Yelena M. Talmazan is a senior managing director and senior advisor in K2 Integrity’s Financial, Internal Audit, and Risk Advisory practice. With 25 years of industry experience—the majority spent in the financial services, insurance, technology, and consumer business industries directing and managing internal audit (IA), Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX), and intermediate holding company (IHC) compliance programs—Yelena works as a strategic partner helping clients proactively navigate the regulatory landscape and manage internal and external risks.
As a seasoned advisory leader, Yelena provides risk advisory and regulatory assistance, internal audit, strategic sourcing, and transformation services for clients, assessing each client’s particular needs and structure to identify the bespoke strategy for a successful roadmap to implement and mitigate risk by designing “fit for purpose” approaches that are meaningful and are aligned with industry best practices.
Before joining K2 Integrity, Yelena served as the head of internal audit for TP ICAP, where she built a new IA function and aligned IA strategy, goals, and objectives with the organization’s business plans, initiatives, and regulatory mandates. She advised management and the audit committee on organizational risks and how to enhance the internal controls and enterprise risk management frameworks. Yelena drove and delivered high-quality risk-based audit services and managed strategic stakeholder relationships while proactively supporting the organization’s audit, compliance, and risk committees and teams while identifying and creating value for stakeholder, including oversight and guidance through contact (e.g., external auditors; regulators–SEC, FINRA, NFA). She collaborated with Professional Practices to build/embed audit methodology in conformance with the IIA’s Global Internal Audit Standards, design policies and procedures. She monitored regulatory and business changes, assessed potential impact, and instigated appropriate monitoring, data analytics, and reporting.
Prior to her time at TP ICAP, Yelena was the director of internal audit within the Financial Services at KPMG. Among her high-profile engagements, Yelena had oversight of the outsourced IA function at a large multinational institution where she led the IA planning, risk assessment, firm audits, and reporting to the audit and other committees. Yelena also performed EQAs of IA at several multinational banks with emphasis on the heightened prudential standards and Federal Reserve Bank (FRB) SR13-1, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), and IIA Standards compliance. She led an integrated Internal Control over Financial Reporting (ICOFR) implementation for the establishment of an IHC and ICOFR implementation engagements to assist companies to achieve SOX compliance readiness.
Yelena has an M.B.A. from Columbia University Business School and a B.S. in computer science from Rutgers University. She is a Certified Internal Auditor and a Certified Information Systems Auditor.