Internal Audit and SOX Associate
1. Information about the organization
Grant Thornton Advisors LLC is one of the largest professional services and advisory firms in the United States, providing audit, tax, and advisory services to clients across a wide range of industries. I will be joining the firm’s IT Risk / SOX Compliance practice, a specialized group within the broader Risk Advisory service line that helps clients test and strengthen the internal controls supporting their financial reporting. My work will be based out of the firm’s Philadelphia, Pennsylvania office, and will involve collaborating with both onshore teams and offshore (India based) engagement teams on a regular basis.
2. Job function
As an Associate in Risk Advisory, I will focus on hands on IT General Controls and IT Application Controls testing for SOX compliance engagements, assessing whether client side controls around system access and change management are properly designed and operating effectively. This will involve working directly with engagement seniors, managers, directors, and partners to execute testing procedures, validate client provided evidence, and document conclusions in audit workpapers, with greater ownership over these responsibilities than I had as an intern.
3. How the job relates to my major
This role connects directly to my Finance and Management Information Systems coursework at Temple University. Working with AI enabled control testing platforms and enterprise systems like ServiceNow and SAP S/4HANA will build directly on what I learned in Cloud Architecture, giving me practical grounding in how cloud based platforms (including AWS hosted environments) support enterprise data storage, access controls, and system governance in a real business setting. On the finance side, my coursework in Intermediate Corporate Finance and Honors Financial Management gave me a foundation for understanding why internal controls matter, connecting the technical testing work I’ll be doing to how a business creates value, manages risk, and protects the integrity of its financial reporting. Beyond the technical content, I’ll continue building on skills I started developing as an intern, translating detailed audit work into clear, persuasive client facing communication, managing multiple concurrent deadlines independently, and understanding how day to day work connects to the bigger picture of how a business creates value and makes money.