Tag: Charles Schwager

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Compliance Week Conference Podcast

Charles Schwager on The Current State of Compliance and What’s in Store for the Future


In this episode of the Compliance Week 2022 Preview Podcasts series, Charles will discuss some of his presentation at Compliance Week 2022 “The Current State of Compliance and What’s in Store for the Future”. Some of the issues he will discuss in this podcast and his presentation are:

  • The current state of the industry, impacts of COVID-19, and examine the road ahead;
  • Steps compliance professionals can take collectively to protect and advance the profession moving forward; and
  • Reflections on emerging topics that are top of mind for compliance officers and how leaders are forging ahead.

In this first full compliance conference in over 2 years, I hope you can join me at Compliance Week 2022. This year’s event will be May 16-18 at the JW Marriott in Washington DC. The line-up of this year’s event is simply first rate with some of the top ethics and compliance practitioners around.
Gain insights and make connections at the industry’s premier cross-industry national compliance event offering knowledge-packed, accredited sessions and take-home advice from the most influential leaders in the compliance community. Back for its 17th year, compliance, ethics, legal, and audit professionals will gather safely face-to-face to benchmark best practices and gain the latest tactics and strategies to enhance their compliance programs. and many others to:

  • Network with your peers, including C-suite executives, legal professionals, HR leaders and ethics and compliance visionaries.
  • Hear from 75+ respected cross-industry practitioners who are CEOs, CCOs, regulators, federal officials, and practitioners to help inform and shape the strategic direction of your enterprise risk management program.
  • Hear directly from the two SEC Commissioners and gain insights into the agency’s areas of enforcement and walk away with guidance on how to remain compliant within emerging areas such as ESG disclosure, third-party risk management, cybersecurity, cryptocurrency and more.
  • Bring actionable takeaways back to your program from various session types including ESG, Human Trafficking, Board obligations and many others for you to listen, learn and share.
  • The goal of Compliance Week is to arm you with information, strategy and tactics to transform your organization and your career by connecting ethics to business performance through process augmentation and data visualization.

I hope you can join me at the event. For information on the event, click here. As an extra benefit to listeners of this podcast, Compliance Week is offering a $200 discount off the registration price. Enter discount code discount code TFLAW $200 OFF.

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The Ethics Experts

TEE Most Ethical Companies Bonus Episode 002: Charles Schwager

In this episode of The Ethics Experts, Nick welcomes Charles Schwager, VP and chief compliance and ethics officer at Waste Management, to the show.

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ComTech

Structured Collaboration in Compliance with Charles Schwager


 
Charles Schwager is the Chief Compliance and Ethics Officer of Waste Management. Tom Fox describes his role as “one of the most unique CECO roles in compliance around”. Charles, Tom, and Valerie Charles discuss what Waste Management does differently, how the company managed the two major crises of 2020, and why more data may not necessarily be better.
 

 
Looking at Compliance Holistically
Charles explains that all departments at Waste Management work together to build a holistic compliance culture. “We are all partnering together to create a very strong and comprehensive culture of compliance and ethics, so we try not to have one area where it’s strong and others where it might be different. We really do try to make it collaborative, holistic and [there’s] a lot of teamwork involved that goes into that,” he tells Tom. Many of their 50,000 employees work on the field, and Charles explains how they foster a “two-way communication loop” for these team members using technology.
 
Handling COVID and Social Injustice
Tom asks Charles, “… you asked your compliance team to look at reporting data and perhaps see if there were some new or different insights you might be able to gain from that data. Could you describe the process you and your team went through?” Charles responds that their workforce is reflective of American society, so the two major issues that defined 2020 – COVID and the social justice movement – were reflected in the calls coming through their helpline. “When we saw that, we decided to create a special triage process around that so we could get out in front of that as quickly as possible, knowing that if it happened in one place it could be happening in others,” Charles remarks. He describes the tracking system they put in place to handle both crises. “We were fortunate to be on top of our helpline and utilize it in different ways like that. And the technology worked well for us to have visibility and be able to react to those things.” he points out.
 
Structured Collaboration
“I’m a believer in structured collaboration,” Charles remarks. Cross-functional and cross-departmental teams at Waste Management work together to keep up-to-date with compliance. Everyone needs to work together, Charles emphasizes: “it’s only as good as everyone working together and getting that buy in…” The leadership has to want it as well. Their company’s strong compliance culture is proof of this. For Charles, operationalizing compliance means getting everyone actively involved.
 
Using Data
Charles tells Valerie, “We really focus on a strong ‘Speak up, Listen up, Follow up’ culture.” He sees increased reporting as a natural result of their focus on building a vibrant compliance culture. Valerie asks his thoughts on whether data analytics will transform compliance in the future. He responds that it’s a good skill set to have in your organization and that he is always thinking about how to use data. However, he argues, “If you really don’t understand the data, it can create situations where people extrapolate or make conclusions that… are faulty.” 
 
Resources
Charles Schwager on LinkedIn
Waste Management