How AMC Theatres is elevating internal audit into a strategic business partner

Over the last century, AMC Theatres has become one of the largest movie theater companies in the world, operating nearly 9,600 movie screens in 860 theaters across the world.

The film industry is constantly fluctuating, leading to new compliance needs, risks, and opportunities to improve operations. This makes internal audit more important than ever for AMC. For Mallory Martinez, VP of Internal Audit, and Bryce Burrows, Director of Internal Audit, the goal is to navigate these fluctuations while providing assurance and delivering value-added insights that support informed decision-making.

To achieve this, the AMC team knew they needed to move away from manual tracking and adopt a centralized ecosystem, allowing them to focus less on administrative overhead and more on strategic risk. AMC is here to make movies better; Optro is here to make audit better. Here is an inside look at how AMC Theatres' audit team is streamlining its global audit operations with Optro.

From manual process to strategic engine

Before seeking a new solution, the AMC team managed a highly decentralized process. While domestic audits used a separate platform, the rest of AMC’s global activities were managed manually using spreadsheets and annotated PDFs.

“While not quite as archaic as 3-ring binders, we were managing everything in an entirely manual way,” Martinez said, “Excel files, PDFs with annotations, time-intensive board presentations…” For a lean team of 11 supporting a $5B revenue organization, this was unsustainable, creating, as Martinez put it, “a heavy administrative burden.”

A platform built by auditors, for auditors

When evaluating different software, AMC needed a platform that truly understood the daily workflows of a global audit team that could seamlessly streamline and automate routine activities. The AMC team wanted a platform built specifically for their unique challenges.

“…the conversations with Optro consistently focused on how the platform could support our objectives and enhance our audit function,” said Burrows, “The discussions were centered on value, capability, and partnership rather than comparisons with competitors, which reinforced our confidence in the platform and the team behind it.”

From manual work to meaningful impact

By rolling out Optro's centralized platform, the AMC team expects to significantly reduce manual effort, allowing for expanded coverage and deeper reviews. Ultimately, freeing up this administrative time means adding more hours for critical, risk-based audits that provide direct value to the organization.

"The biggest win will be having everything all in one place and integrated," Martinez explained. "To get to a day where we don’t even think about administrative tasks, and things just 'exist' will be huge!"

Establishing a centralized system to empower audit

By replacing manual, disconnected processes with Optro's centralized platform, AMC Theatres is empowering its internal audit team to fully step into its role as a strategic business advisor.

Burrows said, “Our expectation is that Optro will allow us to operate more efficiently, enabling the team to focus more time on higher-value work in advisory engagements, strategic risk coverage, and be able to respond quicker to emerging risks.”

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