special occasion or give an award for doing something exceptional, you can do all of this and more through the scheme.

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Please refer the Job description for details