Faraaz Noor (pictured), an internal auditor from Middlesbrough and the youngest contestant on the show at 22, is causing quite a media stir right now and he is using all his skills learned from the world of heady world of audit and accounting to seek out the traitors on the show and avoid being murdered or banished.

But the question is how much longer will he last on the show?

Noor is up for murder tonight, and his detecting skills are being challenged as he voted off a faithful on Thursday night, who he said ‘he was certain was a traitor’. So, this meant Sam ‘the account manager’ Little was banished back to his job at AWS. To some degree it seems Noor has been ‘staying below the radar‘, said one avid fan of the Traitors, adding ‘maybe he‘s being clever by getting the others to do the heavy lifting‘.

No doubt this contestant will be drawing on his experiences as a graduate trainee group internal auditor at FTSE 100 listed home builder Persimmon.

Having graduated from Newcastle University with a degree in accounting and finance, and with a side interest in blogging about food and restaurants on TikTok, Noor also just happens to be appearing on one of the biggest TV shows in the UK, BBC’s The Traitors.

The only information viewers of The Traitors are given about the contestants at the start is their age and their job. Noor’s job is labelled on screen as ‘internal auditor’, but how many people really know what an internal auditor does?

Youth culture website The Tab describes Noor’s role as an internal auditor by saying he ‘gets paid to find the “traitors” in a company’s balance sheets’.

So how accurate is that description, and does the role really equip Noor with the skills he needs to identify a traitor in his midst? The Chartered Institute of Internal Auditors has some of the answers.

Nigel Shattock, director of communications at the Chartered Institute of Internal Auditors, said: ‘Internal auditors such as Faraaz evaluate and assess their organisation’s management of its controls and risks, and provide unbiased, objective and independent opinions on how and why things are being done. Objectivity, independence and the evaluation of risk are clearly strong skills to have on The Traitors.

‘Internal auditors provide assurance on everything from decision-making, climate policy and corporate culture to digital resilience, cybersecurity, supply chain issues and even geopolitical risks.

‘You need to keep tabs on a wide range of issues and functions, constantly assess the data, and build strong relationships. These, too, are clearly great skills for a Faithful!

‘Faraaz’s role as an internal auditor is therefore all about promoting accountability and transparency. The key question for Faraaz is: will honesty, transparency and a “speak truth to power” approach take him all the way to victory on The Traitors, or will he have to go against his internal audit instincts to win?’

For more guidance and commentary, see Croner-i Corporate Governance Quick Links.

For more information about what an internal auditor does, go to the Chartered IIA blog at What is Internal Audit?

Pictured: Faraaz Noor, an internal auditor - picture from BBC Media Centre