General
Undermining the CCO, Part II
Earlier this month we had a popular post on ways that senior management might undermine the chief compliance officer’s power and authority. The post sparked quite a bit of feedback, so today let’s share more stories of management undermining the CCO — and ways the CCO could try to push back. The original post identified…
Read MoreCompliance Officers and Law Degrees
Last week we saw another salary survey for compliance officers, which found that compliance professionals with law degrees enjoyed far higher compensation than those without one. This lets us revisit that eternal debate in corporate compliance: do compliance officers need to be lawyers? The report comes from recruitment firm BarkerGilmore, as a more detailed follow-up…
Read MoreBank of America Culture Failure
Compliance professionals looking for a fresh case-study in corporate culture dysfunction, turn your eyes to Bank of America! This week news broke that BofA is still plagued by junior bankers literally working themselves into an early grave — 10 years after the bank vowed to change its ways due to rampant overwork. Who knew change…
Read MoreRepository of AI Risks Available
Some red meat today for everyone panicking about the risks (compliance or otherwise) of artificial intelligence: the brains at MIT have published a catalog of more than 700 potential risks from organizations’ use of AI, which you can use as food to fuel your AI risk management program. A team of MIT researchers known as…
Read MoreMore Thoughts on Whistleblower Awards
Today let’s revisit the Justice Department’s whistleblower awards program, first announced 10 days ago. Since then we’ve all had time to contemplate the program’s implications, several of which deserve compliance professionals’ attention. Let’s begin with the question most important to compliance professionals: Will the existence of this awards program drive would-be whistleblowers not to report…
Read MoreWhen Managers Undermine the CCO
Compliance officers often like to talk about how senior management can demonstrate support for a strong compliance program. Today I’d like to flip the script and ask an even more urgent question: What are all the ways that senior management can undermine a chief compliance officer? This is on my mind after (yet another) conversation…
Read MoreCCO Compensation Update
We haven’t taken a look at compliance officer compensation in a while, so today let’s revisit that always-popular subject — especially since a new salary survey found that lots of chief compliance officers are making gobs of money. That survey comes from recruitment firm Barker Gilmore, which several weeks ago published its 2024 General Counsel…
Read MoreLast Week’s Cybersecurity Disasters
There are decades when nothing happens, and weeks when decades happen. Last week was definitely one of those latter periods for CISOs, internal auditors, compliance officers, and anyone else charged with worrying about cybersecurity. Just consider what happened last week: On Tuesday, UnitedHealth reported spending nearly $1 billion on recovery costs from a ransomware attack…
Read MoreIs Regulation By Enforcement Coming Next?
Here’s a hypothetical: What if the Supreme Court’s recent curbs on regulatory power turn out to be a mess for Corporate America? What if those limits lead to more regulation by enforcement? What would the implications be for corporate compliance programs and legal teams? Those questions are on my mind today thanks to an intriguing…
Read MoreDon’t Sweat Chevron’s End Either
So there I was, reading through the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent rulings, when the phone rang. On the other end was my friend the general counsel, who apparently had been doing the same. “Oh man,” he said, launching into a diatribe. “This ruling to overturn the Chevron doctrine is going to be a disaster for…
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