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Fellow Name: Tran Thi My Giang

Country: Vietnam

Fellow’s home audit office: State Audit Office of Vietnam

Title: Auditor

Email: giangttm@sav.gov.vn

Audit Plan Topic: Implementation of a healthcare program for the elderly in 2017-2025 in Can Tho City

Canadian Host Office: City of Toronto, Auditor General’s Office

Grad Quote: “My Fellowship experience has been an invaluable journey of professional growth, new skills, and meaningful connections.”

Gallery (2024):

Two experience images (2024):

Decoration Color: Red

Profile Headshot:

My Fellowship:

My Canadian placement:

City of Toronto Auditor General’s Office

My Canadian audit team:

I was part of a team auditing transportation services utility cuts, led by Senior Audit Manager Ruchir Patel.

My most valuable learning:

Throughout my Fellowship, I’ve gained valuable experiences and insights that have strengthened my skills in time management and communication. I’ve learned to organize and structure my schedule with discipline, boosting my independence and confidence in engaging with others. Additionally, my knowledge of performance audits has deepened, giving me a clearer understanding of audit planning, execution, and reporting processes. I’ve also developed techniques for more effective engagement with auditees, as well as strategies to enhance quality assurance and quality control in performance audits.

How my Canadian colleagues and mentors helped me:

My Canadian colleagues were warm and welcoming, creating a comfortable environment for me. During my time at the Auditor General's Office in Toronto, I learned about the audit process and participated in training sessions, with generous support from my colleagues throughout. My mentor, Cindy, has been especially kind, responsible, and enthusiastic. She took the time to guide me through each step of my project, clarifying performance audit terminology, and helping me connect with my culture to ease any homesickness I felt.

What I enjoyed most:

My favorite aspect of the office was the strong connection and communication among colleagues, fostered through social activities and virtual meetings that support remote work. I also greatly valued the camaraderie among the Fellows and the generous support provided by CAAF.

My audit plan:

I developed my audit plan with the guidance of my mentor at the City of Toronto Auditor General’s Office, Audit Manager Cindy Li.

The connection to my country’s development priorities:

My audit topic aims to enhance the quality of a healthcare program for the elderly in Vietnam. It is aligned with Sustainable Development Goal 3, ensuring that the healthcare program addresses the unique needs of elderly people.

How CAAF and my host office helped:

I explored key challenges in establishing criteria, defining scope, and integrating a gender perspective into performance audit planning. The training courses I attended equipped me with valuable skills to improve audit quality through effective leadership, active auditee engagement, and robust quality control and assurance practices. Additionally, my mentor provided step-by-step guidance on addressing challenges in audit planning. She taught me how to identify and analyze issues within the audit plan, establish relevant criteria, and conduct risk assessments using those criteria in conjunction with the Audit Logic Matrix.

The skills and knowledge I improved by developing this plan:

Through developing this audit plan, I enhanced my skills and knowledge in strategic planning, scoping, criteria development, and incorporating a gender lens into the process. I plan to apply these skills in future work to increase the precision and effectiveness of audits, ensuring they support performance auditing objectives and meaningfully contribute to our organization’s development goals.

My future impact:

The new knowledge I’m most excited to share with my colleagues:

The new knowledge I’m most excited to share with my colleagues involves advanced techniques in risk assessment and scoping for performance audit planning. By applying these strategies, we can more effectively pinpoint critical focus areas, making our audits not only more relevant but also more impactful for our SAI.

The difference I hope to make:

With the knowledge gained about auditing gender equality and the SDGs during my Fellowship, my future work will contribute to my country's development priorities by promoting transparency and accountability in policies aimed at gender equity. This focus will help foster inclusive growth, ensuring that development benefits reach all sectors of society.

My professional goals:

After completing my Fellowship, I hope to conduct my project with the findings and recommendations aimed at improving the quality of the healthcare system for the elderly. Additionally, I aspire to build a strong reputation and be able to take on a more significant role in my office. This would enable me to apply the knowledge I have gained to enhance the effectiveness and balance of performance audits.

My Experience Part 1:

The most Canadian thing I did was…

The most Canadian thing I did was say “sorry” and “eh” in the same sentence.

My favourite cultural experience in Canada was…

My favorite cultural experience in Canada was seeing the leaves change color, especially the maple leaves turning red in autumn.

My Experience Part 2:

My Fellowship experience in one sentence:

My Fellowship experience has been an invaluable journey of professional growth, new skills, and meaningful connections.

My Fellowship in a single word:

Matchless.

Now that I have completed the Fellowship…

I am ready to apply my knowledge and skills to new challenges and opportunities, and to make a positive impact in my field. 

Gender: Female

Giang has a Master of Finance and Banking from Can Tho University of Vietnam. She has been working as an auditor for the State Audit Office of Vietnam Regional Office No. V since 2019. She was responsible for financial compliance of the local budget implementation of 6 provinces around the Mekong Delta. She participated in an environmental audit of production facilities in Can Tho within the period of 2020-2022.

My goals for the Fellowship

By participating in the Fellowship program, I hope to learn methodologies, methods, and tools and gain insight of performance audits so that I can improve my auditing skills. I hope to gain experience from my fellow Canadian auditors and from my mentor, so that I can conduct effective performance audits. Furthermore, I wish to gain experience with leadership qualities, efficient planning, teamwork abilities, concise report writing, and great interpersonal skills with other auditors. I also look forward to developing problem solving skills within a team setting. With all of this, I hope to unlock my full potential both personally and professionally.

The impact I hope to make as a graduate Fellow

After completing the Fellowship, I plan to carry out my project to help enhance Vietnam’s healthcare program for senior citizens, as well as contributing to gender equality in differences between men’s and women’s healthcare problems. Moreover, I hope that I will be able to take on a more significant role in my office. Also, I hope to acquire skills and abilities from my Canadian mentors and colleagues. This way I can apply my learned knowledge to improve the effectiveness and quality of performance audits in my country and in my region in particular.

Finally, I hope to share my knowledge with my colleagues through annual trainings at my office and also in the everyday workplace.