Tag: ethics

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Popcorn and Compliance

Popcorn and Compliance: Episode 4 -The Ghost of Frankenstein Declaring the Monster Dead Is Not a Control

This October we have returned to one of my all-time favorites, the Universal Picture Classic monsters. Over the years, I have looked at all the classics, Dracula, The Mummy, The Wolfman, The Invisible Man, took detours in the films of Val Lewton and the Hammer Studios. This year, I wanted to return for a deep dive into the first five Frankenstein movies. We have or will consider the original Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, Son of Frankenstein and Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman. In this fourth episode we consider the Ghost of Frankenstein, released in 1942. In this exploration, I have used my AI friends, Timothy and Fiona to provide commentary.

Film Synopsis

By The Ghost of Frankenstein, Boris Karloff has departed the role and Lon Chaney Jr. takes over as the Monster, while Bela Lugosi returns as Ygor. After escaping another attempt by villagers to destroy them, Ygor brings the Monster to Ludwig Frankenstein, another son of Henry Frankenstein. Ludwig initially wants nothing to do with his family’s disastrous legacy, but inevitably becomes involved and develops a plan to cure the Monster through brain transplantation. Ygor and Ludwig’s disgraced colleague Bohmer secretly substitute Ygor’s brain for the intended healthy brain. Predictably, remediation becomes another catastrophe.

Key Highlights

  • Repeat failures indicate ineffective remediation.
  • Closing a finding does not mean fixing a finding.
  • Bohmer demonstrates management override and control circumvention.
  • COSO asks us to look at the whole control environment.
  • Root cause is more important than symptoms.

Popcorn and Compliance takeaway: Declaring the Monster dead is not a control. You have to test whether he can get back up.

Timothy and Fiona are AI generated voice courtesy Notebook LM.

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Great Women in Compliance

Great Women in Compliance: Defying the Odds: Cláudia Massaia on Betting on Yourself

They told her compliance was a dead-end career. They told her she’d never make it in the United States, that landing an internship with a U.S. government agency was impossible, and that passing the New York bar exam was a long shot.

Cláudia Massaia proved them wrong—every single time.

In this inspiring episode of Great Women in Compliance, host Sarah Hadden sits down with the Brazilian-born attorney and compliance professional whose remarkable journey is a master class in persistence, self-belief, and the power of simply refusing to take no for an answer.

From launching her career amid Brazil’s historic Operation Car Wash corruption scandal to earning dual master’s degrees, securing permanent U.S. residency, and becoming a New York-licensed attorney, Cláudia shares the setbacks, sacrifices, and occasional spectacular failures that shaped her success.

Along the way, Sarah and Cláudia explore how corporate compliance has evolved, why being a trusted business partner beats being the “department of no,” and what American executives misunderstand about doing business in Brazil.

But the biggest takeaway is personal: Bet on yourself. Invest in your future. And don’t let someone else’s definition of what’s possible become your own.

As Cláudia reminds us, discipline and consistency will take you further than intensity ever could.

A joyful, candid, and energizing conversation for anyone who’s ever been told, “You can’t do that.”

Connect with Cláudia on LinkedIn and subscribe to Great Women in Compliance wherever you listen to podcasts.

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Popcorn and Compliance

Popcorn and Compliance: Episode 3: Son of Frankenstein – Inheriting the Castle Means Inheriting the Risk

This October, Tom Fox returns to one of his all-time favorites: Universal Pictures’ Classic monsters. Over the years, Tom has explored classics like Dracula, The Mummy, The Wolf Man, and The Invisible Man, as well as films by Val Lewton and Hammer Studios. This year, he wanted to return for a deep dive into the first five Frankenstein movies. He has considered, or will consider, the original Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, Ghost of Frankenstein, and Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman. In this third episode, he considers what many viewers regard as the series’ best: Son of Frankenstein, released in 1939. This is the final film to feature Boris Karloff as Frankenstein’s Monster. In this exploration, Tom Fox uses his AI friends, Timothy and Fiona, to provide commentary.

Film Synopsis:

Son of Frankenstein brings Basil Rathbone into the saga as Wolf von Frankenstein, who returns with his family to his father’s estate hoping to restore the Frankenstein name. Instead, he encounters Bela Lugosi’s extraordinary Ygor and discovers that his father’s Monster, played for the final time by Boris Karloff, is still alive but comatose. Wolf revives him, hoping to vindicate his father’s work, but Ygor has his own plans and uses the Monster to settle old scores. The result is another catastrophe created by a Frankenstein convinced that this time things will be different.

Key highlights:

  • You can inherit risk without creating it.
  • This is the M&A compliance movie.
  • Ygor represents institutional knowledge used for the wrong purpose.
  • Inspector Krogh represents institutional memory.
  • Red flags transform governance responsibility.

Popcorn and Compliance takeaway: You may not have created the Monster, but once you know he is in the basement, he becomes your governance problem.

Timothy and Fiona are AI-generated voices courtesy of NotebookLM.

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Great Women in Compliance

Great Women in Compliance: The Paradox of Ethics & Compliance: Corporate Conscience or Façade?

Is your organization designed to hear the truth—or to explain it away?

Corporations have Enterprise Risk Management, established Ethics & Compliance Programs, Internal & External audits, risk assessments, multiple risk and compliance heat maps and dashboards, and boards charged with oversight.

So why do major corporate scandals keep happening?

What if the problem isn’t a lack of controls but the organizational structures that prevent those controls from making a difference?

In this episode of Great Women in Compliance, we speak with Astrid Yee-Sobraques, Risk Sherpa and author of The Structural Capture of Corporate Conscience, about the uncomfortable relationship between ethics, commercial pressure, corporate governance, and power.

We explored whether the Ethics & Compliance functions can identify risks but cannot meaningfully influence how the risk will be mitigated, and whether the Ethics & Compliance Program is effective—or simply a system for documenting concerns.

We asked:

  • Can a company with ethical people still be structurally designed to produce unethical outcomes?
  • When does legitimate business risk acceptance become a way to rationalize unacceptable conduct?
  • If Ethics & Compliance can identify the risk but cannot change the outcome, is that independence—or an illusion of it?
  • How can boards uncover the risks that management’s reporting and assumptions may obscure?

For Ethics & Compliance professionals, the discussion raises difficult questions about independence, professional responsibility, escalation, and the pressure to protect revenue-producing relationships.

For directors and board members, it challenges the assumption that more reporting and better dashboards do not necessarily translate into better oversight and decisions.

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Popcorn and Compliance

Popcorn and Compliance: Episode 2: Bride of Frankenstein Dr. Pretorius and the Compliance Problem of Knowing Better

This October, Tom Fox returns to one of his all-time favorites: the Universal Pictures classic monsters. Over the years, Tom has covered classics like Dracula, The Mummy, The Wolf Man, and The Invisible Man, and has also explored films by Val Lewton and Hammer Studios. This year, he’s back with a deep dive into the first five Frankenstein movies. The series covers the original Frankenstein, Son of Frankenstein, Ghost of Frankenstein, and Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man. This second episode tackles what many viewers call the greatest horror movie of all time: Bride of Frankenstein (1935). Tom’s AI friends, Timothy and Fiona, comment throughout.

Film Synopsis

Bride of Frankenstein picks up after Henry Frankenstein and the Monster survive the original film. Henry wants to leave his experiments behind, but the wonderfully sinister Dr. Pretorius pulls him back toward creation, ultimately forcing him to help create a female companion for the Monster. Meanwhile, the Monster himself develops emotionally and intellectually, experiences both human kindness and cruelty, and desperately seeks companionship. The experiment succeeds technically, but the Bride immediately rejects the Monster, setting up the film’s tragic conclusion.

Key highlights:

  • Knowing better changes everything.
  • Pretorius represents the dangerous adviser.
  • Culture is learned behavior.
  • Speak-up systems require psychological safety.
  • Ethical leadership is tested when ethics becomes expensive.

Popcorn and Compliance takeaway: The most dangerous compliance failure may occur when leadership already knows the right answer and allows someone to persuade it otherwise.

Timothy and Fiona are AI-generated voices courtesy of Notebook LM.

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Great Women in Compliance

Great Women in Compliance: SCCE Recap 2026

In this episode, Lisa, Hemma, and Ellen are taking us back to last week at the 25th Annual SCCE Compliance & Ethics Institute.  They took the opportunity to speak with other attendees to share their experiences–whether as a first–time attendee, a first-time speaker, someone coming back after a long time, someone traveling from Europe to attend, or one of the long-time leaders in the field.

We discussed what they’re learning, what’s changing in the profession, and—perhaps most importantly—why community matters.  Thank you to Doel Kar, Emily Frank, Lizette Arias, Maria Lancri, Carrie Penman, Terri Stringer, and Amarilys Gott for taking the time to speak with us about the evolution of ethics and compliance, AI, neurodiversity, leadership, and, of course, the amazing community of dedicated Ethics & Compliance professionals

We hope you enjoy this episode half as much as we enjoyed connecting with these fabulous Great Women in Compliance.

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Popcorn and Compliance

Popcorn and Compliance: Frankenstein It’s Alive: Innovation, Governance, and the Responsibility of the Creator

This October we return to one of Tom Fox’s all-time favorites, the Universal Picture Classic monsters. Over the years, Tom has revisited the classics Dracula, The Mummy, The Wolf Man, and The Invisible Man and taken detours into films by Val Lewton and Hammer Studios. This year, Tom wanted to return for a deep dive into the first five Frankenstein movies, covering the original, The Bride of Frankenstein, The Son of Frankenstein, The Ghost of Frankenstein, and Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman. In this first episode, we consider the original and one of the greatest horror movies of all time, Frankenstein, released in 1931. In this exploration, Tom has used my AI friends, Timothy and Fiona, to provide commentary.

Film Synopsis

James Whale’s Frankenstein remains one of the foundational movies of American horror, with Colin Clive as Henry Frankenstein and Boris Karloff giving us the definitive cinematic image of the Monster. Henry retreats to his laboratory with his assistant Fritz, determined to discover the secret of life. His experiment succeeds, but a crucial mistake has already occurred: Fritz has supplied the brain identified in the film as abnormal rather than the intended brain. Henry brings his creation to life without understanding what he has made, without controls to manage it, and without any real plan for what comes next. The resulting tragedy ultimately sends creator and creation toward their confrontation at the burning windmill.

Key highlights:

  • Innovation without governance is simply uncontrolled risk.
  • The abnormal brain is a third-party and supply-chain failure.
  • Waldman represents credible challenge without sufficient authority.
  • Henry abandons responsibility when responsibility matters most.
  • The catastrophe begins before the Monster escapes.

Popcorn and Compliance takeaway: Do not wait until the Monster is running through the village to conduct the risk assessment.

Timothy and Fiona are AI-generated voices courtesy of Notebook LM.

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Great Women in Compliance

Great Women in Compliance: Together, What We Can Do: Sharon Seivert on Ethics, Systems and the Six Powers

What if ethics and compliance weren’t something we bolted onto organizations but something built into how the organization actually works?

In this episode of Great Women in Compliance, Dr. Hemma R. Lomax talks with Sharon Seivert, Founder and CEO of Core Coaching & Consulting and creator of the SIX POWERS® framework, about organizational health, human agency, and building integrity from the inside out.

For Sharon, the work is deeply personal. She shares how the loss of her brother John in a workplace accident shaped her commitment to healthier systems and raises a question at the heart of the conversation: when something goes wrong, do we focus only on the individual event, or do we allow what happened to teach the system?

Sharon and Hemma explore what becomes possible when organizations are treated as living systems capable of learning, adapting, and recovering, and why ethics and compliance professionals should not have to do that work alone.

Highlights include:

  • Sharon’s personal connection to ethics, compliance, and workplace safety
  • The SIX POWERS® framework: Core, Vision, Mission, Interactions, Structure, and Synergy
  • Why purpose and principles can act as an organizational “tuning fork”
  • The difference between individual responsibility and systemic responsibility
  • Finding and using your own “hub of power”
  • The hidden costs of ethical compromise
  • Why near misses should teach the system, not simply disappear into a case file
  • Building organizations with enough “wobble” to adapt, recover, and evolve
  • Why, ultimately, together we can do hard things well

Further reading from A Thinking Game

Sharon Seivert: Powering the Future: A Six Powers Roadmap & Compass. Evolve Organizations. Activate Leaders. Ignite Purpose.

Available on Amazon

This conversation also helped inspire Hemma’s latest A Thinking Game article, “A Community of Many Splendid Torches,” which explores what becomes possible when individual acts of courage, care, and participation are understood as part of a larger human system.

A Thinking Game on LinkedIn

A Thinking Game on Substack

Bio

Sharon Seivert is the Founder and CEO of Core Coaching & Consulting, LLC, where she works at the intersection of leadership, systems thinking, and organizational health. A former CEO in healthcare and business consulting, Sharon brings decades of experience helping leaders, teams, and organizations navigate complex change.

She has written multiple books on her signature SIX POWERS® framework, a holistic approach designed to strengthen leadership and organizational health from the inside out. Her work brings together purpose, strategy, relationships, and systems thinking to help individuals and organizations become more integrated, resilient, and capable of lasting transformation.

Sharon is also a leadership coach, business consultant, and speaker, working with organizations ranging from startups to Fortune 500 companies and with a global community committed to healthier ways of living and leading.

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Trekking Through Compliance

Trekking Through Compliance: Episode 74 – Power, Secrecy, and Responsibility: Ethical Lessons from Requiem for Methuselah

In corporate life, ethical decision-making is not only a question of right and wrong. It is also a test of leadership, trust, and long-term vision. Ethical missteps erode corporate culture, destroy reputations, and invite regulatory and shareholder scrutiny.

Few Star Trek episodes present an ethical crucible as layered as Requiem for Methuselah. The story unfolds into a complex web of secrecy, autonomy, manipulation, and unintended consequences, a rich territory for ethical reflection. From this episode, we can draw five business ethics lessons directly applicable to today’s corporate compliance environment.

Lesson 1: Transparency Is Essential to Trust

Illustrated by: Flint initially hides critical facts from Kirk, Spock, and McCoy about his true identity. His secrecy stems from a desire to control the situation, but it breeds mistrust and escalating tension.

Ethics Lesson. Stakeholders, whether employees, customers, or regulators, expect honesty. Concealing facts creates suspicion, damages credibility, and can lead to decisions made on false assumptions.

Lesson 2: Autonomy Must Be Respected, Even with Good Intentions

Illustrated by Flint, Rayna was designed to be his companion, controlling her environment and limiting her exposure to the outside world.

Ethics Lesson. Corporations sometimes restrict employee autonomy under the guise of protection, micromanaging, withholding career opportunities, or blocking external engagement. Ethical leadership means equipping people to act responsibly, not controlling every move they make.

Lesson 3: Ends Do Not Justify the Means

Illustrated by: To achieve his goal, Flint manipulates the Enterprise crew, withholds the cure they need until his conditions are met, and engineers circumstances to force emotional outcomes for Rayna.

Ethics Lesson. Compromising ethics for results can cause long-term damage far outweighing the immediate gain.

Lesson 4: Emotional Intelligence Is Critical in Ethical Decision-Making

Illustrated by: Kirk fails to foresee that forcing Rayna to choose between him and Kirk will overwhelm her, leading to her breakdown.

Ethics Lesson. Leaders may overlook red flags, delay action, or make decisions based on personal feelings rather than principles. Ethical clarity often requires stepping back and separating personal attachment from professional responsibility.

Lesson 5: Ethical Leadership Includes Considering Long-Term Impact

Illustrated by: Flint’s immortality has given him a unique long view of history, but in this episode, he fails to account for the long-term consequences of his actions toward Rayna and the Enterprise crew.

Ethics Lesson. Businesses that focus solely on short-term gains, without assessing long-term impacts, risk harming their reputation, eroding stakeholder trust, and creating systemic problems. Ethical leaders anticipate not just the next quarter, but the next decade.

Final ComplianceLog Reflections

Requiem for Methuselah is ultimately a cautionary tale about the cost of ethical missteps, even for someone with the wisdom of centuries. Flint’s intellect and resources could not compensate for a failure to act with transparency, respect, and foresight.

For today’s corporate leaders, the lesson is simple: ethical decision-making is not a luxury—it is the foundation of sustainable success. The compliance function’s role is to embed these values so deeply into the corporate DNA that they guide every choice, from the boardroom to the front line.

Resources:

⁠⁠Excruciatingly Detailed Plot Summary by Eric W. Weisstein⁠⁠

⁠⁠MissionLogPodcast.com⁠⁠

⁠⁠Memory Alpha

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Great Women in Compliance

Great Women in Compliance: Beyond the Balance Sheet: Ethics Lessons from Australia’s Accounting Scandals

For this #GWIC roundtable episode, Lisa Fine and Ellen Hunt spoke with two renowned experts, Francine McKenna and Ursula Schmidt, about what Ethics & Compliance professionals should learn from recent accounting firm scandals in Australia.

Listen in as our guests help us unravel:

  • why similar scandals keep happening,
  • how the incentives and pressure at play in these scandals are universal,
  • the important role that culture plays,
  • how auditors and others should live up to their professional standards, and
  • why we still ignore those that bring issues forward.

There are lessons in these scandals for every #Ethics and #Compliance professional on how to improve your culture and program. A huge thank you to Francine and Ursula for sharing their insights, expertise, and wisdom with us.