In a global marketplace where enterprises increasingly rely on a worldwide network of suppliers, vendors, subcontractors, and partners, the need for thorough due diligence on those relationships has become an integral part of doing business to avoid potential problems that can lead to risks down the road. As a result, companies have embraced research and screening to help avoid certain costly and preventable mistakes. A wide array of investigative tools is used to discover warning signs in potential employees, clients, vendors, and acquisition targets across geographic markets.

Unfortunately, choosing the right approach for the amount of risk involved can be challenging. Not all backgrounds checks are the same, and a “one-size-fits-all” approach or an over-reliance on automated tools can lead to potential oversights. Information can also be incomplete or inaccurate, and can vary widely from country to country.

In this podcast, RANE founder David Lawrence sits down with Jim Mintz, founder and CEO of the Mintz Group to help unpack the background check industry. Jim has spent more than thirty years conducting investigations all over the world and helped pioneer the use of sophisticated resources by law firms in the 1970s at the DC law firm of Wald, Harkrader & Ross. In 1980, Newsweek said about their unique in-house group: “What sets [them] apart…is their ability to take comprehensive looks at complicated situations and make sense out of them.” Jim co-founded The Investigative Group in 1984, which became one of the leading investigative firms in the country and was cited by the New York Times as being “the gold standard for financial private detection.”