Audit & Beyond 2025 | Justin Greenberger, Auditboard & Erin Banet, Humana

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Justin Greenberger, Auditboard & Erin Banet, Humana

Justin Greenberger

Chief Customer Officer AuditBoard

Erin Banet

SVP, Chief Audit and Risk Officer Humana

In this Audit & Beyond interview, Erin Banet, chief audit & risk officer at Humana, and Justin Greenberger, chief customer officer at AuditBoard, join theCUBE’s Rob Strechay and Rebecca Knight to unpack how audit and risk are moving from compliance checklists to proactive business advisory. Banet explains how teams are shifting from “behind the news” to “in front of the news,” using data and technology to anticipate what could happen, not just validate what did. She shares why relationships matter – bringing internal audit, risk and business closer – while em... Read more

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What changes have occurred in the role and focus of auditors over the course of a career in audit and risk, particularly in relation to emerging technologies like AI? add

What are the benefits and value that customers derive from using AuditBoard's platform, particularly in relation to connected risk? add

What is the importance of governance and risk management in the use of AI in organizations? add

What factors contribute to creating a collaborative environment among risk professionals and auditors, according to the maturity model published by AuditBoard? add

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Justin Greenberger, Auditboard & Erin Banet, Humana

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Rebecca Knight

>> Hello everyone and welcome back to theCUBE's live coverage of AuditBoard's Audit & Beyond. I'm your host Rebecca Knight, alongside Rob Strechay, my co-host. Rob, one thing that is so clear is just how customer-obsessed this company is.

Rob Strechay

>> Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I believe everybody at AuditBoard has come up here. And by the way, all the customers have been extremely friendly and willing to engage, and I think that networking that's going on here has been amazing, learning from each other.

Rebecca Knight

>> Indeed. Well, to talk more about that, we'd like to welcome our next guest, Erin Banet, Chief Audit and Risk Officer at Humana. Welcome, Erin.

Erin Banet

>> Thank you.

Rebecca Knight

>> And Justin Greenberger, Chief Customer Officer at AuditBoard. Welcome, Justin.

Justin Greenberger

>> Thank you so much.

Rebecca Knight

>> So I'm going to start with you, Erin, because, and I mean, and really both of you to comment on this because this is your business, these are your people. You have witnessed tremendous change, geopolitical risks, emerging technologies including AI. Erin, what has changed most about how you approach risk today than when you started in 22?

Erin Banet

>> I think it's really, if I think back over the course of my career in audit and risk, we used to be, as auditors, more compliance-focused, financial audit, trying to get, I'll call it behind the news versus in front of the news. And so with emerging technology, AI obviously lots of additional risk out there, it's important to be in front of it. So from a difference of what actually happened to what actually could happen and trying to get ahead of what that could be. The other thing, I think, so more from a relationship perspective, the importance and the growth of having internal audit risk and the business all connected versus internal audit and risk mindset or compliance type mindset of checking to see and make sure people are doing things the right way. Having that relationship to be more of a business advisor is actually where we should be in this career path now, which is largely driven by a data and technology as well because we're able to see things sooner and react quicker to get back to that, what could actually happen as well.

Rob Strechay

>> And Justin, I think again, being the chief customer officer for AuditBoard, you're out talking across industries with many different customers. Where do you see customers really getting the value out of AuditBoard's platform today and from a connected risk perspective?

Justin Greenberger

>> Yeah, absolutely. Well, first of all, I just want to comment on how amazing it's to be with all of our customers, over 12,000 plus of my closest friends virtually and with us today. I think when I'm on the road talking to customers and whether it's at a conference today, I think the value of connected risk is truly the collaboration across lines, being able to dynamically understand risk, be able to collaborate together to protect the company, but also using it as an accelerant, like how do we grow companies using this as a strategic advantage? And so we see companies getting extremely quick time to value, within six months, really understanding, "Hey, we already got a return on our investment because AuditBoard was a strategic partner with us and got us to value quickly." And then we see other customers being able to save a couple hundred thousand dollars just based on insourcing versus outsourcing because we've given them a strategic tool. So our teams always like to say, our job is to make it simple for customers to get value, period. And that's really our whole job.

Rebecca Knight

>> Erin, I want to go back to something that you were talking about in terms of really bringing risk and audit as part of the business and having it then be an engine for growth and a real accelerant as you were saying, Justin. So how do you get that to happen? Because I mean, a lot of it is the building of relationships and making sure that people are collaborating with each other and yet companies are often large in bureaucratic organizations and there are silos. So can you talk about some best practices that you've observed in terms of how to get that to actually happen in practice?

Erin Banet

>> I think it does come back to relationships, but the tools as well as Justin was talking about where having that ability to really get ahead of things and be proactive and showcase and have a sense and a pulse on where we should be. That coupled with those relationships and showing, "Hey, we actually can provide value and we can showcase if they have a problem." Right? Coming in and being with them as part of helping them advance and advising them as part of that process I think really goes a long way. And you do enough of that, they start to see and they start to pick up the phone and say, "Oh, I want audit and risk to be part of this." And it just becomes a great relationship and a path forward there.

Rob Strechay

>> Yeah. I mean, I can't agree more. Having been in data center management way back in the day and anytime I would get something from the SEC or something like that, it was financial services company, I'm like, "Hey, this would be a great time for my friends from audit and compliance to be, and audit and risk to be part of this. But when you look at it, the playing field changes so often in technology and right now we're at this inflection point with AI and your company has to be going through this where AI is springing up all over the place and how you're trying to help them manage the potential risk of that. Do you see this as one of those things that you're really balancing that risk with the innovation and how do you handle that?

Erin Banet

>> Yes. So obviously everybody's using AI. We all should be using AI. As leaders, we should be helping engage our teams and helping them learn to grow and see the value of AI, whether that is audit risk or a business-related role. But taking that a step further to the balancing from a risk side perspective, governance is key there. Having the appropriate controls, having the appropriate governance in place to make sure we're making the right decisions, we're documenting things appropriately, we have enough guardrails if you will, over where we should. Those are all very important things. So it's a balancing act between doing the innovation but having the right level of governance in place as well.

Rebecca Knight

>> Justin, I want to ask you about this idea of the connected risk platform, which can sound abstract. Can you talk a little bit about the aha moment that you have seen when customers realize that there really is tangible impact, whether it's better savings or more visibility or strategic alignment? Talk a little bit about what you've seen.

Justin Greenberger

>> Yeah. I think a lot of it relies on, and we talked a little about before, around the collaboration. So coming to a common data definition around a risk hierarchy or entity hierarchy. What that allows for our platform to help accelerate is really have that serve as a data core and have everything run off of that for value. So when you think about issue remediation, when you think about how are we planning for next year, if all those elements are together, we're kind of the virtual collaboration platform for risk. And so having that collaboration within a system is beneficial to all of our customers given that things can move fast. And so we unveiled a bunch of things today around how do you do scenario planning and all of that. When you're all working in the same core, the same system, it allows us to connect those risk dots a lot clearer and cleaner, and that's where a lot of our customers see value.

Rob Strechay

>> So Erin, I think one of the things we were talking before we got on here, and one of the things is as you look out, there are a lot of tools out there, but what really particularly drew you towards AuditBoard? And really when you look at how it's helping your organization really control risk and help the other parts of the organization go faster, like you said, in that collaborative manner?

Erin Banet

>> I think the connected risk is key. Having everything interconnected and having the ability to have one space, if you will, for everybody to be able to see and pull data and analyze through KPIs, KRIs, that type of thing, and having it all in one space versus previously we had a bunch of different platforms that we were leveraging that it wasn't all pulled together into one. And so it's obviously a lot of times savings is part of that, but obviously a lot of savings overall is part of having it all in one place too.

Rebecca Knight

>> We really know that humans are going to be in the loop, and that has been a message that has been loud and clear here at Audit & Beyond. Justin, I think the catchphrase was something like, "We're not going to replace your intelligence, we're going to release it." And the idea is that we're going to take away the toil, the mundane, the boring, the repetitive tasks and allow risk and audit people to focus on these higher value ideas and strategy and vision. What are those things?

Rob Strechay

>> Yeah.

Rebecca Knight

>> What can they be doing now?

Justin Greenberger

>> Well, I think there was something said earlier today in one of our keynotes where the participant said, "We got to look out for controls that we spend too much money on." Not everything is created equal. And so I think having an understanding of what that balance is and what are things you need to control more versus less. And I think what that does is we talked about removing the mundane work, but when I was an auditor, I truly had to understand the business. That's how you understand risk, is understanding how does the business make money? How are we growing the company? What is the country dynamic? What is the geographic landscape? And so I think what we're trying to get for auditors and risk professionals and compliance professionals is allowing them to have that strategic thought of like, "Hey, if tariffs do X in the next two years, what do we need to do? If we're going to go to this new country, this new region, this new area, what do we need to get prepared for?" And so I think having that ability to be proactive, be strategic, I think should be exciting to hopefully all these professionals of, it's not just pull Excel sheet, do this, enter this risk, enter this control. It's, how do I think about our global expansion as a company? And that's where we see the benefit to all the professionals that are using the tool today.

Rebecca Knight

>> Even the entry-level folks?

Justin Greenberger

>> Yeah.

Rebecca Knight

>> Because this is my question for you, is that I mean, when you were starting out as an auditor, you were doing that boring work?

Justin Greenberger

>> Yeah.

Rebecca Knight

>> And now that AI can take care of that, what are the entry-level people doing?

Justin Greenberger

>> Well, I think what's interesting is that we talk about entry-level people and we're paying a lot of these entry-level people a lot of money, and they have undergraduate degrees and we're putting them on these manual tasks. And that's kind of backwards if you really think about it. And so I think even at the entry-level when you're auditing an account reconciliation, there's strategic work there. What accounts are flowing in here? How do I go deeper? How do I go to substantive? How do I do more of these deeper things? And I think that goes across all of entry-level work as well. And so we really do mean it when we mean human in the loop and human intelligence matters a lot because I think we'll get a more holistic approach to risk by allowing people to do that.

Rebecca Knight

>> And in some ways, the entry-level folks will be tasked with even higher-level work than they had been in the past?

Justin Greenberger

>> Absolutely. Absolutely.

Rob Strechay

>> Yeah. I was going, Erin being just because we had somebody you knew on earlier today, Jan with GE Aerospace, and we were talking with her and one of the things that she was saying was that in the organization she's in, what people are tasked with and what they need to know, the skill sets, AI is helping them go beyond the skill sets they currently have and really opening up, for those who want to, opening up new. Is that what you see in your organization because you're leading that whole board now?

Erin Banet

>> Absolutely. So if I think about what skill sets do people need nowadays versus previously or as we think about the future, obviously having more of that data mindset and being able to understand and analyze data and what they're seeing. But there's also storytelling component of it, of how do I think about these things and what is the story I want to talk about and the risks that are part of that story. And then there's the aspect of it that relationships are very key. Right? So if you have the data, you have the storytelling ability to understand and analyze, having that relationship truly makes you that well-rounded business advisor versus the auditor of the past.

Rebecca Knight

>> Well, it's a real right brain, left brain kind of thing with the humanities on one side and then the engineering side on the other.

Erin Banet

>> Absolutely. Yes.

Rebecca Knight

>> Yeah. So we're heading, we're in the fourth quarter now, we're heading into 2026. Both of you, I'm interested in your perspectives on what will separate the good risk and audit groups from the great ones in this moment that we are all enduring with so much change.

Erin Banet

>> For me, I think it's things that we've touched on. Right? It's being able to have the right technology in place, being able to analyze the data properly, to get ahead of things, not behind things, be more proactive, extremely proactive in comparison to reactive and being able to teach our teams to do that as well. I think that's really key. Right? If we have the technology in place and we have the data in place, we got to teach our people differently to really be able to react to that data in this ever-changing world that we're in.

Rebecca Knight

>> So training and up-skilling?

Erin Banet

>> Absolutely.

Rebecca Knight

>> Yeah. How about you, Justin?

Justin Greenberger

>> Yeah, I'd agree with a lot of what we said before. I'd say the big thing is, and AuditBoard published a maturity model, and when we see customers at the far end of the maturity model, we see a truly collaborative environment. And we talk a lot about the technology, the tool, but I think the risk professionals, the audit professions who start with collaboration will go a long way. And they can leverage the technology, they can leverage AuditBoard, they can leverage generative AI, but starting with collaboration and how they have the emotional intelligence to relate to risk professionals if they're an auditor, compliance professionals or CISOs or whatever it might be. And so I think as we think about skillsets, and there's been a lot of work published on when we have AI and automation, there's going to be more placed on emotional intelligence and strategic thought and all that. So I think the groups that have already started that collaboration and have committees around this and all that we see at the far end of the maturity curve.

Rob Strechay

>> So Erin, kind of bringing it back around for organizations who are out there saying I mean, AuditBoard's got a lot of customers, but they don't have everybody. Right? And there's other areas in the world that they're going into. We were talking to Raul about that earlier on. What is your advice for them as they look at AuditBoard and a platform like this and how does that help them with the processes they already have in place to leverage and go faster?

Erin Banet

>> So I would say first, what is the journey that they want to be on? Right? What's their goal that trying to get to when they're analyzing what tools to do that? Obviously, AuditBoard has lots of great tools in place that can get them from A to B really quickly, but what is that journey that they're on, that they're trying to achieve as part of that and have that as part of their analysis and how to get there? But being able to have it, like we've talked about from a connected perspective, having it all in one place and being able to see the full picture is really key and vital to the organization's success from a risk and audit lens perspective. And really overall, from a process perspective.

Rebecca Knight

>> Erin and Justin, thank you both so much for coming on theCUBE. A really terrific conversation.

Justin Greenberger

>> Absolutely. Thank you.

Erin Banet

>> Thank you.

Rebecca Knight

>> I'm Rebecca Knight for Rob Strechay. Stay tuned for more of theCUBE's live coverage of Audit & Beyond. You're watching theCUBE, the leader in enterprise tech news and analysis.