Jonathon Kellerman, now a partner at StoneTurn, loves data analytics. He spent 20 years at PWC, his last post there being Chief Compliance Officer. His role as CCO focused on compliance and risk management and corporate governance. He joins Valerie Charles and Tom Fox to share how he “built out the industry’s leading consulting practice focused on helping those global companies with their most complex compliance challenges… where I got to focus on things like data and technology and leveraging technology to have a much more productive and value-added compliance program.” Jonathon describes the role of data analytics in becoming more predictive about risk, and how it is changing the compliance industry for the better.
A New Vision of Compliance
“We have access to this tremendous amount of data; how do we get that data to work for us?” Jonathon asks. His vision for a new kind of compliance program was “using data and data analytics to help us be more predictive about risk and to give us more real-time insights …that would help us …prevent incidents from occurring as opposed to always putting out fires.” With his team of talented experts, he was able to realize his vision. The cutting-edge platform they developed pulled data from across the organization into a centralized hub. They could then analyze the data to discover outliers and trends. “The beauty of it is we could pull the levers that would allow us to look at risk in many different ways,” he tells Valerie and Tom.
Compliance Demonstrating its Value
Valerie asks Jonathon how a company could get started. There’s no one size fits all solution, he responds. First, understand the data that’s available to you, your risk profile, and what you want to achieve. Then, figure out what risk factors you want to apply across the data. Keep your framework simple, he advises compliance leaders. Next, assemble a team to build your platform. Valerie comments that a benefit of this approach “is being able to demonstrate the value of the work that we do… [It] allows you to… become noted because of the ways that you can show that you’ve kept the train on the track… It elevates our profession.” Jonathon agrees and explains how compliance contributes to the overall effectiveness and efficiency of the business.
Assuring Data Quality Worldwide
Tom asks Jonathon how he assures data quality across the globe in multinational companies. Jonathon responds that it starts with cataloging all your data sources and systems and then standardizing the data. “If you can standardize the data that you’re bringing in from different systems or different sources, then you’re able to significantly increase the data quality and your confidence in the completeness and accuracy of that data,” he points out.
The Future of Compliance
He joined StoneTurn because he wants to “leave a mark on the compliance profession going forward and… advance the compliance profession…”, Jonathon tells Valerie. StoneTurn offers just that as they’re focused on innovation and advancing compliance as a profession. He and Valerie agree that the next few years will be game-changing for the compliance industry. “There is a window of opportunity for compliance to redefine itself and its value,” Jonathan argues. Using data analytics to provide real-time business insights and to improve operational efficiency are the keys to the future of compliance, he predicts. “If they can do those two things well,” Jonathon concludes, “they’re going to add a tremendous amount of value into their businesses and really help those businesses achieve their objectives.”
Resources
Jonathon Kellerman at StoneTurn | LinkedIn
StoneTurn.com