Ronnie Welch serves as the Chief Audit Executive for Guardian Life Insurance Company of America (Guardian) since 2021, where he leads the Internal Audit Department in providing independent, risk-based assurance, advisory, and insight services that help strengthen the organization’s governance, risk management, and internal controls. In this role, Ronnie has been transforming and modernizing the department to deliver greater value, relevance, and agility in today’s rapidly evolving risk and business environments. His focus has been enabling the function to be more strategic, technology-enabled, and forward-looking partner to the organization. In this role, Ronnie reports to the Chair of the Audit & Risk Committee of the Board of Directors.
Since joining Guardian in 2014, Ronnie has progressively expanded his leadership responsibilities in the department. Among his notable achievements, Ronnie was honored with the company’s CEO award in 2016 for delivering exceptional value through a transformative cybersecurity program audit.
Ronnie brings over two decades of experience in (internal and external) auditing and risk management with deep expertise in the insurance and financial services industry. Before Guardian, he held audit leadership roles at Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of NJ, MetLife, EY, and PwC.
A graduate of Rutgers Business School, Ronnie holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Management Information Systems. Professionally, Ronnie holds the Certified Internal Auditor (CIA) certification from the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) and Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA) certification from the Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA).
As a new member of the New York Development and Advisory Board of Greenhouse Scholars, Ronnie looks forward to applying his expertise in strategy, governance, risk, and internal controls to help advance the organization.
Ronnie resides in Rockville Centre, NY, with his husband, Andrew, son, Brayden, and two mini-goldendoodles (Desi and Sadie). In his spare time, Ronnie enjoys tropical vacations, auto magazines, the latest technology and gadgets, professional football and tennis, and movies.