Elevating through people management

How did I get involved in managing the people side of assurance?

In my capacity as an audit manager here at PwC in Zug I do a lot of hands-on assurance work. But more recently, my role has expanded to also increasingly take in the people side of the business. This includes responsibility for recruitment, leading people on diversity and inclusion topics and promoting alternative career paths. 

In the course of my career I’ve experienced various teams and ways of managing people and have learned a lot in the process – including about the settings in which I and my co-workers perform best. Having moved around a bit I guess I also bring a certain outsider’s perspective combined with a feeling for how to “localise”.

In PwC’s Zug office, where I’ve been for the past four years, having come on a secondment supposed to last for two years, I’ve been lucky enough to land in a team of caring people. There’s almost a family feeling, with good managers and a strong sense of psychological safety. This has been very inspiring in my people-related work.

My involvement in the Shine, our initiative for LGBT+ employees, has also heightened my awareness of the people component of our business. Among other things it’s involved organising things like networking and awareness events, so there are also synergies here with my work for the people team.

What’s assurance for me?

I think working in assurance is a good opportunity to make a difference, to add value – not just to the companies you’re auditing, but also to society at large.

You could describe us auditors as the gatekeepers who ensure the security of our clients and the financial world. All the work we do in audit boils down to ensuring that financial statements are true and fair – in other words, that there are no errors or fraudulent information in the data provided by the client. This brings trust and security to the market, making sure that the system behind it is safe and secure.

This assurance doesn’t just protect our clients, but also those who invest in them, including private individuals and institutions such as pension funds that invest a lot of money that’s vital to the wellbeing of a lot of people. That’s a service to society. And now that we’re increasingly also providing assurance in ESG and other non-financial areas, this trust-building function is becoming even broader and more important.