Lauren Allnutt has successfully worked in different roles across our organization, including her current role as Chief Audit Executive (CAE), as well as other positions such as Corporate Controller and Head of Accounting Policy. Her team’s aim is to identify areas for improvement and help to fix them before they become bigger issues. Ensuring that Northern Trust’s controls are designed and operating effectively is her team’s number one goal.

Describe your role at Northern Trust

In my role as Chief Audit Executive, I want to set the record straight: a visit from Audit could actually be a good thing!

If a group is being visited by us more than they’d like to be, it’s because their area of the business is really important to the company. External regulators have certain areas that we’re required to cover and the more critical to success and/or high risk an area of the business is, the more we are required to do from an audit perspective.

Describe your team

My team, I’m proud to say, encompasses more than 200 people across eight countries.  Like inspectors who check a home’s structure, fire safety, electrical, or elevators, Audit routinely “inspects” all aspects of our business to ensure we are operating in accordance with requirements. If Audit finds an issue with an aspect of work that presents risk, we support the appropriate line of defense in determining remediation actions and timelines to address the risk and root cause associated with the issue. 

We strengthen the first and second lines of defense for Northern Trust – our business partners and risk partners respectively – by providing a third line of defense that ensures our controls are designed and operating effectively.

Equally important, our team is able to identify areas for improvement and help to fix them before they become bigger issues and/or are flagged by external parties, such as regulators or shareholders.

In the financial services industry, which is a fast-paced, dynamic environment, our team understands that new risks, issues, and challenges will arise. 

Our role is to ensure that the lines of defense have the ability to know when those risks come to fruition, so that they can actively and effectively manage their risks.

(Lauren and family sailing)

Strengthening our Resiliency, Improving Productivity

Every country where Northern Trust operates has its own regulations that the business must comply with, and all of those jurisdictions have different expectations on what is covered and how often.

While our role in Audit is first and foremost ensuring those requirements are being met, we’re also thinking about the bigger picture and how to strengthen our overall resiliency for the future.

Audit isn’t leading the charge on rationalizing systems or leveraging automation, but we do identify areas where it might make sense to implement changes or improvements.

For example, there are types of transformative technology or projects like automation, moving to common platforms/centralization and digital initiatives that can actually provide a better control environment than the manual processes we’re operating in today.

Driving a continued focus in areas where we need to address gaps has resulted in positive outcomes and efficiencies in our operational processes and helped to shift the way our company thinks about managing risk for the better.

When we’re able to identify opportunities for automation and process standardization that stand up to regulatory scrutiny - it’s a win-win.

Building Connections Across the Company

Our team in Audit reaches across the entire organization to make an impact and also interacts with very senior leaders.

It’s important for our team to build connections and strengthen relationships to ensure we are able to work effectively across Northern Trust. Some of the additional areas of the business I personally am involved with include our employee-led Business Resource Councils, especially Women in Leadership, and these have helped strengthen and deepen those connections.

Some of the relationships I’ve formed through these events and programs over the years have been truly transformational and help me every single day. They allowed me to get to know people and navigate the company, and help enable productive and collaborative conversations in my current role as CAE.

Making a Positive Impact in the Community

Northern Trust is a strong supporter of our local communities, and provides colleagues with two paid days each year to spend time volunteering as part of our annual month of volunteering, Achieving Greater Together, each October.

For the past several years, I have served as Treasurer of All Chicago, a nonprofit whose mission is to provide solutions that ensure and sustain the stability of home.

My work at All Chicago, much like at Northern Trust, looks ahead and thinks about how to address issues before they become even larger. I’ve seen first-hand how big of an impact Northern Trust has on our communities here in Chicago and around the globe.

(Lauren and team volunteering during Achieving Greater Together)

Careers at Northern Trust

Come find your greater at Northern Trust. Review our open roles here.