Director Audit

About the Internal Audit Group at American Express:

Our Internal Audit Group is a worldwide function with 400+ team members and offices across nine countries within American Express. Our mission is to protect and enhance organizational value by providing independent, objective, risk-based assurance, advisory services and to influence the way the company manages risk.

We are committed to growing our audit staff significantly as we continue to expand and enhance the Internal Audit Group. Our assurance and risk professionals have diverse backgrounds including internal controls, consumer compliance, technology, operational risk, financial accounting, data analytics, and banking operations. Our audit teams align to key risk areas and business units to ensure IAG can provide comprehensive and risk-based audit coverage. In addition, IAG has a Professional Practices group responsible for managing audit operations, quality, and standards; regulatory relations; reporting; training and professional development; and key internal capabilities and technologies.

Job Description

About the Role 
This role leads the Internal Audit Group's assurance strategy and coverage for AI/Gen AI. The Director will drive audit engagements end-to-end — overseeing planning and execution, evaluating the design and effectiveness of controls, and delivering actionable insights that strengthen AI governance, AI lifecycle management, and AI risk assessment practices across the enterprise.

About the Team: Our Data Science and Model Risk/AI team plays a critical role in supporting Internal Audit by providing specialized assurance over models and AI/Gen AI solutions used across the enterprise. We deliver independent, risk-based evaluations that help auditors gain a clearer understanding of how models and AI are developed, governed, validated, and deployed within the business. By combining quantitative expertise with business and regulatory knowledge, the team helps uncover model risks, assess governance practices, and highlight opportunities to strengthen controls — ultimately enhancing the depth, rigor, and quality of Internal Audit's coverage over AI and model risk.

• Advanced degree (Minimum a master’s degree) in Computer Science/ Financial Engineering/Statistics
• 8+ years of relevant work experience in the financial industry, preferably in Banking Industry
• Strong managerial skills, written and verbal communication skills, analytical, problem solving, lateral thinking and interpersonal skills
• Experience in developing/validating/auditing of AI/ML Models 
• Experience with regulatory interaction
• Understanding of local and globally significant regulatory requirements pertaining to AI/Gen AI.

Employment eligibility to work with American Express in the United States is required as the company will not pursue visa sponsorship for these positions.

• Develop and implement an audit coverage strategy for Gen AI, ensuring alignment with organizational goals. The audit strategy should help assess potential risks and vulnerabilities in Gen AI use cases and allow the Internal Audit Group to provide the First and Second Lines with sound recommendations for effective risk mitigation.
• Lead specialized (“core”) audits focused on Gen AI to assess the Company’s Gen AI governance, risk management framework and supporting control processes. This involves assessing the governance, risk management and internal control processes that support the ideation, development, deployment and monitoring of the Gen AI use cases. 
• Educate and advise the Internal Audit Group on an effective approach for assessing Gen AI risks across audit portfolios.
• Effectively challenge the Gen AI use case developers/users, risk management groups/committees to ensure that the appropriate risks are identified and documented correctly. 
• Identify potential biases, ethical concerns, and risks associated with Gen AI use cases and ensure that such use cases comply with tech standard, data management/data governance requirements, privacy laws, and industry-specific regulations; evaluate broader implications of the use of Gen AI for reputational, strategic and compliance risks.
• Maintain internal audit competency through ongoing professional development; and keep abreast of the latest developments in Gen AI technologies, ethical considerations, and regulatory requirements, and update the audit coverage strategy accordingly.
• Work closely with diverse internal and external stakeholders, including technology, risk, privacy, and legal teams, to create and implement audit plans that address the distinctive challenges associated with Gen AI methodologies.
• Set direction and provide oversight during the planning, execution, and reporting phases of all audit engagements in the assigned audit portfolio, including special advisory reviews; and ensure ongoing monitoring activities are effective in capturing existing, upcoming, and emerging risks. 
• Assess the control effectiveness and deliver high-quality audit findings
• Demonstrate strong judgement and sound decision making 
• Effectively coach, instruct, mentor and develop junior colleagues and co-sourcing personnel. 

Salary Range: $123000 - $215250 annually + bonus + equity (if applicable) + benefits