In this episode, I am joined by Mikhail Reider-Gordon, Managing Director of Global Affairs at Affiliated Monitors, Inc. Today, we consider why independence in monitors is so critical. Gordon has seen the continuing and ever-present need for independence by monitors and in monitorships. She noted that she has observed the selection of monitors “where their true independence is perhaps dubious.” There has also been a trend of “hiring former colleagues with their agencies or people that have worked with in the past by regulators.” This has led some commentators to accuse the process of cronyism but also that monitors may be more sympathetic to the enforcement side. This latter point has led many companies to shy away from monitorships when perhaps they could best use their assistance.
It has also led into what Gordon characterized as the “danger of informal sympathies” with “subtle influences that can remove true impartiality.” Gordon underscored that true neutrals are not as easily come by as many may have thought. Such informality can be found in so many of our human relationships, former law school classmates, work colleagues, friendships, even home or social background can play such a significant role in allowing dispensations to occur, all of which can impact success of combating noncompliance.
Gordon tied all this “back to understanding on ethical culture where informality can allow certain behaviors to slide into a negative situation.” It could be “a willingness to cross lines regarding a specific regulation or failing to see that the spirit of the laws are not being fully upheld in a particular entity.” All of this means a monitor “can start with the proposition that every compliance and ethics program can be improved and then move to address what changes have to occur that will demonstrate to the outside world company and to the regulator which is overseeing terms of settlement agreement. Let’s get you to that place and help you to understand the value of constant evolution and compliance and ethics program.”
For more information on AMI, check out their website. For more information on Mikhail Reider-Gordon, check out her LinkedIn profile.
Shub Nandi is the co-founder and CEO of PiChain Innovations Pvt Limited, a RegTech company that researches and develops DeepTech systems to proactively learn, solve, and automate complex problems. Shub joins Vince Walden to discuss PiChain’s use of AI and blockchain to help with the automation of customer onboarding.
Roughly 1 trillion USD is laundered yearly in the US, yet only 1% of those illicit transactions are uncovered, Shub cites. This occurs despite the existence of regulations and compliance, suggesting that the implementation of these measures is lacking. Shub comments that many financial institutions view compliance as a “black box that is yet to be solved.”
PiChain is bridging the gap between the unbanked population and financial institutions via easy, simple, and convenient interfaces that are easily accessible through smartphones. Onboarding the 400+ personas in this population requires enhanced KYC and advanced programming like artificial intelligence to create ideal financial products for their needs. In addition, PiChain uses blockchain in conjunction with AI technology to ensure that their processes are compliant, and their models are fair and explainable.
Shub advises financial service companies to focus on understanding their customers rather than just their financial details.
Resources
Shub Nandi on LinkedIn
PiChainLabs.com
On this episode of “Integrity Through Compliance: AMI’s Business Success Series” you will be introduced to Jennifer Newton, CEO and Founder of the National Association of Black Compliance & Risk Management Professionals, Inc. hosted by AMI’s Managing Directors, Brenda Morris and Dionne Lomax. Newton discusses the origin of the organization, which was founded in 2019.
On this episode of “Integrity Through Compliance: AMI’s Business Success Series” you will be introduced to Jennifer Newton, CEO and Founder of the National Association of Black Compliance & Risk Management Professionals, Inc. hosted by AMI’s Managing Directors, Brenda Morris and Dionne Lomax. Newton discusses the origin of the organization, which was founded in 2019.
The non-profit association is dedicated to the professional development of African-American compliance and risk management professionals. Members of NABCRMP represent corporations, financial institutions, law firms, accountants, consulting firms, government agencies, trade associations, universities and non-profit organizations.
Resources:
NABCRMP website: https://www.nabcrmp.org
Contact: podcast@affiliatedmonitors.com
Learn More: affiliatedmonitors.com/integrity-through-compliance-podcast
Music and Audio Production by Dan Barton
Welcome to the Great Women in Compliance Podcast, co-hosted by Lisa Fine and Mary Shirley.
Lisa and Mary are pleased to present the second bonus episode of the series. For those new to the podcast, bonus episodes identify interviewees who are not Great Women in Compliance but have expertise to share that will benefit the advancement and empowerment of Great Women in Compliance. Jay Rosen is a friend of the podcast and has been an ally for #GWIC from the very beginning. The GWIC team extends their sincere gratitude to Jay for his support and friendship over the years.
There is no one better known for their networking skills than Jay, also known as Mr. Monitor due to his day job at Affiliated Monitors. While many folks fell into Compliance, Jay’s start in Hollywood is amongst the least conventional pre-cursor careers. We get to hear his story leading him to Compliance before diving into the substantive topic of how to network like a pro – even if you’re shy and introverted with no existing contacts.
Jay shares his best tips with us – addressing those in Compliance departments and those at vendors or other sales roles doing the important job of supplying tools, resources and services to Compliance practitioners to help them function at their best.
The conversation with Jay ends poignantly with Jay recounting the best advice that he ever received from his mother – a supporter of Great Women in Compliance as she purchased Jay a copy of “Sending the Elevator Back Down: What We’ve Learned from Great Women in Compliance” (CCI Press, 2020) for Jay for Hannukah – that remains of more relevance than ever before.
Mary wraps up the episode with a short story based on her mother’s reframing of a situation that changed how Mary thinks about situations and lessens negative self-talk.
The Great Women in Compliance Podcast is proudly featured on the Compliance Podcast Network and sponsored by Corporate Compliance Insights. If you enjoyed this episode please subscribe to the podcast and rate it on your podcast player to help other compliance professionals find it.
You can subscribe to the Great Women in Compliance podcast on any podcast player by searching for it and we welcome new subscribers to our podcast.
Lisa and Mary have extended the Great Women in Compliance brand to the book “Sending the Elevator Back Down: What We’ve Learned from Great Women in Compliance” (CCI Press, 2020) which can be found on Amazon and features valuable wisdom and advice from Great Women in Compliance across the world.
Compliance into the Weeds is the only weekly podcast which takes a deep dive into a compliance related topic, literally going into the weeds to more fully explore a subject. Today we consider the SEC regulations requiring companies to detail human capital issues in their annual reports. What have some of the initial disclosures revealed? What does it mean for compliance?
Some of the issues we consider are:
- Why is this issue so important?
- What are the SEC reporting rules?
- How did companies report their human capital issues?
- What does all this mean for corporate culture?
Resources
Matt’s blog post in Radical Compliance:
Corporate Culture and Human Capital Disclosures
Our debut episode features Vin DiCianni, President and Founder of Affiliated Monitors, Inc. and Gerald Coyne, Managing Director, State Monitoring Services, as they explain the future of telehealth and home healthcare during a pandemic and beyond.
Listen to the episode now:
Founded in 2004, Affiliated Monitors, Inc. (“AMI”) was the first company in the United States to focus on providing top-quality, independent integrity monitoring and assessment services across a wide range of regulated industries and professions. Monitoring and independent assessments are our only business.
Resources:
“The Expansion of Telemedicine During COVID-19 and Prospects for its Continued Use” by Gerald Coyne in Health Law Weekly (July 31, 2020)
Contact: podcast@affiliatedmonitors.com
Learn More: affiliatedmonitors.com/integrity-through-compliance-podcast
Music and Audio Production by Dan Barton
The Compliance Life details the journey to and in the role of a Chief Compliance Officer. How does one come to sit in the CCO chair? What are some of the skills a CCO needs to success navigate the compliance waters in any company? What are some of the top challenges CCOs have faced and how did they meet them? These questions and many others will be explored in this new podcast series. Over four episodes each month on The Compliance Life, I visit with one current or former CCO to explore their journey to the CCO chair. This month, my guest is Natalia Shehadeh, Chief Compliance Officer at ABB. In this episode we look at Natalia’s early professional career.
Natalia’s early professional career began after graduation, when she started her career in Washington D.C. on the Hill in trade policy and then moved to provide practice navigating quickly to the regulatory side of white-collar defense – trade compliance and some FCPA compliance matters. Later, wanting to see how corporate clients operationalized the guidance she moved in-house in 2007, which opened my eyes to an entirely different side of our practice filled with opportunity.
Lisa Levy, CEO of Lcubed Consulting and author of Future Proofing Cubed, started her career in IT. “I grew up as a project manager implementing systems”, she says, “and watching those system implementations fail because people didn’t understand what the new technology was doing or why it was important to them or how it was supposed to actually make their jobs easier.” That early experience led her to focus on “process and building teams that would understand how work is done and then how to use the technology.” She eventually founded Lcubed Consulting to champion better ways of doing work in order to become more agile. Tom Fox welcomes her to this week’s show as they discuss cross-functional collaboration, future proofing, and building agility within the corporate culture through adaptive transformation.
It Starts With People
“I realized that it’s really about getting the right people doing the right work in a repeatable process and then using technology to enable it,” Lisa comments. Business success depends on people first, then process, then technology, she adds. She says that she established Lcubed Consulting to offer middle-sized companies expertise in four key areas: project management, process performance management, internal controls, and organizational changes. Working with her expert consultants helps her clients’ employees build their capacity in these crucial areas.
Cross Functional Collaboration
Understanding what’s going on around you as an employee is important, Lisa iterates. She advocates for cross-functional collaboration, so that each employee and team knows where they fit in the big picture. “If everyone understands where they fit in the flow of the business, we can then tie that into the work value that customers and clients receive,” she remarks. This makes certain that resources aren’t being wasted.
Future Proofing and Being Agile
Tom comments that the pandemic has made “the unknown unknowns almost business-as-usual.” He asks Lisa how companies can future proof their operations for whatever comes along. Lisa responds that you must build agility within your business as the first step of “future proofing.” This is the core of their adaptive transformation framework. “Future proofing is about building a basis in corporate culture that embraces change,” she remarks. “A visionary leader is always looking to the next thing that they want to do…Operations is supposed to happen flawlessly and move with the needs of that visionary leader. And so if we start with a culture … and everybody understands that we really want to change on a recurring basis – that this is natural, it’s how we grow, it’s how we scale – and we have that foundation, and we know how to do our jobs, and we know how to use our technology, a business leader can do just about anything, and the business will follow.”
Getting the Message Out
Lisa wrote her book, Future Proofing Cubed, in 2019 before the pandemic. She tells Tom that COVID-19 has made the message that businesses need to be agile, very clear to leaders. She shares insight on how to create an adaptive culture throughout an organization. The tone from the top is important, but employees need to hear the same message from their direct supervisors. “In order to be successful we need to be able to get our people to move in the directions that we need them to…. with the least amount of resistance,” Lisa remarks.
Resources
Lisa Levy | LinkedIn
LCubedConsulting.com
FutureProofingCubed.com