Vice President, Internal Audit (Senior Leadership Role)

Vice President, Internal Audit (Senior Leadership Role) Vocalink Limited (VLL), a Mastercard company, is a Bank of England-regulated Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) organisation, and its technology powers the U.K.'s real-time, batch, and cheque image clearing services, as well as over 47,000 ATMs. This enables payments of 90% of salaries, 70% of utility bills, most ATM transactions, and every cheque cleared in the UK.

Mastercard/ Vocalink Internal Audit provides independent and objective assurance and advisory services to assess and enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of governance, risk management, and internal control processes. The Vice President, Internal Audit is a senior leadership role within the function, reporting directly to the Head of Internal Audit for VLL. This is a pivotal leadership position responsible for shaping the team's strategic direction, strengthening capabilities, and driving the continued evolution and maturity of the Internal Audit function.

The successful candidate will play a key role in supporting regulatory engagement, managing senior stakeholder relationships, and delivering a high-quality, risk-based assurance programme. The role also contributes to senior Vocalink governance forums and committees, providing independent insight, constructive challenge, and trusted advice to support effective decision-making and sound risk management.

They will also bring significant experience across both business and technology risk and control environments, enabling them to lead a diverse audit portfolio and provide holistic assurance across Vocalink's business operations, technology landscape, and strategic change initiatives. Role Responsibilities include but are not limited to: 1. Stakeholders Establish and maintain collaborative partnerships with business management, including VLL executives and centralised functions, to support the identification, assessment and resolution of risk and control matters and drive scalable, and sustainable improvements.

Lead and support senior stakeholder engagement across the VLL Executive Committee (ExCo), Board and management committees, the three lines of defence, and regulatory interactions with the Bank of England. Champion a strong risk and control culture and provide independent objective advice and constructive challenge to management. Identify and communicate key thematic observations, emerging risks, control trends, and business insights to senior management, committees, and the Head of Internal Audit to support informed, risk-based decision-making.

2. Audit Delivery Lead the development and execution of the VLL risk-based audit plan, ensuring alignment with strategic priorities, key business risks, regulatory expectations, customer obligations, and emerging industry developments. Contribute to the ongoing evolution and maturity of the Internal Audit function through quality assurance activities, methodology enhancements, innovation, and the adoption of leading audit practices.

Ensure appropriate and proportionate audit coverage across strategic, financial, operational, technology, cyber, resilience, and compliance risk areas. Oversee the delivery of multiple complex and concurrent audits, applying sound professional judgement to assess the design and operating effectiveness of key control areas. Drive high standards of audit quality and reporting, ensuring audit conclusions are clear, evidence-based, risk-calibrated, and supported by practical and sustainable recommendations.

Oversee the tracking, validation, and escalation of audit issues, working with management to ensure timely remediation and effective resolution of identified risks. Develop and maintain audit programmes and testing approaches aligned with Internal Audit methodology and Global Internal Audit Standards Leverage data analytics, technology-enabled auditing techniques, and continuous monitoring capabilities to enhance assurance coverage, efficiency, and insight generation.

3. People