Yelena M. Talmazan

Managing Director

New York

Yelena M. Talmazan is a 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, healthcare, 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 assistance, audit, strategic sourcing, and transformation services for clients, assessing each client’s particular needs and structure in order 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 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, risk, surveillance, and IT committees and teams while identifying and creating value for stakeholders. 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 and National IPO team 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 AC and other committees. Yelena also performed and oversaw EQAs of IA at several multinational banks and foreign banking organizations (FBOs) 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 guidance compliance. She led an integrated Internal Control over Financial Reporting (ICOFR) implementation initiative for the establishment of an IHC in accordance with COSO 2013 and several ICOFR implementation engagements performed to assist companies to achieve SOX and IPO 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 (CIA) and a Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA).

Representative Matters

Internal audit outsourcing: Oversight of outsourced IA function at a large multinational institution. Led firm’s audits, including financial, operational, ERM, regulatory compliance, AML, IT/Cyber, office and branch reviews, desk reviews, self-regulatory organizations/swap execution facilities, and integrated audits. Responsible for annual IA planning and risk assessment, the assessment of remediation efforts, and reporting to the audit and other various committees.
SOX compliance and IPO readiness: Led ICOFR implementation and transformation engagement performed to assist a financial organization with development of design documentations, gap analysis, risk assessment, and COSO implementation to achieve SOX compliance readiness as part of the IPO process.
Building internal audit methodology: Worked closely with IA professional practices to build and embed global audit methodology in conformance with the International Professional Practices Framework of The IIA and enhance audit reporting.
Internal audit PMO: Oversaw a portfolio of assignments, managed resources, verified compliance with audit methodology and quality standards, presented to executive management, and provided commercially viable recommendations and business actions to address areas of risk in control frameworks.
Internal controls remediation and fraud prevention: Led the development of risk and control matrices and evaluation of control gaps and effectiveness to enable a multinational organization to remediate the control environment, including fraud prevention, and comply with regulatory mandates.
SOX outsourcing and co-sourcing: Oversaw SOX planning, scoping and risk assessment, execution, and reporting on multiple clients across financial and non-financial services industries.
External quality assessments (EQAs): Performed and oversaw an EQAs of IA for foreign banking organization (FBO) with an emphasis on Federal Reserve Bank (FRB) SR13-1, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), and IIA Standards guidance compliance.
Internal audit staffing assessment: Performed IA staffing analysis assessment to identify gaps in subject matter expertise, risks, and improvements based on IA best practices and comparison to peer organizations.
Quality assurance improvement program (QAIP) co-sourcing: Performed IA quality assurance co-sourcing at systematically important financial institutions (SIFIs) to identify gaps, risks, and improvements based on IA leading practices, regulatory expectations, and comparison to peer organizations.
Internal audit self-assessment and remediation efforts: Led a gap self-assessment framework project at large institution. Assisted with remediation of IA MRAs and MRIAs and building methodology for compliance with heightened standards.
Training and development: Led IA and SOX trainings internally and externally for clients as well as spoke at The Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) and served as IIA’s New York Chapter and Events Liaison between SIFMA and IIA.