Yellowbook-CPE Presents: Auditors Save The World

In this episode of Auditors Save the World, podcast host Leita Hart-Fanta, CPA interviews audit superhero, Robert Timmerman.

Citizens, brace yourselves! Our story begins in a great American city under pressure.

Two violent crimes. Investigations already underway. City leaders demanding answers. Lawyers watching every word while the media circles. And as this storm rages, the community is wondering: Can we trust the people who are supposed to hold government accountable?

Into this storm steps a new City Auditor... Robert!

An experienced auditor armed with evidence, independence, and a stubborn devotion to the truth! Robert works with City Council, legal counsel, city officials, and the media while navigating investigations where the stakes could hardly be higher. And along the way, he builds something an auditor cannot simply demand: Credibility.

But Robert isn't interested in finding a villain and calling it a day. No blaming, no shaming, and no easy answers for complicated problems! Instead, he turns his attention to the machinery underneath it all.

He challenges City Council to establish enterprise risk management, giving the city a way to identify systemic risks before they erupt into tomorrow's headlines and thus creating a foundation for the audits still to come.

And when misinformation makes its way into the public conversation, Robert doesn't duck. He engages. He works with the media, corrects the record, digs for the facts, and insists that the community deserves something better than a convenient narrative. Because Robert's superpower isn't finding someone to blame. It's identifying systems that can be better.

So tune in as we meet the auditor willing to walk straight into controversy, challenge the people at the top, defend the facts, and who is brave enough to to ask the question every great auditor should ask: How do we make this work better next time?

This is Robert. City auditor. Truth seeker. System fixer. And this is Auditors Save the World!

CHAPTERS:

00:53 — Robert steps into the storm: Minneapolis under pressure

03:08 — What is enterprise risk management and why it matters

06:47 — Unresolved audit findings and the case for ERM

09:52 — How the city’s risk function lost its way

12:21 — Building a risk-based annual audit plan

15:13 — Writing the early observations memo — four months in

20:04 — How audit plans get built and prioritized

25:49 — Writing for three different audiences

30:55 — Robert’s approach to media: let the work speak

33:49 — The high-stakes public safety audit begins

38:56 — The joint audit committee and City Council meeting

42:17 — Working with attorneys: a different rulebook

44:01 — Focusing on systemic causes, not individual blame

ABOUT ROBERT TIMMERMAN:

Robert Timmerman has dedicated his entire career to helping Minnesotans. He brings a passion for public service to both his professional and personal life, leading through his core values of compassion and equity.

Robert was appointed City Auditor for the City of Minneapolis in February 2025. In this role, he oversees independent, objective, and risk‑informed assurance and advisory services for the City.

Before joining the City of Minneapolis, Robert built a storied career with the State of Minnesota. He served as Interim Director, Deputy Director, and Internal Audit & Investigations Supervisor in the Minnesota Department of Transportation’s Office of Audit. Prior to that, he worked for the Minnesota Office of the Legislative Auditor, conducting audits of healthcare organizations administering the state’s Medical Assistance program and identifying significant pharmaceutical cost savings. Earlier in his career, he began at the Minnesota Department of Revenue, auditing healthcare organizations and tobacco companies and supervising staff responsible for complex tax enforcement.

He has been an avid volunteer in his community, contributing to youth sports, school, church, and Rotary club events and committees.

In this episode of Auditors Save the World, podcast host Leita Hart-Fanta, CPA interviews audit superhero, David Jones.

When everyone assumed Seattle's bridges were being cared for, one man discovered a startling truth. The city's 70+ bridges were not being maintained!

Armed with evidence instead of x-ray vision, David helped convince city leaders to dedicate funding to preserve the bridges before small problems became catastrophic ones.

But his work didn't stop there.

Using data instead of guesswork, David showed city leaders exactly where crime and drug overdoses were concentrated, helping the city focus its efforts where they could make the greatest difference.

And notice how David proves his mettle as a gracious and wise audit executive throughout the podcast. While lesser heroes chase the spotlight, David shines it on his team, generously praising their talent, hard work, and good judgment. Because the best leaders don't claim every victory for themselves. They build teams that earn them.

Don't miss an episode! Follow our podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts and subscribe to our channel on YouTube.

CHAPTERS:

00:53 — Seattle’s geography and the West Seattle Bridge crisis

03:27 — Council Member Peterson and the case for a bridge audit

07:47 — Bridge ratings trending down and spending not keeping up

12:32 — The $34 million minimum — and why it matters

14:22 — The importance of following up on recommendations

16:00 — Yellow Book vs. IIA standards on follow-up

19:40 — The overdoses audit: how it came about

25:07 — Building the case study in Belltown

28:50 — Evidence-based approaches to address hot spots

34:17 — David’s 16 years as City Auditor and what he left behind

ABOUT DAVID JONES:

David Jones' career as a performance auditor spanned over forty years before he retired in December 2025.

He joined Seattle’s Office of City Auditor in April 1996 and served four terms as Seattle’s City Auditor. He was appointed to his first four-year term by the Seattle City Council in December 2009. Before his initial appointment as City Auditor, he served as the Deputy Seattle City Auditor for 12 years.

In Seattle, Mr. Jones led audits on many topics including police patrol officer staffing, use of federal grant funds, information systems security, indigent public defense services, cash handling operations, public participation processes, pedestrian and bicyclist mobility through and around construction sites, and homeland security efforts. He initiated the use of the Control Self-Assessment (CSA) audit technique of facilitated workshops in the City of Seattle to help City departments improve their operations. He also taught courses to City of Seattle employees on the COSO internal control framework.

Before coming to Seattle, Mr. Jones worked for two years with the State of Washington’s Office of Financial Management and 11 years with the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), including a two-year tour with GAO’s Latin America Office in the Republic of Panama. His work with GAO included assessing the Interstate Commerce Commission’s civil penalty system, evaluating the Commerce Department’s overseas computer systems and State Department foreign narcotics control programs, monitoring various foreign aid programs for Central America, and investigating domestic and foreign technology transfer programs sponsored by the Department of Defense.

Mr. Jones served as a member of the Peer Review Committee of the Association of Local Government Auditors (ALGA) and as chair of ALGA’s Advocacy Committee and taught seminars for the Institute of Internal Auditors. He received ALGA’s Lifetime Achievement Award in May 2024.

During his career, Mr. Jones earned certifications as a Certified Internal Auditor (CIA), a Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA), and a Certified Government Financial Manager (CGFM).

In this episode of Auditors Save the World, podcast host Leita Hart-Fanta, CPA interviews audit superhero, Jasmine Triplett, CIA CCEP.

In the digital frontier, where algorithms race ahead faster than common sense can catch them, one fearless guardian separates artificial intelligence from artificial confidence!

Armed with professional skepticism, a flashlight of reason, and an unwavering demand for sufficient, appropriate evidence, Jasmine is ready for battle! A champion of trustworthy audits, defender of reliable conclusions, and sworn enemy of hallucinated facts.

Today, Jasmine leads us into the dazzling, dizzying world of artificial intelligence. Along the way, she’ll reveal where AI is best used in your audit work and where it can quietly corrupt your audit evidence.

CHAPTERS:

01:00 — Meet Jasmine

03:00 — The sequence test: when AI is 60-70% wrong

06:00 — AI as a really smart intern — check the work!

08:00 — Where AI actually works: planning and summaries

13:00 — The dangers of mandating AI without documentation

18:00 — Reporting is a high-risk area for AI use

20:00 — What's next

24:00 — Start with your people before rolling out AI

28:00 — The translation gap: why AI implementations stall

32:00 — Privacy, redaction, and the risks of over-trusting AI

ABOUT JASMINE TRIPLETT:

Jasmine Triplett, CIA CCEP, is the Founder & Principal Advisor at Ivy Orion, where she helps organizations implement AI responsibly through practical governance and AI validation. With experience in internal audit, compliance, and operational risk, Jasmine specializes in helping organizations evaluate AI use cases, design practical controls, and build defensible AI validation processes.

As a Certified Internal Auditor (CIA) and Certified Compliance & Ethics Professional (CCEP), her work focuses on moving organizations from informal AI experimentation toward structured, trustworthy, and sustainable AI adoption. She is particularly interested in helping organizations determine when AI is appropriate for a given use case and how to build practical validation approaches that create confidence in AI-generated outputs.

Another day, another taxpayer dollar hanging in the balance!

In this episode, our calm and confident hero Steven investigates two seemingly ordinary contracts. One software contract keeps county revenues flowing. The other staffs the Medical Examiner’s Office with physicians.

But beneath the signatures and legal language lies some uncomfortable questions: Is anyone making sure these contracts are being followed by the county? Are the vendors delivering what they promised? Is the county receiving the value it paid for?

And perhaps most surprising: does anyone even know how many contracts the county has?

Join us as Steven patiently separates fact from assumption, and accountability from wishful thinking. Because saving the world doesn't always require a cape. Sometimes it just requires a really good audit.

CHAPTERS:

00:00 — Intro: Auditors Save the World

01:00 — Two contracts, a lot of questions

02:00 — A routine meeting changes everything

05:00 — Overextended licenses and a surprise invoice

08:00 — Three options and a vendor with leverage

13:00 — The medical examiner audit

17:00 — A contract ignored for decades

22:00 — Key questions every auditor should ask

ABOUT STEVEN HARPER:

Steven is an experienced audit professional with a strong background in internal auditing across both public sector and corporate environments. He currently serves as the Internal Audit Coordinator for Fulton County Schools, where he supports audit planning, execution, and compliance initiatives to strengthen organizational accountability.

Prior to his current role, Steven worked as an auditor for a county government, gaining valuable experience in governmental auditing standards, risk assessment, and internal controls. He also held various positions, including internal auditor, within an international corporation, where he developed a broad skill set in auditing and operational reviews across diverse business functions.

In this episode of Auditors Save the World, podcast host Leita Hart-Fanta, CPA interviews audit superhero, Doug Hileman.

Once upon a time, the auditor’s world was neatly boxed: Travel and entertainment. Receipts and reimbursements. Check the rules, check the math, case closed.

But what happens when the real risks don’t fit in a spreadsheet? When strategy itself is on trial and public policy carries consequences that ripple for decades? And when climate risk refuses to stay politely in the footnotes?

That’s where this story begins.

Because in this episode Doug and I step into the gray space where compliance ends and something much bigger begins. Should auditors stay in their lane? Or is it time to widen the road?

It’s not a verdict. Not a tidy conclusion tied up with a bow. It’s a debate. A spirited, thought-provoking clash of ideas… Because the future of auditing might not be about checking the past at all.

Don't miss an episode! Follow our podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts and subscribe to our channel on YouTube.

CHAPTERS:

00:00 — Meet the Super Auditor, Doug Hileman

01:48 — Climate Risk

02:50 — Auditors to the Rescue

03:48 — Beyond the Checklist

05:22 — The Strategy Showdown

07:38 — The Advisory Superpower

10:56 — A New Era for Audit

11:39 — Climate Disclosure

13:25 — Sustainability Assurance

15:00 — Assurance vs. Advisory

16:23 — The Missing Hero: Risk

18:00 — Public Policy Under Audit

20:51 — Speaking Truth to Power

21:59 — Finding the Middle Ground

22:38 — The Future of Auditing

ABOUT DOUG HILEMAN:

Douglas Hileman (FSA, CRMA, CPEA, P.E.) brings over four decades of experience in sustainability compliance, risk, reporting, and audit. Among his most notable contributions, he is an author of COSO's groundbreaking document Achieving Effective Internal Controls over Sustainability Reporting (ICSR). Earlier in his career, he served as the senior environmental management and auditing specialist on the Volkswagen Monitor Team and spent six years at a Big 4 firm. From there, Doug led his boutique consultancy for 16 years, focusing on climate-related programs and GHG emissions reporting, sustainability policies, reporting and audits, and other specialty needs.

Beyond his consulting work, he has been active in the Institute of Internal Auditors for over a decade, contributing to supplemental guidance, and currently leads a Governance and Controls work group for the Institute of Management Accountants. Mr. Hileman submitted detailed comments to the SEC on the proposed climate disclosure rule. In the final rule (released March 6, 2024), there are 42 references to his comments. See www.douglashileman.com.

In this episode of Auditors Save the World, podcast host Leita Hart-Fanta, CPA interviews audit superhero, Doug Hileman.

In a world where the stakes stretch beyond borders, and where rising tides, shifting climates, and unseen risks threaten the balance, one brave leader doesn’t just watch the horizon. He redraws it.

Meet our hero, Doug. From the shadowy trails of conflict minerals to the high-stakes halls of global industry (where even giants like Volkswagen faced the reckoning), he stood at the intersection of accountability and consequence. A guardian not just of rules, but of the planet itself.

Then, when the call came from COSO, the architects of internal control, they didn’t ask for a participant. They called for a protector. A mind built for the big picture, a voice that echoes across continents, and a force for sustainability, integrity, and action.

Because when Doug takes on a mission, it’s not just about compliance. It’s about the future.

CHAPTERS:

01:00 — Environmental regulation history

03:00 — ESG as a taxonomy, not a state of being

05:00 — Voluntary frameworks and climate financial disclosures

08:00 — How Doug fell into this career path

10:00 — Conflict minerals: what the law requires and why it matters

13:00 — The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act explained

15:00 — The Volkswagen monitorship: watching in real time

19:00 — Carbon reporting and finding his niche post-pandemic

22:00 — The COSO sustainability guidance document

26:00 — Why "sustainability" may be the wrong word

29:00 — SASB: industry-specific sustainability risk done right

35:00 — Financial disclosure vs. financial reporting

40:00 — B2B sustainability pressure in the supply chain

44:00 — Climate risk as a government audit opportunity

ABOUT DOUG HILEMAN

Douglas Hileman (FSA, CRMA, CPEA, P.E.) brings over four decades of experience in sustainability compliance, risk, reporting, and audit. Among his most notable contributions, he is an author of COSO’s groundbreaking document “Achieving Effective Internal Controls over Sustainability Reporting (ICSR).” Earlier in his career, he served as the senior environmental management and auditing specialist on the Volkswagen Monitor Team and spent six years at a Big 4 firm. From there, Doug led his boutique consultancy for 16 years, focusing on climate-related programs and GHG emissions reporting, sustainability policies, reporting and audits, and other specialty needs.

Beyond his consulting work, he has been active in the Institute of Internal Auditors for over a decade, contributing to supplemental guidance, and currently leads a Governance and Controls work group for the Institute of Management Accountants. Mr. Hileman submitted detailed comments to the SEC on the proposed climate disclosure rule. In the final rule (released March 6, 2024), there are 42 references to his comments. See www.douglashileman.com.

In this episode of Auditors Save the World, podcast host Leita Hart-Fanta, CPA interviews audit superhero, Anne DeTraglia.

In our last conversation with Anne, she told us how she kept her company out of hot water with the feds.

Today she tells us how the fraud risk program she implemented actually worked. Not in theory. Not in a binder. In the real world.

Anne walks us through the pieces, including the people and the meetings that made it stick. Because it turns out the front line isn’t the problem. It’s the solution! And along the way, Anne shares a little hard-earned wisdom on SOX.

Careers aren’t built on checklists. They’re built on applying your wisdom and judgment in complex situations.

Don't miss an episode! Follow our podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts and subscribe to our channel on YouTube.

CHAPTERS:

01:00 — Who belongs in a fraud risk workshop (hint: not the executives)

05:00 — Convicted fraudster videos and the fraud triangle in action

08:00 — Scoring schemes by impact, likelihood, and pervasiveness

12:00 — Turning high-risk schemes into audit projects

14:00 — Boardroom standoff: 6% fraud awareness is not a win

16:00 — New auditor advice: skip SOX, find the operational work

21:00 — AI governance: the audit priority you can't ignore

25:00 — We get paid to think, not type

ABOUT ANNE DeTRAGLIA

Anne DeTraglia is a recognized Internal Audit and Risk Management executive leader with thirty years’ experience building teams and capabilities across multiple disciplines, including fraud risk management, compliance, and enterprise risk management at Fortune 100 companies including The Home Depot, Sears Holdings, Nike, United Airlines, and Samsung. In her most recent role, she was the Vice President and Chief Audit Executive at Sabre Corporation, a multinational travel and technology company.

Anne is a graduate of Illinois State University. She holds an undergraduate degree in Spanish Linguistics and Literature. She earned her MBA from The American Graduate School of International Management and is proud to be a Certified Internal Auditor and Fraud Examiner. In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with her family, traveling the world, and eating good food.

In this episode, Anne shares what happened when she arrived at a major airline and inherited an audit function known for 30-page narrative reports and no formal fraud risk program. She made the case for a comprehensive fraud risk assessment and used DOJ guidance on effective compliance programs as the evaluative framework. What the assessment revealed was sobering: the compliance function was essentially a paper program.

Weeks after the board approved a remediation plan, the CEO and several executives were walked out the door amid a DOJ bribery and corruption investigation. Because remediation work was already underway and documented, the DOJ gave the organization credit under federal sentencing guidelines, resulting in a non-prosecution agreement and reduced fines. Anne also walks through two additional case studies for vivid illustrations of how pressure and rationalization drive fraud from the inside.

CHAPTERS

01:00 — Inheriting a struggling audit function

03:00 — Building a fraud risk register using DOJ compliance guidance

06:30 — What a paper compliance program actually looks like

09:00 — The scandal breaks

11:00 — How proactive fraud work earned DOJ credit and reduced fines

14:00 — Office supply theft and the immateriality of fraud

17:30 — Government contractor case

ABOUT ANNE C. DeTRAGLIA

Anne DeTraglia is a recognized Internal Audit and Risk Management executive leader with thirty years’ experience building teams and capabilities across multiple disciplines, including fraud risk management, compliance, and enterprise risk management at Fortune 100 companies including The Home Depot, Sears Holdings, Nike, United Airlines, and Samsung. In her most recent role, she was the Vice President and Chief Audit Executive at Sabre Corporation, a multinational travel and technology company.

Anne is a graduate of Illinois State University. She holds an undergraduate degree in Spanish Linguistics and Literature. She earned her MBA from The American Graduate School of International Management and is proud to be a Certified Internal Auditor and Fraud Examiner. In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with her family, traveling the world and eating good food.

Harriet Richardson returns for a second episode, and this time she pulls back the curtain on how great audits get built. She walks through the frameworks she relies on most, the logic model, Bloom's Taxonomy, and the elements of a finding, and shares how mastering these tools turns even the messiest, most sprawling audit into something decision-makers can actually use.Harriet takes us inside a real-world case where a chaotic, multi-topic audit was rescued, reorganized, and split into three focused projects, all because she could see the structure hiding inside the noise. She also tackles one of the hottest topics in auditing right now: the difference between outputs and outcomes, and why measuring the wrong one can make an ineffective program look like a roaring success. From a contract that helped exactly one person to auditors going into the field without the frameworks to back them up, Harriet connects the dots between structure, fieldwork, and real impact. If you want to think like a legend, this is the episode to study.

CHAPTERS:

00:00 — Intro

00:53 — Harriet's origin story: rescuing a runaway audit

03:47 — How editing hundreds of audit reports sharpens your instincts

06:14 — Why financial auditors struggle with cause

09:01 — Training auditors to think like performance auditors

12:33 — Efficiency audits and a national trend

15:06 — Outputs vs. outcomes: the BART homeless services example

19:35 — Bloom's Taxonomy and critical thinking in auditing

22:57 — Advice for new auditors

ABOUT HARRIET RICHARDSON

Harriet Richardson is a respected expert in government auditing standards with a career spanning over three decades as a performance auditor, a Yellow Book advisor, and an instructor. She holds a bachelor’s degree in accounting and a Master of Business Administration degree with an emphasis in financial management. She is a Certified Public Accountant, Certified Internal Auditor, and Certified Government Audit Professional.

For more than three decades, she served as a performance auditor at the federal, state, and local levels of government. In addition to an appointment by California Governor Gavin Newsom as the first Inspector General for the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit system (also known as BART), Harriet served in other key roles including City Auditor for the City of Palo Alto (California), Audit Manager for the City of Berkeley (California), Deputy State Auditor for the Washington State Auditor’s Office, Audit Director for the City and County of San Francisco (California), and Deputy City Auditor for the City of Atlanta’s Auditor’s Office (Georgia).

Harriet’s accomplishments include serving for five years on the board of the Association of Local Government Auditors (ALGA), including a term as president and as chair of the ALGA’s Professional Issues Committee. She was ALGA’s representative on the Comptroller’s General’s Government Auditing Standards Advisory Council (2016-2021), which advises the U.S. Government Accountability Office on the Yellow Book. She currently sits on The Institute of Internal Auditors’ International Internal Audit Standards Board and the Government Accounting Standards Advisory Council, and is chair of her city’s Planning Commission. She was recognized for her professional achievements when she received ALGA’s Lifetime Achievement Award, the Association of Government Accountant’s Excellence in Government Leadership Award (2017), and the David M. Walker Excellence in Government Performance and Accountability Award (2018).

In this episode, performance audit veteran Harriet Richardson shares how she built a performance audit program from the ground up after voters passed a statewide ballot initiative. She walks us through her all-time favorite audit into the state's delayed-release Chinook salmon program, where a decades-old legislative goal of releasing 3 million hatchery fish per year had quietly become a costly, ineffective policy nobody wanted to challenge. Through sharp structural thinking, a reorganized team, and a key insight surfaced by an intern's spreadsheet, the audit ultimately led the legislature to scrap the arbitrary numerical goal in favor of evidence-based best practices. She also touches on a companion Dungeness crab audit and the very controlled world of recreational fishing in Puget Sound.

CHAPTERS:

00:00 — Introduction

00:52 — Meet Harriet Richardson

03:59 — Inheriting a troubled contract audit

06:53 — The delayed-release Chinook salmon program

11:12 — The intern's spreadsheet that cracked the case

12:53 — Shifting the focus to quality over quantity

13:55 — The Hatchery Scientific Review Group's recommendations

15:21 — Good data, unused: the second finding

16:24 — The legislature responds & rewrites the law

17:33 — Sidebar: the Dungeness crab audit

20:26 — What's polluting Puget Sound

21:38 — Why this remains Harriet's favorite audit

ABOUT HARRIET RICHARDSON:

Harriet Richardson is a respected expert in government auditing standards with a career spanning over three decades as a performance auditor, a Yellow Book advisor, and an instructor on government auditing standards. She holds a bachelor’s degree in accounting and a Master of Business Administration degree with an emphasis in financial management. She is a Certified Public Accountant, Certified Internal Auditor, and Certified Government Audit Professional.

For more than three decades, she served as a performance auditor at the federal, state, and local levels of government. In addition to being appointed by California Governor Gavin Newsom to be the first Inspector General for the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit system (also known as BART), other key roles she served in were City Auditor for the City of Palo Alto (California), Audit Manager for the City of Berkeley (California), Deputy State Auditor for the Washington State Auditor’s Office, Audit Director for the City and County of San Francisco (California), and Deputy City Auditor for the City of Atlanta’s Auditor’s Office (Georgia).

Her accomplishments include serving for five years on the board of the Association of Local Government Auditors (ALGA), including a term as president and as chair of the ALGA’s Professional Issues Committee, and being ALGA’s representative on the Comptroller’s General’s Government Auditing Standards Advisory Council (2016-2021), which advises the U.S. Government Accountability Office on the Yellow Book. She currently sits on The Institute of Internal Auditors’ International Internal Audit Standards Board and the Government Accounting Standards Advisory Council, and is chair of her city’s Planning Commission. She was recognized for her professional achievements when she received ALGA’s Lifetime Achievement Award, the Association of Government Accountant’s Excellence in Government Leadership Award (2017), and the David M. Walker Excellence in Government Performance and Accountability Award (2018).