My Story
I have spent more than twenty years inside the audit profession from every angle. Federal auditor at the IRS. Internal auditor at Macy's. External auditor at Crowe. Audit committee member. A decade at Wolters Kluwer as a TeamMate implementation consultant and solutions engineer, exceeding sales goals eight consecutive years across hundreds of organizations, Fortune 500 enterprises, two-person credit union audit shops, federal agencies, healthcare systems, and state and local governments. The final two years of that decade were focused exclusively on the most complex enterprise deals in the portfolio — engagements where organizational complexity, multi-stakeholder approval chains, and multi-department scope were all active simultaneously. That is where I learned what the solutions engineer role actually is at the enterprise level: not a demo resource, but the connective tissue across every stakeholder lane that determines whether a complex deal closes and whether the customer is satisfied twelve months after signing.
I have been a solutions engineer at Workiva, a product owner at Salesforce, and I am now a daily AuditBoard practitioner at agilon health, using the same platform I consult on every day. I have configured Salesforce to support SE functions, built HubSpot infrastructure to drive lead generation and sales motion strategy, and delivered cold email performance well above industry averages. I understand the difference between a platform capability built to check an RFP box and one that is genuinely ready for production use in a complex environment, and I know that distinction matters on both sides of the table.
Through ZNS Solutions, I work independently, with no vendor relationships, no referral fees, and no platform commissions. The advice I give is based entirely on what is right for the organization in front of me.
What I Believe
Most audit departments significantly underutilize the technology they already own. The implementation happens, the team learns the basics, and everyone settles into a comfort zone. Meanwhile, the platform has been updated, new capabilities have been added, and the team's needs have changed. Nobody goes back to look. That gap between what a platform can do and what a team is actually using is where most of my work begins.
The same pattern plays out on the vendor side. A GRC software company builds a great product and finds early customers through founder-led selling. Then the deals get more complex, the approval chains get longer, and the sales motion that worked at stage one starts breaking down at stage three. The infrastructure that got them here is not the infrastructure that gets them to the next level.
My trade is not any single platform or methodology. My trade is meeting organizations where they are audit leaders and GRC vendors alike, drawing out what they cannot see from inside their own situation, exposing the gaps, and building the infrastructure for the next stage before the pain of the current one arrives. The timing of any transition is always theirs. The readiness is mine to build.
If your team is fighting their tools instead of using them, or you need help making the case for better ones, I would love to hear from you.