Post By: Adam Turteltaub

Cheryl Curbeam (LinkedIn), Vice President, Chief Risk and Compliance Officer at Corteva Agriscience has had a very interesting and unusual path to the compliance professional. She studied and began her career in mechanical engineering before moving into operations leadership. It turned out to be a great background for compliance, teaching her how to think about what is and isn’t in scope and how to solve tough problems.

From there she went into sales, spending about 80% of her time on the road. It gave her great insight into the mind of salespeople, including the fact that their focus is on customers. Corporate work, including compliance training, is squeezed in when they can find time. As a result, sales teams want compliance to deliver clear and easy-to-find guidance.

That experience helped her when she went to develop an app to support the compliance program for this new company, which was created in June 2019 after Dow and DuPont merged and spun Corteva off. Despite the long compliance history of both of the original organizations, the new enterprise needed to create a compliance program of its own. It launched, not too long before the pandemic and all the changes that came with it, including having even more of its workforce operating remotely.

As she explains in this podcast and will also address at the SCCE Technology and Compliance Conference on June 24th, the company needed to train employees remotely and enable them to report concerns. An app turned out to be an ideal tool. The mobile solution housed training, the code of conduct and other assets such as quick learning topics.  It also provided a vehicle for accessing the helpline.

What’s her advice to others considering developing an app? First, find a vendor that can support all phases of app development. Second, be sure to have a strong project manager internally to deal with the complexity inside your company. Third, know what content you need to deliver. Fourth, gain the support of your IT department. And finally, have a strong communications plan to ensure that the workforce understands the value the app provides.

Listen in to learn more and be sure to join us June 24th for the SCCE Technology and Compliance Conference.