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Technology isn't built by companies. It's built by people.
Random Access Memories (RAM) is where technology gets personal. Host Jake Bernardes sits down with founders, CISOs, engineers, operators, investors, and community builders to explore the stories behind the products, the pivots, the failures, and the moments that shaped their careers.
Whether we're talking cybersecurity, AI, startups, leadership, or life outside the office, every conversation asks the same question:
What shaped the person behind the technology?
New episodes every week.
Presented by Hubscale.
Hello and welcome to another episode of
Random Access Memories.
I'm excited for this one. This is a true
powerhouse woman we have
on the phone today. So we have Avne Desai,
who is the CEO and chief boss at Shellman
Advisory Audit Firm.
I'll let her do her intro, but there are
some interesting points that we're gonna
talk about today. And as always,
if you have any questions afterwards,
follow up with me or with her directly.
I start in the same way I always start.
So thank you for being here. I'm gonna ask
you to introduce yourself.
Thank you.
Yeah.
and then
your hobby when you're not at work and
your hero,
Okay.
a person, professional, personal life who
is your hero,
role model, whatever it might be.
introduction, hobby, hero, go.
Got
it. Well, Jake, thanks. I've enjoyed
getting to know you the past few years.
So thank you for having me. So Avani
Desai,
CEO of Shellman. I've been at Shellman for
about 13 years now.
Prior to that, I was an auditor,
actually hands-on keyboard auditor.
I was pen tester at KPMG for a few years.
Then Sarbanes-Oxley hit and I came over
here.
So I have loved it. I say I'm in my own
video game every day at Shellman.
I enjoy the culture that we're building.
but I also enjoy that we're doing
something very different in the compliance
world.
~ What I'm most proud of, I'm a mom of
three,
I have a 15 year old son, ~ a 12 year old
daughter,
and a soon to be five year old son,
so they keep me busy. ~ Hobbies,
I know, I'm gonna say I don't have
hobbies,
but I shouldn't say that. ~ Every year,
I come up with a physical thing that I
can't do,
and that becomes my hobby for the year.
~
So last year,
~ It was running one mile under sub 6:30
and it took me
Okay.
11 months and 26 days to do it,
but I did it. ~ So that was my hobby.
I would go on the weekends and this year
it is to do a pull-up.
So that's my hobby.
~ my wife's doing
that, trying to gain pull-up strength.
~ Well, that's cool. I like that for you.
to talk with her. So,
Yeah, for sure. You're hero?
Hero. Definitely my dad. He came to
the country with nothing.
He left his family and friends.
And so he came here with a lot of
sacrifice and I probably didn't fully
appreciate
it until I became a parent myself.
So,
The things I learned from him is
resilience,
discipline, and a lot of humility.
So ~ he always said success meant more
than titles or money.
you
It meant taking care of people,
doing the right things when nobody is
watching.
~ And my personal saying is leave things
better than you found them.
So definitely my hero. He passed away in
2020,
Hmm.
~ but he still lives with me. Yeah.
think I'd have liked your dad.
I have a very similar philosophy on life,
right? That you can spend a lifetime
building a brand and a reputation
and break it in the one moment when you
think that no one is looking.
~ Interesting. I like it. Why did he move?
What drove him to suddenly up sticks and
cross the world?
Oh,
so I always say he was the first feminist
that I ever met.
my dad had an arranged marriage,
born in the 40s, had an arranged marriage.
And he met like almost 40 plus women.
And my mom was number 41. He didn't like
any of them.
And she was also very educated.
But she got married and she had to have
kids.
That was the thing you had to have kids
like you got married and had kids
and she had two daughters, my older
sisters.
And then my dad realized that
He wanted a better life for them,
a life that didn't have to be just about
getting married and taking care of family,
which is good. He wanted them to have the
ability of doing a lot more things.
And so that's what he did. So he moved to
the U.S.A
My dad was very smart, but couldn't speak
English.
So ended up working ~ jobs that didn't pay
more than $5 an hour.
My mom ended up making belts.
She kind of became the breadwinner of the
family.
~ And then we grew up with government
assistance,
food stamps, everything that you could
possibly think of.
~ And so I always say, I have an
opportunity,
but an obligation of where I am today to
make sure that they came here
for all the good reasons. And so me and my
sisters carry that very proudly
~ since they came here.
What a crazy
story. I've heard lots that leave to
seek their fortune or seek a better life,
but to leave to give particularly your
daughters a different opportunity
or a different exposure to culture.
It's really interesting. I have a bunch of
questions for you.
I'll start with what I think is really
interesting.
You are the winner or first person in either
category I've ever spoke to
who has only ever really worked for two
companies and both for a long time.
Like the average tenure these days in tech
is a CISO is like two years.
As anybody else, it's like five years max.
Yeah?
Like yours is crazy. Talk to me about
that.
why were you so, you stayed at KPMG for a
long time and then you've been
at Shellman for like almost forever.
It's so funny that you say that.
~ So I believe that you have to reinvent
yourself every three to five years.
And I think reinventing yourself every
three to five years can mean
a different workplace, a different job,
a different industry. And I really enjoyed
working at KPMG.
I had the opportunity, it was a place
where I had an opportunity that
I could move around. So I went from very
hands-on keyboard security,
pen testing. And once Sarbane's-Oxley
came,
I I felt like I was in a good place with
the intersection of technology,
business and governance. I could kind of
explain to people ~ what
the tech impact could be to business if
you didn't get it right.
~ So I felt like I reinvented myself
again.
So I was able to do that. And then after
Sarbanes-Oxley,
~ I was given a position to go work for
our Chief Privacy Officer internally
at KPMG. And that's something I did.
You talk to privacy people and you talk to
security people,
even though it should be very well
connected,
it's kind of like oil and water.
And I was like, hey, why not try to do
something I can fail at?
So I decided, I was like, okay,
I'm gonna go do privacy. And ~ I really
enjoyed it,
had a great boss at that time.
~ And then I got a call from Chris
Schellman in 2012,
who said, hey, you know, I'm looking for
someone to help me grow the company and...
Would you be interested in being our chief
marketing officer?
So I went from hands on keyboard to
compliance,
to privacy, to a chief marketing officer,
which I was like, I don't know how to
market.
And he's like, but you're an SME and you
know what people want and
you probably can sell it. You've been
doing that for a long time.
So that's what it came on as chief
marketing officer did pretty well.
Gosh, that's a head scratch.
And then I went on and took over
~ services and became president
of the company. And
Yeah, it's like been such a interesting
but strange ride.
And so if we take a step back,
yeah, two companies, but I feel like I've
had 10 different positions.
Yeah, it sounds it. Let me double click on
some of that.
You pen tested when?
2002 to 2004.
How many female pen testers did KPMG have
in 2002?
*ZERO* Yeah, it's interesting,
right? ~ And then now when you sit at the
various summits and so forth,
you'll sit out with like CEOs of the audit
firms,
under advisory firms. How many led by
women apart from you?
So I think the top 100 CPA firms,
there are less than eight women and I
think I'm the only woman of color.
Gosh, is it, so here's the question I like
to pose like kind
of devil's advocate most of the time.
Has it been harder or your superpower
being a woman of color at times when
you were the only one or in the extreme
minority?
So that's tough question. I think being
the only of anything is tough because it's
hard to get the message across.
When I started as CEO, so just what,
four years ago, four and a half years ago,
I think there was less than four women.
And I can tell you now that we've doubled
in the top 100 CPA firms,
Progress.
progress.
There's something with volume of voices.
I am 100% believer in when there's four
or eight,
we can get what we want across,
right? I think being one of one,
it's like, it's not good. You know,
people are like, ~ you should be so proud
of yourself.
Hmm.
I was like, no, because my job now is to
get two and then four and then
six and then eight. Like I have this
obligation of how do I make myself
more well known so women like me can feel
like they can get here,
right? I did not see any women like me
growing up.
And I can tell you, I was scared the first
time when I was pregnant at KPMG
to tell anybody that I was pregnant
because I did not see other women.
I saw single women, I saw divorced women,
I saw women with no kids, I saw women who
did have kids whose spouses stayed home
but my husband has an equally demanding
job as I do.
I didn't see anybody like me. And so I was
scared to say,
this is who I am and what's going to
happen?
Am I going to get the next promotion?
I want to be very transparent about the
good and the bad so people can look
up to me and be like, I can be in her
position one day.
If she can do it, I can do it.
And I think that's what's lacking.
And having eight women leading CPA firms,
Hmm.
but when 50% of staff of a CPA firm are
women,
we're doing something.
Yeah, I'm going to come back to that
point.
and I want to come back to a KPMG point as
well.
First, this article I read from the
Warrington College of Business,
University of Florida says that you left
KPMG when you had your first child
to seek a different lifestyle balance.
Why? You just kind of said that it was
like,
I don't know, quote unquote, politically
incorrect,
but power women is what you saw around
you.
So you didn't see an ideal in the company
of motherhood succeeding
at a strategic level. So
Is that the rationale or why at that point
did you go,
I'm going to go somewhere else?
Yeah, it was the hardest decision for me
because I did really enjoy KPMG.
had very good mentors, but I was at a
crossroads where I had to make a decision.
Did I want to be a good mother or did I
want to be an exceptional executive?
And it's a terrible decision for anybody
to make.
And I decided that I wanted to be a mom.
I've always wanted to be a mom.
I love being a mom.
I really, really enjoy being a mother and
The first year my son, who's now 15,
was born, I saw him less than 50 days the
whole year.
My husband would take me to the airport
with him.
Gosh.
We would eat at Maggiano's. I remember
this.
And then it would be Sunday and I come
back Friday and we would have the weekend.
And I am so lucky. My mother moved in with
us and my mother and father moved
in with us to take care of him.
So, I mean, I was never worried about who,
like how he was being raised between him
and my husband.
He was loved more than enough,
but...
I had to make that decision and I wanted
to be a mom.
And so I left and it was very difficult.
~ But Chris Schellman was like, come here,
build something. You can work from home.
~ I remember him telling me, he's like,
are you gonna have more kids? I was like,
yeah, I think maybe I want two kids.
And he's like, you should have as many
kids as you want plus one because being
a parent is fantastic. And so he built a
company where I didn't have to choose.
And I always said that
If I was ever going to run a company,
never want anyone to choose between being
an executive,
a mom, a sister, a brother, a spouse,
a friend, ~ because you can do all of it.
And there's an opportunity and that's what
we've built here.
Okay, let me ask you a question that may
be awkward,
but I like awkward questions. How many of
your current leadership team are female?
How many of your partners?
So 70% of my executive leadership team is
female.
70. Wow, that is impressive.
yeah, yeah. My president,
my COO, my CRO, my CHRO, my CFO,
COO, my head of services, yeah.
Intentional or accidental?
I look for people, I look for two things,
the right person for the job and somebody
who thinks very differently from me.
I call it, I love Chanel, the concentric
Cs.
~ I think when you have group think,
you never grow at the velocity and
momentum that you have the potential to.
I think when you're in a room and you have
full on fights,
you leave
having so many better ideas as long as
you're aligned when you leave.
And we're all aligned when we leave.
Like that is the number one thing.
If we can say anything, but once we leave
the room,
we all have to be, accept the decision,
be aligned with it ~ so the firm can see
our align.
That's what, in my opinion, makes a great
leader.
I have what I call passionate
disagreements with Yair frequently,
but I know that I can have those,
you
right? And I think as an exec,
you have to feel safe to be able to say
your piece,
whether you think that leadership is wrong
or right,
or whether you think there's just an
in-between.
think finding that safety net is
important.
So the answer you said was interesting.
You talked about being a role model to
show this is possible.
You are front and center on social media a
lot more than most audit leaders that
I know. I couldn't tell you who was
running most of the...
like the top 20 audit firms in the USA
without me going on Google,
but you're all over LinkedIn everywhere.
Is that also why? Because you want to,
it's not just marketing, because you want
to put your face,
your brand, your color, your gender all
out there to say,
look, this is where I am and this is who I
am.
100%. And I talk about the good and the
bad,
like, you know, where I've made mistakes
and where motherhood has been hard
and also with marriage, you know, I always say
the number one
for me, and I think a lot of other
executives,
the person you marry is probably the best
work decision that you can make,
right? I mean, I married someone who was
very,
very, very supportive of me. And if I
didn't.
I wouldn't be where I am, right?
And so I talk about these things a lot.
And I also talk about SOC reporting and
ISO and AI governance.
But yeah, that's a big reason of why I
wanna be front and center is it's
Yeah.
not that you can't have it all,
right? It's you can, women, mothers,
fathers, I mean, I don't even think it's a
gender thing is we can
be successful at multiple things,
maybe not at the same time, I say nine to
five.
an amazing executive, maybe kind of a
shitty mom,
but from five to 10, I am a fantastic mom.
you
Like, I mean, I can get on the floor,
I can do Legos, we read books
and books and I can take you
to the bathroom 20 times until we get to
bed,
right? But I can't do it at the same time,
but I can do it at two different times and
that's-
Do you find that as possible,
are you able just to shut at five?
Because I sometimes find it hard with
multiple times over these days
to actually like close at five.
Like do you think you still think that's
possibly in our modern super connected
You do.
world?
I make it, that's something that I just
have to do,
right? I mean, people know that you will
not get an email from me between five
and nine. If it is a massive emergency,
call my cell phone. ~ But there aren't
that many emergencies in what
we do between five and nine. My husband's
a different story.
He's saving lives, right? His phone is
always on.
What does he do?
He ~ is a high-risk obstetrician,
so a maternal fetal medicine physician.
Yeah. Yeah.
Oh, wow. Oh yeah, okay, that, yeah,
that's pretty intense. Wow, that's pretty
stressful. Gosh. Okay. Let me ask you a
completely pivoting question off of that.
So I think a lot's changed in GRC in audit
in this whole area in 14 years,
which is how long roughly you've been at
Shellman for.
What's changed at Shellman and why?
Like what have you seen as like the real,
like one to two to three big changes and
what drove them?
Yeah, there's been a lot of changes.
I would say the biggest change ~ is we
have decided to
stay consistent with the type of services
that we give.
So I think, and this has been a strategic
decision for ours.
And I think it has been a change because
we've kind of pivoted.
So we only do assurance, assurance and
certification,
no consulting work, no pseudo consulting
work.
~ And the world around us is doing both.
And I think it has, there's probably more
revenue in certain aspects,
but we decided that we were just gonna be
really, really, really good at assurance.
And we'll continue to add frameworks
globally.
Now we can do things like HDS in France.
We can do IRAP in Australia. We hope to
add on more.
We added on Singapore, MTCS. We added ENS
in Spain.
~ But that's a big change for us,
is we've decided strategically is we're
not going to do consulting work.
it's, you know, sometimes clients will
say,
well, we wish you could do both.
We have other clients, other firms that
can do both.
But we've decided that we want to stay
independent in fact and perception.
We decided that I don't want to have any
internal struggles.
We have this client where we've been
doing 10 years worth of audit.
Now the same client wants implementation
work and it's going to be 10 times more.
We're going to give you this relationship
versus you,
right? That internal struggle,
I think it erodes culture and I think it
erodes trust.
~ And so that's been the biggest change.
Yeah.
I think we'll continue to stay at.
hopefully will be, you know, continue to
stay like that into the future.
I think the second thing that is,
is, you know, we have become fully remote
first.
All of our 535 employees before we were
hiring in critical mass areas,
all of back office was being hired in
Tampa.
And now we're like, we want you to work
what works for you.
And that has been really good.
I've been, you we talk about
parenthood, I would say 10 years ago,
the minute you had a child, you would
leave and you would go into industry,
you would go into, you know, a role in GRC
or you go into internal audit.
Yeah.
People don't leave now. I was actually the
first woman to ever have
a baby at Schellman and that was,
Wow, you actually lost.
~ and now I mean,
every day we see amazing ~ babies being
born at Schellman and women are not leaving.
~ Most of my executive team are mothers.
They're all caregivers. so, ~ yeah,
women and men are not leaving the
workforce at Schellman because their
families grow.
And I think it's because we have given
them the flexibility to be able
to work from wherever they want.
And, you know, post pandemic, we're not at
the client site 100 % of the time.
Maybe we're at the client site 40 % of the
time.
And we're being very, very thoughtful
about the time that we are spending with
them.
And then we're able to do the rest of the
work.
from home. So yeah, those things and I
don't think we'll ever change those
Yeah.
two things. ~
So you obviously had, well, your first
child was born
in the transition period and then you had
two kids further while at Schellman,
right? So, and you talk about this whole
lock off at five and being mum,
I have two different modes and two
different physicalities.
So I think that's probably one thing that
would poke on,
what has changed in you in 14 years?
Like what have you talked about how the
company's changed?
What's changed in you as a person?
I'm going to say two things. So I grew up
in,
so I was born in the U.S. My parents
immigrated in the mid 70s.
My sisters were born in India and I grew
up in the U.S.
in a very traditional household where I
think my dad would always say,
study hard, keep your head down and you're
going to do well.
And I did. And I, that was good.
I did do well. I scored very well on my
exams and I was a straight A student.
But what it didn't do was it didn't give
me a lot of confidence.
And it didn't give me a lot of confidence
for my voice to be heard in rooms.
And I can tell you the first conversation
as an ELT that I had at Schellman,
I remember being in a room and I had so
many thoughts and I didn't say a word,
nothing. And I just didn't have the
confidence.
And I think it was just, keep your head
down and keep on doing the right thing.
And people will sooner or later see how
great you are, but that's not true in what
we do,
right? And so I think the biggest change
in me was ~ I found my voice
Yeah.
and I found that, ~ you know, I believe in
radical transparency.
And to me, that's like telling the truth
even when it's uncomfortable.
And so not only did I feel like I didn't
have a voice,
I felt like I couldn't give feedback
because I felt that maybe that would hurt
people's feelings, but
what I learned and probably the biggest
thing is people can handle hard news much
better than they can handle uncertainty or
silence.
And so if it's a performance issue,
Agreed.
if it's a business challenge, hey,
you missed a goal or hey, at the end of
the day,
it's gonna be a tough decision.
People deserve honesty. Feedback is a gift
and you can't filter it,
you can't delay it, you can't soften it
because that message gets lost.
And you can ask people at the firm,
they'll always tell you, Avani will come
and say,
Hey, can I give you some feedback?
I mean, it has become a thing.
Like I will be like, hey, can I give you
some feedback?
But I also always ask for feedback.
You know, if it's with a new investor,
if it's with an ELT, if it's with a new
advisor,
I'm like, hey, I want you to give me as
much feedback because I don't know what
I don't know. And it's not fair to me or
it's not fair to you if it's like
the last straw. And I was like,
okay, we're not going to do this anymore.
~ I think that's very disrespectful,
right? So.
So transparency builds trust. It's
actually our second core value at
the firm is transparency builds trust.
~ And I think it also removes a lot of
politics and assumptions.
So yeah, that's the biggest change in me
is I feel comfortable getting feedback.
I feel comfortable speaking and I feel
comfortable giving feedback.
It feels like your changes or your values
are like really intrinsically
in shell in a way that a lot of CEOs
aren't.
Like you just said, trans-science builds
trust,
right? And you've got three that I read
all the time.
Trans-science builds trust. People come
first and never stand still,
right? Which are things you've talked
about in your own life,
like this whole day of changing your
character constantly while in one company,
prioritizing family and therefore ensuring
people feel comfortable.
And this whole radical transparency piece
is it's interesting to see
how much you've kind of built yourself
into your
company. Another random thought.
So I have a problem that Americans refuse
to take holiday.
They just want to go on vacation.
Okay.
So I've for many years, my teams who have
worked with me and we're watching this
will be laughing because I've I've put
bonus components into all of their compensation
plans
that you have to take at least one solid
week off a year.
And then it's two weeks the following year
in a row in one go and go somewhere
or I will not pay your bonus. Like I want
evidence because it drives
me mad that they won't take vacation.
And
I guess when you talk about this whole
nine to five,
let's stop and be different and let's try
and create any culture in which people
can come to work as their full selves and
let's keep people through family journeys.
How are you doing that? Cause I feel like
I've had to literally force
it in a contract. Like how are you
educating and keeping the workforce in
a way that they feel happy?
Yeah.
Well, I like that because we force it to.
So we shut down the week of July 4th,
shut down completely. And we call it our
summer break.
You know, you're probably right.
~ My kids get a summer break. I give the
firm a summer break.
So we shut down. ~ And I think if you ask
any Shulman employee what they think
of that, it is a true shutdown because we
also shut down the last two weeks
of the year, the week of Christmas and the
week of ~
New Year's. But I also think you have family
obligations
you have buy gifts for a lot of
obligations that
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
and you're trying to like So I still think
that's
not a break. So that's what we've done break to like
truly end the year.
There's been a big push for a lot of
companies to do unlimited PTO because
it takes a lot of time. Right?
~ it's such a bad idea. It's such a toxic
thing in my opinion.
It takes a lot of time.
It just gets people competing who took the
least.
Correct. trust us, like people have said,
like, do that, do that, do that.
I was like, no, because I want you to take
your PTO.
Like I actually want you to take your full
hours.
Yeah.
~ I take it and I make the partners take
it.
And I think that shows good leadership.
We've also been able to build something
here where,
~ you know, if you do take PTO,
my executive leadership team is fantastic.
So I went to China.
I didn't take my phone or anything.
wasn't PTO, it was work, but I didn't have
access to like email and so forth.
But I wasn't worried. I had built a team
around me that could handle anything.
And our service delivery teams have
exactly done that as well.
~ And so we let a little PTO roll over.
but we tell people, like, is how much PTO
you have,
take it, take it, take it, take it.
And then we have three weeks of mandatory
shutdown every year.
That's certainly different to most things
I know and to the world I know
in kind of audit advisory and kind of
assurance.
~ Yeah, wildly different. I that's really
interesting and really valuable.
The bit you said there, one of the things
that's really interesting
is human resilience. Like you're talking
about being able to have people
be able to comfortably take and walk away
and take the time because
you build resilience into teams,
into companies, into like structures,
domains or whatever, right?
I don't think enough people do that.
And there's such a reliance these days in
the fact that that person we need
to have because of this reason.
And I always say to my, I'm like,
Yes.
I can walk away. Like my team is good
enough to keep this business running.
I have values, I have skills, but this
business,
like the whole point is I want to build a
business where I can leave tomorrow
and we'll be fine. ~ You seem to have the
same approach.
~ 100%. I mean, my job is to make me
irrelevant,
right? If I can make myself irrelevant.
~ I mean, you know, I think that's
actually an issue with like,
let's go back to like, you talked about
Americans who don't ~ want to take time
off.
I actually really think that mindset is
like,
we wear exhaustion like a badge of honor.
I mean, how many people have said like,
Yeah, yeah.
I haven't taken a vacation in two years,
like an achievement. Like, but when I look
at that,
And when I hear it, to me, something is
broken.
Something is broken in that leadership
team.
Like if you can't take time off,
you don't have the right people around
you,
right? 100 % or you don't have the right
processes.
And so to me, rest is not a reward after
burnout.
It is part of performance. And so when I
told you,
right, you know, last year my goal was to
run a mile under sub 6:30.
And what I learned from there is the best
athletes understand recovery.
100 %
and allows
consistency, right? Like, so why aren't
the best leaders also understanding
recovery
and why aren't the best operators,
right? And so I do, I mean, that to me
was,
it changed the way I operated.
Like I needed, it's not like, let's go on
the track and just run four times
as much as possible. Like I knew I needed
some rest days.
And when I did, I actually was able to
shave a couple of seconds off.
I was like,
I don't, we all should do this right now.
No, you're preaching to the
so, yeah.
choir. tell people think I'm mad when I
say I always take four to five vacations
a year, actual full blown trips,
always at least a week and one will be at
least two weeks.
do that every single time people are like,
that's mad how do you do that? I'm like,
because I do. My kids are only young ones.
And it makes you better. ~
I want to build memories. I'm not here a
lot like you.
I travel a lot for work. So when I'm here,
we're going to go and do stuff.
Like if that doesn't work for you,
that's great. But I think it works for
anybody.
you don't have the guilt either,
right? And then you feel like you can be
100 % Jake at work and you can
be 100 % Jake at home, right? Like you
don't feel the guilt that you've taken
away
from one to give to the other.
And that is just such a problem.
I think in today's society is that's what
we're doing.
We're robbing ourselves in one area to
give to the other when maybe
we can't give 100 % to both, but can we
give 50 % of both or 100 % at one time,
like nine to five.
Yeah, I agree. I've got two more areas I
want to talk about.
But one question before we go there.
What's your superpower? What is your one,
you said before, like you want to become
irrelevant.
That's your point. So what is your
superpower?
Yeah.
One thing, what makes you good at what you
do?
I think everyone should know this,
so I ask everyone I interview,
like what is your one thing that makes you
good?
I think I know things that are gonna
happen two steps ahead of from when
Intuition. ~
it happened. Yeah, I have this intuition ~
that like,
this is gonna be a good employee or this
is gonna be a good project or this
is gonna be a good deal, right?
And I don't know how I know, but I just
know.
And so I feel like, yeah, it's intuition.
It seems like you've led me straight into
my next question without
any intent or script. But like there's two
things I think you've done
at Schellman that are interesting.
One is you got ahead of AI before it came.
Danny Manimbo and people who I'm quite good
friends with were like talking about
AI assurance and auditing before there was
a thing to be assured against.
think that was interesting. The second
thing is more interesting is
you operate like a SaaS company.
Like you literally have sales structures
and sales functions.
Yeah.
And that was historically not known in
audit firms or assurance firms,
right? You always had partners who brought
their book of business in and.
That's how you got from being a manager to
a director to being a senior director,
being a partner was bringing my clients
in.
But your structure with a proper go to
market function,
which I think at least in my knowledge,
you were one of the first to do this.
Why? Like you say it's intuition,
so you saw it coming and everyone seems to
be doing it.
But at the time, what clicked that said we
should just sack
off this traditional partner model and
actually get proper salespeople in.
Yeah, well, I saw what was happening,
right? I saw what was happening.
So first back to ~ AI. So yes,
100%. I'm a big reader. I think readers
are leaders.
I'm a huge reader, ~ one book a week.
And I just started seeing that if you look
at society,
right, ~ those that understand technology
or change
~ and embrace it and figure out what they
can do with it.
early on, think will be the first mover
advantage.
And we've always been the first mover
advantage.
So AI, but also sovereign compliance.
I talked about all these, know,
how we can do I rep. I mean, I think the
next big thing is quantum readiness.
Like we are already working on that right
now.
~ And yeah. And so I really think having a
pulse
Interesting. Gosh, that is interesting.
of what is happening, like globally around
the world.
And I've been really lucky that I get to
be part of the World Economic Forum,
I get to
you know, have clients who are the who's
who of technology and just like really
learning from them. Like I think that's
like as a leader,
understanding what your clients are ~
dealing with every day
and understanding what the market is going
to talk about and then deciding
how what your strategic vision is,
is so key in professional services.
And I think a lot of people don't do that,
right? They, don't go outward to look
inward.
So that's
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
one thing. And
so maybe it was intuition or maybe it was
just listening to kind of what
is out there. The second thing,
100%. You know, ~ we were always an
inbound sales organization
who were using partners to go out ~ and ~
it worked.
We've been really successful. However,
we should use people for the best of their
ability.
When I take a look at our principles,
they should have two jobs, delivering high
quality work.
to their clients and making sure that
their people get
the great performance feedback and growth
that they need.
They shouldn't be doing everything else,
right? Like going out and cross-serving
and negotiating fees,
you
but they should be front and center in the
relationship.
There are so many other people out there
who are really good at that.
And so how do we bring the entire firm to
the organization,
right? Like, so having people focus on
what they're best at,
and getting them to be A+ players
there ~ and surrounding themselves like
I have surround myself ~ with the right
team members.
I think we've always tried to be a jack of
all trades and it's worked because
my partners are rock stars. They are
fantastic.
But if I have them focus on three things
that they love doing,
like my partners don't love asking a
client,
hey, do you want a pen test?
You know, they want to be able to say,
hey, let's talk about this and let's talk
about how to consolidate your audits
and let's talk about, you know,
which controls and like, they want to geek
out into that.
And so that's why we brought in a sales
team to take the burden off them
and allow them to shine and become A+
players.
Like I don't need everyone to be a B+
player.
I want you to be an A plus player at the
things that you love.
~ And that's really, really important.
It's interesting you say that,
I've talked a lot socially recently about
the fact that I think that
we have this problem in our society where
we're always about like,
identify your weaknesses and make them
your strengths.
And I'm like, hell no, like, identify your
strengths and make them stronger.
Like, I don't need to be good at the stuff
I'm not good at.
Yeah.
What about the stuff I'm already good at?
that is like, it's like how we grew up
like,
what are you bad at? Okay, let's make you
mediocre at it now.
Instead of what are you great at good at
and let's make you amazing and fantastic.
Yeah.
Like, let's go back. It's like,
you know, if you're if you can do the
hundred meters.
Do you want to do the hundred meters and
the hurdle?
No, just become really good at the hundred
meters and win the gold,
right? And so that's what we've started
doing.
And so
At the firm, now we have partners who are
fantastic at delivering.
We have partners who actually like
delivering and doing some of
the sales like Danny, right? And so he's a
hybrid and we've given
him the opportunity to do that.
And then we've taken those that happen
really,
really well on, you know, cross-serving
our clients and put them in
a new role called GCS, which is our global
strategy for our clients.
And now everyone gets to do what they
really like to do and they become experts.
And what they're good at, right?
What you like to do is one thing,
Yeah. Correct. Correct.
but also what you're really good at.
I have one more question, the elephant in
the room before I wrap and close.
Delve, right? Delve is unquestionably a
thing that's in the audit
and assurance and GRC world right now in
as much as there is a
lot of secondhand evidence around them
having a relationship with
an auditor to publish SOC 2 reports,
which were rubber stamped and effectively
copy and pasted,
which is getting a lot of lack of trust
now at both GRC tools.
Anecdotes being one and various other
people in the platform and
on auditors and their relationship with
vendors and other people,
VCs, whatever, right? How do you see that?
It's question one. Like what's,
Yeah.
do you think your take or impact on that
is?
And the second broad, more broader one is
where is audit going in the next 12,
18 months? Where is assurance changing?
Yeah. So, I have a lot of ideas on this,
but, ~ so overall, my view is that
auditors need to do what we do best.
We have to be independent. We have to have
the right judgment and we have
to build trust. Right. And GRC tools have
such an important role.
Like they help companies stay organized,
like evidence collection, get them ready.
Right. ~ it is so valuable, right.
You make the compliance process more
efficient.
I think that's very valuable.
~ and GRC tools are part of the ecosystem,
but preparation and assurance are not the
same thing.
A tool can get you ready for an audit.
A tool can help you stay on track for an
audit,
but it should never be confused with the
audit itself.
And I think that's what's happened in the
last few years.
So our job as auditors is not speed for
speed sake.
Hmm.
~ it's professional skepticism.
It's asking the hard question.
It's doing, you know,
It's validating, it's standing behind an
opinion.
And I think the best outcome is not
auditors competing with GRC tools,
right? It's working together with clear
boundaries.
And that's really important. It's the
boundaries,
right? Like platforms help clients
prepare.
I mean, and let auditors do what auditors
do,
provide trust to the market. ~ And I think
that balance is what we need
to bring back. at the end of the day,
I'm going to say a lot of it as auditors,
we should know better.
I think as clients, clients should have
known better that,
you know, if you can press a button and
your trust center comes up,
you should ask yourself why, right?
~ And so trust is at the core,
like really at the center of all this.
Yeah.
And I think that's where audit is going.
Audit is where the world is moving really
fast.
Technology is changing. You and I both
know the buyers are demanding more proof,
not less.
And I think that's where the audit
expanding beyond just traditional
compliance.
And ~ so I'm a big believer and I know you
are too that the future of audit
is not just checking boxes. It's helping
organizations prove that they're
trustworthy in areas that impact,
know, capital markets, customers,
regulators, investors. So ~ less about
reports and more about confidence.
Let me build on that and say something
which I don't know if you will agree with.
So I've said a lot. I think that
certifications will die.
SOC, ISO, IRAP, all of it. I think we get
to a point where there is
a data pipeline that allows evidence to be
accessed in a human readable
and machine readable JSON, whatever that
looks like.
And that the auditors go away from doing
like a point in time report
to assuring how that data gets from A to B
and assuring at any point
Mm-hmm.
in time that the data says is what it says
it should do.
Because I think the certifications out
date them.
Technology is moving so fast that no way
can ISO or AI standards keep
up with the technology. the problem is the
framework's broken.
But if you can get the auditor to assure
the evidence without a framework
to match it to, that seems to be more
sensible to me.
But a lot of people in the audit community
and assurance community don't agree with
me. So feel free to disagree, don't worry.
Can I give you some feedback, Jake?
Of course you can!
~ I don't think certifications are dying.
I think they're evolving. What is dying
though is the checkbox mentality.
Okay.
The idea that you can hang a certificate
on a wall and assume that trust is
handled.
Like, look, we are all smarter than that
now.
I do agree. is growing is a need for proof
though,
right? Customers, regulators, like they
all want evidence that your controls
actually work. Not in the past,
not 12 months back. They're working.
~ your AI is governed responsibly,
like your cyber posture is real,
whatever. Right. I think the certificate
itself is not the value.
It's the rigor behind it. So if someone
thinks certifications are dying,
I would ask like, are clients asking for
less assurance or more?
And the market is signaling they want
more.
So look, I don't think they're going to
disappear.
I think low value certifications might,
think like going down market where you're
thinking is just,
~ check the box, but high quality,
credible assurance.
I think it's gonna be very important.
So however we wanna call it, I think that
is what's gonna be super important.
I think, yeah, it's interesting.
You're currently actually doing our SOC 2
right now.
And I think what's interesting is we've
significantly matured as an organization,
this is the last time we were reviewed,
and you have findings that I completely
agree with,
that we are in the process of fixing.
I think that's the point, right,
is that assurance gets to a more granular
level where it's actually finding things
which aren't necessarily directly
control-specific,
but are more maybe like control-adjacent.
~ I think that's the value piece.
Yes exactly.
so I think the takeaways, I think there's
a lot in here.
I think the idea that you achieve by not
just working hard,
but by pivoting and finding out your
superpowers and always getting better
and better at that. Like putting all your
like PowerPoints,
if you're playing like an old like role
playing game on the thing you're already
strongest at and keep going that way.
think that's important. I this idea of
finding balance and living
by example is really important.
I'm an advocate of radical transparency.
Everyone knows that. So I think that's
really strong.
I think also there's one thing,
so I've said it publicly so it's not a
secret,
but like, you are a person who,
I'm gonna offend a of Americans,
but an abnormal in American culture in my
opinion.
A lot of people say to me a lot of times
like,
I'll do this, I'll help you there,
don't worry about it, like if you're ever
in town,
look me up. It's quite hollow a lot of the
time,
I'm not gonna lie. Whereas I've told
people,
we went to Disney recently, you turned up
and you gave us tickets and helped us out,
it was amazing, thank you, I appreciate it
too,
tremendously.
But more importantly is the value that
underlies that,
that I find that you as a human are
someone who says things and does things.
And it's the same in the whole life.
If we're gonna get vacation, I'm gonna
just close the office
so people can't actually physically work.
If we're gonna do this, I'm gonna just do
this.
So physically that has to happen.
And I think that if I looked at your
superpower,
that's what I would say. I would say you
are actually a follow through in
as much as you don't just say things,
you do things. So I think that is what I
appreciate about you as a human.
~ And I think the industry needs more of I
think what's helping to transform it.
Thank you.
So for those listening, any questions,
Avni is all available on LinkedIn and
she's always on it.
always.
Do have questions for me? You are welcome
to,
but if not, thank you so much for joining
us.
I appreciate your time. We'll probably
have you back at some point,
but in the meantime, thank you very much
for being here.
Thanks, Jake. Appreciate it.