Protecting What Makes Recruit Group Strong and Shaping the Future Through Internal Audit

Building an internal audit function that evolves with the business

The Internal Audit Department reports directly to the CEO, giving us a close view of management while maintaining our independence and objectivity. We work closely with teams across the business to assess a broad range of areas, including governance, risk management, internal controls, and business processes.

Our role goes beyond identifying issues: by encouraging improvements, we help support sound business operations across the Group and contribute to sustainable growth of corporate value.

Recruit Group has continued to grow by embracing “Bet on Passion” as one of its core values. Rather than seeking to control each business through rigid rules, the Group actively delegates authority, giving individual businesses considerable autonomy and enabling them to make decisions quickly.

When I joined Recruit in 2014, shortly before its stock market listing, the challenge for the Internal Audit Department was to establish an efficient audit framework that could meet requirements such as J-SOX without compromising the autonomy and speed that were the source of Recruit's strength.

Following the listing, Recruit’s global expansion accelerated rapidly. More recently, the Group shifted to a structure comprising three Strategic Business Units: Marketing Matching Technologies SBU, Staffing SBU, and HR Technology SBU. At the same time, as rapidly evolving technologies became increasingly fundamental to each business, expectations for the internal audit function also changed significantly.

The growing global focus on data privacy and security, particularly following the introduction of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in 2018, became a major catalyst for rethinking our internal audit function. To adapt to the Group’s global expansion and build the capabilities needed to anticipate changes in the business environment, we moved toward a multi-location model that allowed us to conduct audits closer to each business, while also establishing a global audit framework that included remote auditing.

At the same time, our businesses were evolving rapidly through the adoption of cutting-edge technologies, and their structures were changing dramatically. Against this backdrop, we continued to explore what internal audit should look like as a global technology company.

As internal auditors, we need to understand the realities of an ever-changing business in depth, assess the challenges and risks facing our teams objectively and based on facts, and think carefully about what we can do to create an environment where colleagues around the world can take on the challenge of creating new value with confidence. It is also important to say what needs to be said, even when it may not always be welcome. The department must continue to evolve alongside the business.

Three areas driving the evolution of internal audit

Today, we are driving that evolution across three main pillars. The first is establishing new approaches to auditing AI products and emerging technologies. Even in areas where there is little established precedent, we are designing audit methods from the ground up and developing specialized audits that delve deeply into increasingly complex technologies and product development.

The second is transforming internal audit through technology. The business moves at an extraordinary pace. An organization that existed a year ago may no longer exist at all, while its people and the nature of their work may have changed completely. In an environment like this, we cannot respond to increasingly complex business risks simply by carrying out large-scale audits every few years and checking compliance with regulatory requirements and established policies. We are therefore expanding our use of AI and strengthening our data analytics capabilities as we move toward continuous auditing: monitoring risks on an ongoing and timely basis, and moving quickly to conduct an audit when an anomaly is detected.

The third is pursuing the level of governance expected of a global technology company. By actively using AI within our own department to automate and streamline our work, internal auditors are increasingly able to go beyond traditional assurance activities and create value in a more consultative way, making recommendations for the improvement and evolution of business processes from a perspective closer to management.

AI governance audits are a good example. Internal audit may sometimes be seen as applying the brakes by establishing rules to manage the risks associated with AI. But we also see the risk of falling behind in AI adoption in the use of AI as a significant business risk in itself. Because internal auditors work across functions and examine business processes in many different areas, we are also able to draw on the knowledge and insights we gain from advanced practices across the organization. We can then use those insights to suggest improvements in areas that might otherwise become siloed or focus too narrowly on optimizing their own operations. In other words, internal audit can not only help reduce the risks associated with AI, but also support its responsible and effective adoption. I believe there is still much more we can do to contribute to the evolution of both management and governance.

Recruit Group continues to grow as a global technology company, and with that growth comes an increasing impact on society. As the business expands, the scope of internal audit continues to broaden into areas requiring highly specialized expertise, including AI and data governance, privacy, security, and product development. To provide high-value audits that meaningfully support business growth, we as internal auditors need to be more attuned than ever to changes in the business environment and continue evolving the way we work.
Through Internal Audit, how can we support the evolution and growth of the business and, beyond that, contribute to the development of society? I want us to keep asking ourselves that question and continue evolving without standing still.

I used to change jobs in search of my next challenge. Twelve years into Recruit, the opportunities keep coming.

I studied mechanical engineering at university and joined an IT services company as a systems engineer after completing graduate school. Over time, I became more interested in the business side, so I moved into consulting, working at two different firms before joining a global manufacturing company. That was where I first encountered internal audit.

Through audits, I was exposed to a wide range of issues across different parts of the business. As I began to see management-level challenges that were difficult to identify by looking at individual issues in isolation, I found myself thinking, “I want to solve this.”

I believed the company needed to standardize its systems globally, so I visited different locations, built relationships with local teams, gathered the facts, and brought the IT department on board to launch a task force. It took four years, but eventually we gained management approval to integrate the systems. That experience showed me what makes internal audit so rewarding: identifying issues through audits, taking proposals directly to management, and contributing to real change.

At the same time, my previous company placed a lot of weight on seniority and experience, and I was not given the opportunity to continue leading the project. I wanted to work somewhere I could take ownership for what I believed in and see a challenge through to the end. So I decided to make my fourth career move and joined Recruit Holdings in 2014. The company was approaching its stock market listing, accelerating its global expansion, and beginning to build out its internal audit function.

Three years after joining Recruit, both our audit framework and the governance structures across the businesses had become more established. I had also gained confidence in my own work and was looking for a more difficult challenge. Around that time, discussions around what would become the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, were intensifying, and data privacy and information security were emerging as increasingly important management risks.

As Recruit became more global and shifted strongly toward greater use of IT and technology, the structure of the business was changing dramatically. The department also needed to develop entirely new approaches for areas that none of us had dealt with before. For me, as a former engineer, this was a great opportunity to use my background to contribute to both management and the business.

I took responsibility for data privacy audits of Group companies based in the EU, security audits of the Staffing business, and later audits of the HR Technology business, centered on Indeed. Building new audit approaches in areas with little or no precedent was extremely challenging. We had to deepen our understanding through repeated discussions with colleagues in the department and with leaders and teams across the businesses. But that difficulty was also what made the work so rewarding.

Indeed joined Recruit Group in 2012. When I joined Recruit, it was still very much a startup focused on expanding its business. Since then, it has grown rapidly into one of the key drivers of Recruit Group’s growth and has become recognized globally as a leader in HR technology.

As Indeed grew into a global company at remarkable speed, risks around governance and security naturally increased and became more complex. The pressure on teams in the US was also growing. Seeing people working incredibly hard to keep up with the pace of growth, I felt strongly that internal audit should be doing more to support them.

So I went directly to CEO “Deko” Idekoba and made my case. I told him that if we were serious about Recruit Group’s growth over the next five or ten years, this was the right time to establish an internal audit function within the HR Technology business itself. My belief was that by bringing internal audit closer to the business, we could better address the risks Indeed was likely to face, while also supporting its continued growth and empowering employees to take on new challenges.

Deko simply said, “Sounds good. Let’s do it.” And there and then, it was decided that I would move to the US.
At my previous company, I had spent four years making the case for something and was still not trusted to see it through. At Recruit Group, they were willing to bet on the person who had the passion to make it happen. Because the Internal Audit Department reports directly to the CEO, there are also many opportunities to speak with the CEO directly as part of our reporting, which I see as another attraction of the role.

The timing of my move to the US happened to coincide with my appointment as head of the Internal Audit Department, so I imagine the team was surprised to see their newly appointed department head suddenly move overseas. But I think it is also a good example of Recruit’s culture of betting on people’s passion, regardless of seniority or title.

And when something comes from your own conviction, you can keep fighting to move forward even when things become extremely difficult. Once you get through those challenges, you often find a new world on the other side, along with the next thing you want to take on.

Before I knew it, I had been at Recruit Group for 12 years. Over that time, I have had countless conversations with members of management and with leaders and teams across our businesses, and I have been able to build strong relationships of trust.

Even now, we continue to discuss what the business will need to grow in the future, what contribution internal audit can make, and what the right form of audit should look like.

At Recruit Group, one person’s passion can create a new opportunity. Taking that first step with the encouragement of managers and colleagues can lead directly to growth, both for the individual and for the company. Success then creates greater expectations, which in turn lead to even more opportunities.

That cycle is what makes working at Recruit Group so interesting, and I believe it is also one of the sources of the Group’s strength. As an internal auditor, I want to keep that passion alive and continue taking on new opportunities.

How evolving internal audit can help drive business growth
Building the future together with the business

To emphasize the point again, internal audit at Recruit Group is not about checking whether teams are following prescribed rules, pointing out what they are doing wrong, and telling them to fix it. If our only goal were to minimize risk, we could simply impose strict rules and monitor compliance. But as a global technology company, Recruit Group aims to continue creating new value in a highly competitive environment while achieving sustainable growth.

That means creating the right level of governance to address increasingly diverse and complex risks, while still giving businesses and individuals the freedom to act through active delegation of authority. This is grounded in Recruit Group’s culture of “Bet on Passion” and the autonomy given to each business. Our role is to help create an environment where colleagues around the world can continue taking on new challenges with confidence.

That is far from easy, but I think that is precisely what makes the work rewarding. If we ourselves do not enjoy the challenge and genuinely want to make things better, we cannot deliver meaningful audits. I want us to work closely with the business, enjoy the process, and help shape the future of Recruit Group together. That is also why I hope people with a wide range of backgrounds and passions will join us and enjoy working in this environment.

Members of the Internal Audit Department each bring a strong sense of purpose to their work. We support one another, learn from each other, and form different teams for each audit project. Everyone brings different experience and expertise from their previous careers, but what they share is an ability to pay attention when something does not feel quite right, listen to their own desire to make things better, and then actually take action.

As the head of a department filled with talented internal auditors who care deeply about their work, I want to respect what each person wants to achieve and put my trust in their passion. My role is to create an environment where people feel able to take bold steps and pursue the challenges that matter to them.

Constantly taking on new challenges is not always easy, but this is also a place where we celebrate the fact that someone tried, regardless of whether the outcome was a success or a failure.

As internal auditors, we need to continue strengthening our professional expertise and fulfilling our fundamental responsibility to assess the business independently and objectively. At the same time, we should never lose sight of the people behind the business. By building relationships of trust, supporting the challenges taken on by employees, and conducting audits that engage deeply with the realities of the workplace, we can help support the growth and evolution of the business.

If that kind of internal audit sounds interesting to you, I hope you will join us and experience this stimulating and challenging environment with us.