Welcome to a special 5-part podcast series sponsored by Diligent. Over this series, we will consider a risk-based approach to third-party risk management. Over this series, I will visit with Michael Parker, the Director of Consulting and Advisory Services; Stephanie Font, Director, Operations Optimization Group; Kairi Isse, Group Manager of Managed Services Group, Productions; Adam Bailey, Senior Vice President, Product Management and Alexander Cotoia, Regulatory Compliance Manager from the Volkov Law Group. In this Part 1, I visit with Michael Parker on the need for risk mitigation to bring a third party into a relationship with your organization.

Parker has worked in the compliance arena for six years, learning from his experience in government and tech. For a compliance program to be successful, executive leadership must also have a Board of Directors buy-in for oversight. A third-party risk management platform aims to protect the business’s assets and create a single source of truth. Through such a mechanism, third parties can be screened for anti-bribery, anti-corruption, human trafficking, and much more. The Board needs visibility to make decisions and an audit log to show activity and diligence if ever needed. It is critical for all compliance functions to stay up to date with regulations and keep their third-party platform consistently updated.

Key Highlights

• How can a risk-based approach, coupled with a single source of truth and a robust platform, help protect business assets and comply with changing regulations?
• What is the German Supply Chain Act, and how can companies ensure compliance related to human trafficking and human slavery?
• How can companies use visual analytics to gain insights into their risk-based approach and show evidence of due diligence in the face of an audit?

Notable Quotes

1. “Companies don’t do bad things; people do. And as people do, the regulatory landscape changes and can change quickly. So keeping up with those changes is critical to protecting your assets and mitigating risk.”
2. “We need to increase our defensibility and audibility if somebody comes knocking; we can show and illustrate that we have done our due diligence to mitigate any risk of doing business with this third party.”
3. “Companies don’t do bad things; people do.”
4. “Put a platform in place that is robust lends itself to a number of different benefits.”

 Resources

Michael Parker on LinkedIn

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