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Innovation in Compliance

Compliance Professionals Adapting to Change: Industries, Regulations, and Beyond: Part 5 – Alexander Cotoia on Professional Development and Mentorship for the Compliance Professional

Welcome to a special series sponsored by Diligent, where we look down the road at key issues in 2024 and beyond. In this series, I will visit with Nicholas Latham, Renee Murphy, Jessica Czeczuga, Yee Chow, and Alexander Cotoia. Over this series, we will consider compliant communications in regulated industries, managing conflicts of interest at the Board level, the Board’s role in compliance training and communications, navigating the current ESG landscape, and professional growth and mentorship in compliance. In this concluding Part 5, we discuss professional development and mentorship for compliance professionals with Alexander Cotoia.

Alex Cotoia is with the Volkov Law Group and has transitioned from a traditional legal background into the compliance arena. He strongly believes in the importance of continuous professional development for compliance professionals, emphasizing the need for mentorship and growth opportunities, particularly for those in leadership positions. Alex’s perspective is shaped by the dynamic regulatory climate and the increasing extraterritorial impact of legislation and regulation, which underscore the urgency of continuous development in the compliance field. He also highlights the significance of acquiring soft skills, such as negotiation, building relationships, and strategic planning, in addition to the legal aspects of compliance. Alex values collaboration and believes that reaching out to other compliance professionals for guidance and mentorship can benefit professional growth. Join Tom Fox and Alex Cotoia as they delve deeper into this topic on the next episode of the Diligent Podcast.

Key Highlights:

  • Navigating the Dynamic Regulatory Landscape for Compliance Professionals
  • Developing Essential Soft Skills for Compliance Professionals
  • Continuous Growth and Development in Compliance
  • The Importance of Compliance in Career Development

Ready for Purpose-Driven Compliance? Diligent equips leaders with the tools to build, monitor, and maintain an open, transparent ethics and compliance culture. For more information and to book a demo, visit Diligent.com

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Principled Podcast

Principled Podcast – S9 E17 – How Compliance Professionals Can “Send the Elevator Back Down”

What you’ll learn on this podcast episode

There are certain people you meet in your professional career that continue to have an impact on you and your industry, long after that initial meeting. For Principled Podcast host Meredith Hunt, that person is Mary Shirley, the former head of Integrity and Compliance Education at Fresenius Medical Care (now head of compliance for Masimo) and co-host of the Great Women in Compliance podcast. In this episode, the two discuss how ethics and compliance professionals can better amplify their peers and build community, using guidance from Mary’s book Sending the Elevator Back Down. They also explore themes from Mary’s upcoming book on how E&C leaders can make the most impact on their programs with limited resources.

Guest: Mary Shirley

Mary Shirley – Grayscale

Mary Shirley is a New Zealand-qualified lawyer with 18 years of ethics and compliance experience that includes working for data privacy and antitrust regulators, in-house and private practice/consultancy across five countries and four regions of the world.  

Mary co-hosts the Great Women in Compliance Podcast, which aims to create a platform for the outstanding achievements of women in the field and share ideas and provide learning opportunities for everyone in compliance. 

She co-authored the book Sending the Elevator Back Down: What We’ve Learned from Great Women in Compliance (CCI Press, 2020) and has a second book highlighting trailblazing and innovative ideas to level up compliance programs, coming out later in 2023.  

She has been bestowed the honor of being named a Compliance Week Top Mind 2019, Trust Across America 2020 Top Thought Leader in Trust, and Excellence in Compliance Awards 2022 Mentor of the Year. 

Host: Meredith Hunt

Meredith Hunt – Grayscale

Meredith Hunt came to LRN in early 2023 as a formidable compliance generalist, with experience in quality management, project management, regulatory compliance, policy drafting, and compliance program implementation and management. As a self-proclaimed compliance “nerd,” Meredith works as an ethics and compliance specialist on LRN’s Advisory team. In thicapacity, she leads LRN’s code of conduct assessment and benchmarking practice and advises clients on how to incorporate code of conduct best practices. Meredith also manages client projects across a range of industries, including code of conduct development and E&C program evaluations. 

Categories
Compliance Into the Weeds

Mental Health and Compliance Officers

The award-winning, Compliance into the Weeds is the only weekly podcast that takes a deep dive into a compliance-related topic, literally going into the weeds to explore a subject. This episode considers the very prescient topic of mental health and compliance officers. There is a mental health crisis in the U.S. workforce today, which also applies to compliance officers. Matt recently moderated a webinar hosted by Ethico on how mental health issues can affect corporate culture and compliance officers. The panelists included Paul Liebman, head of compliance at Harvard University; Sarah Ross, a former compliance officer at Novartis who now runs a consulting business on burnout, depression, and related issues; and Nick Gallo, co-CEO at Ethico.

Some of the highlights included:

  • How the Covid-19 pandemic accelerated the issues of mental health for all workers.
  • We had some great suggestions from the panelists and webinar participants.
  • Understanding the difference between mental health and mental illness is critical.
  • Consider how your company could weave mental health awareness into training, especially manager training.
  • Define boundaries between work and personal life.
  • Finding a friend in your field can be a critical mental health safety check. If you feel like you have someone to speak to about stress, you’re more likely to understand and confront that stress. True for compliance officers and other employees alike.
  • There is a strong connection between mental health and a speak-up culture generally. If employees feel afraid to speak up about feeling stressed or overworked, would they be equally reluctant to speak up about misconduct?

 Resources

Matt Kelly in Radical Compliance