At the Schwan Food Company, the establishment of an internal audit Department (IDA) was driven by personnel changes at the top executive levels. The first non-family-member CEO, M. Lenny Pippin, came on board with nearly 30 years experience in the food industry. At about the same time, David Kidwell, Dean of the Carlson School of management at the university of Minnesota, began his service as the new audit committee chairman. Three years later, Tracy Burr, formerly a partner at Ernst & young as well as at Deloitte & Touche, was hired as the new CFO. This new leadership helped the company to slowly make changes, such as an improved governance structure with the establishment of an IAD, but at the same time allowed it to retain the positive aspects of the company’s corporate culture, including a high standard of ethics, values, and hard work. Thus, the creation of the IAD was part of a company-wide effort to improve the control and governance structures for a privately-held, but global, company that has the goal to double its size in five years.