Establishing an Internal Audit Department 3
Company’s workforce consists of approximately 24,000 people, and grosses $3.5 billion in annual
sales.
IMPETUS FOR CHANGE
At The Schwan Food Company, the establishment of an internal audit department (IAD) 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.
FINDING A CHIEF AUDIT EXECUTIVE
The formation of The Schwan Food Company’s IAD began when, after conducting a
regional and national search through a recruiting firm, the management team hired G. Randolph Just
as the Chief Audit Executive (CAE) who brought with him extensive Big Four public accounting
and internal auditing experience.
Coincidentally, Mr. Just grew up on a farm only 24 miles north of The Schwan Food
Company’s headquarters in Minnesota, although he had no formal relationship with the company
until his hiring. The well-known yellow delivery truck came to his farmhouse every week. “It was
a great event for a kid on a farm to have this truck pull up full of pizza and ice cream. It was a
wonderful thing!” he says. “I remember, as a young boy, having a toy truck and making roads
around the farmyard, pretending that I was a Schwan route driver making stops throughout the
countryside. I even drew a duckling on the Schwan truck! I always admired the company. So when
the opportunity arose to join Schwan, I eagerly accepted.”
DEFINING THE INTERNAL AUDIT DEPARTMENT’S MISSION
One of Just’s first tasks as the new CAE was to develop the IAD’s mission statement. The
new CAE chose the following mission statement for the IAD which is almost verbatim from the
Institute of Internal Auditors’ (IIA) definition of the internal auditing function:
“To provide independent, objective assurance services designed to add value and
improve The Schwan Food Company’s operations. The internal audit department
helps the organization accomplish its objectives by bringing a systematic, disciplined
approach to evaluate and improve the effectiveness of the overall control
environment and the network of enterprise business risk management control and
governance processes.”
The Schwan Food Company’s overall mission, or defining goal, is that the company “will
be the biggest, the best and the strongest provider of frozen food solutions on the face of the earth.”