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Aswin Vaidyanathan
Gaborone
Partner and Head of Assurance

Aswin Vaidyanathan

Aswin Vaidyanathan joined Grant Thornton in 1998. He is the Head of the Assurance team and a Partner with more than 27 years of experience in advising dynamic companies and their stakeholders. He is also the Partner responsible for risk management and policies of the firm. Aswin is also a member of the Policy Board of Grant Thornton in Botswana.

Experience

Aswin has experience of providing services such as audit assurance, IT compliance and IS audits, International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) compliance, and taxation, both corporate and personal. He focuses on assurance services to public interest entities and privately owned businesses.

Sector experience  

Aswin has a vast client base of mid-market entrepreneurial businesses, public listed entities and parastatal organisations. His experience includes companies in industries ranging from real estate, tourism, financial services, construction, manufacturing, mining, exploration, wholesale and medical industry.

He handles a variety of group clients, and his experience of being in Botswana for the last 23 years has given him exposure on country specific expertise for all the industries mentioned above. He specializes in audit assurance, as well as audits of Information Systems and Information Technology Governance and Controls.

Professional qualifications and memberships

Aswin is registered as a ‘Certified Auditor of Public Interest Entity’ with Botswana Accountancy Oversight Authority (BAOA) since its inception. He is a fellow member of BICA and associate member of Institute of Chartered Accountants of India. He is also a member of the Institute of Internal Auditors Botswana (IIAB)

Aswin is also a member of Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA), the governing body of Certified Information Systems Auditors (CISA) and holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Madras, India. He has served in the Professional and Training committee of BICA and also on the Continuing professional development sub-committee of BICA.

He currently serves in the Methodology and Learning Sub Committee of Grant Thornton International Limited (GTIL), responsible for the network’s audit methodology and training needs. He is also a member of GTIL’s sub-committee for standards setting board providing suggestions to IAASB. He is also a member of GTI’s member firm review team.

Aswin has been extensively trained on GTIL’s audit methodology which is fully compliant with the requirements of International Standards on Auditing. He is the IFRS champion for Grant Thornton in Botswana, trained by the IFRS team of GTIL. He also participates as a trainer in trainings conducted mainly for soft skills.

Technological Proficiency

Aswin has extensive experience operating various software to execute audit methodology, such as IDEA (data analysis), LEAP (Grant Thornton patented tool for identification of financial statement risks and linkage to the processes and internal controls established to address those risks) and TeamMate (audit workflow). Furthermore, he is also proficient in using Microsoft Office applications to ensure quality of work.

Community Involvement

Aswin has been a member of the Private Business Growth Awards committee since 2015. Presented in association with Business Botswana and Botswana Investment and Trade Centre (BITC), this initiative is Grant Thornton’s biggest Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activity that encourages and honours the development of growing private businesses in the country and led to a partnership with USAID Trade Hub to present the “Botswana Exporter of the Year” awards.

Aswin participates in Grant Thornton’s CSR initiatives such as recently supporting Government’s Digital Transformation Strategy within the education sector by sponsoring a state-of-the art imported tech panel – a first for public schools in Botswana. Over the years, Grant Thornton has supported various local communities paying special attention to the upliftment of education in Botswana.

In his personal capacity, Aswin is a member and Secretary of the Botswana Hindu Charities Trust, Gaborone Masonic Trust, Angel Network Botswana and provides pro bona services to various not for profit organisations, including American Business Council of Botswana.

Presentations and publications

Aswin has been a member of Grant Thornton’s corporate Toastmasters club, which has facilitated development of communication and leadership skills. He has achieved “Competent Communicator” and “Competent Leader” status.  

Languages Spoken

English, Hindi, Tamil, Kannada.

Qualifications
  • BCom
  • ACA (India)
  • CA
  • FCA (Botswana)
  • CISA
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Aswin Vaidyanathan
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Aswin Vaidyanathan
Partner and Head of Assurance
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