This episode of Principled features Forrest Deegan, Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer for Abercrombie & Fitch, where he is responsible for enhancing the company’s corporate compliance program and third-party risk management program. Deegan has oversight of functional compliance activities, ownership of specific compliance policies, and works with internal partners to foster a speak-up culture throughout the business. He is also a lecturer in Law at the University of Chicago School of Law, and was selected by Compliance Week as a "Top Mind" for 2018. In this episode, Deegan shares his path to success, the relationship between compliance and legal, the importance of communication, the future of ethics and compliance, and how we can better equip students for careers in the field.

 

What You’ll Learn on This Episode

[0:46] Tell our listeners about how you became attracted to ethics and compliance, the path you took to get to your present position as the CECO of A&F.

[0:57] Forrest started in private practice about 15 years ago, and did work for many different types of clients. As he gained their trust, he began to do things that were a little more interesting, and ended up in a compliance career at a law firm. When he and his wife moved to Ohio, he came to Abercrombie & Fitch as their first director of corporate compliance, and finally that evolved into the “chief ethics and compliance officer” title.

[2:56] What was behind the decision to add ethics into that title and how has that changed what you do? 

[3:03] In in-house retail, people wear more hats, and A&F didn’t need to separate ethics from compliance. It was an easy transition to combine the two together.

[4:08] As someone with a legal background, you’re well aware of the big debate that was taking place over the last decade in the NC community about whether compliance should be separate from legal and if so, how? And obviously, some companies have made that decoupling. Now that we’re about 10 years into that, what do you see? Are programs better when they’re disassociated from legal’s oversight and why do you feel that way?

[4:34] The corporate compliance community is very collaborative; they get together and discuss issues like reporting and job responsibility. Forrest has seen a shift in the past couple of years back toward reporting to general counsels. He doesn’t think there is an issue with either as long as the work gets done.

[5:50] What do you feel about how this has all played out? A lot of the concerns were around general counsels exercising too much control over compliance and not having it be as independent? Has that not really played out in the real world?

[6:08] Even if you’re not in every meeting, if you have access to the board or audit committee, that can suffice. The communication between parties works well when there is independence and an open channel.

[7:08] What would you say is the biggest change in the last five to 10 years as to how ethics and compliance is practiced at corporations?

[7:18] Forrest is the first chief ethics & compliance officer at A&F and his peers at other retailers are the first there. The mindset of corporate compliance has shifted over the last 10 years, and people now understand that it is a broader field.

[8:29] What do you see driving this profession forward through the 2020s?

[8:36] There will be change on both the “want-to” and “have-to” sides. A big area of need for change is consistency in risk management and assessment. Forrest hopes to see increased collaboration with all of the lines of defense: hotlines, store health and safety, and a third-party monitoring program. He also wants to learn to have a more coordinated effort with those that help enforce the standards of conduct, the principles, and the value statement.

[11:10] You also teach a compliance course at the University of Chicago. What does the class cover? How long have you been doing that? What are you trying to accomplish and what do you get o

“No matter how high your sales performance might be, or how wonderful of an employee you might be, you will never be excellent if you are not conducting yourself in a way that is full of integrity, and demonstrates ethical decision-making and leadership.” - Gwen HassanThis episode of Principled features Gwen Hassan, the chief compliance officer at CNH Industrial. CNH is a large equipment manufacturing company that is splitting into two companies in the upcoming year. Hassan shares her plans for creating a duplicate compliance program for the new spin company, and iterates the importance of adaptability in a changing organization.Though she attended law school later in life, Gwen has found her passion in compliance at CNH. She encourages young people and women starting off in their careers to take chances, stand up for their passions, and step out of their comfort zones to find a job they truly love.What You’ll Learn on This Episode[0:51] What is CNH, what does it do, and where does it operate?[1:43] What are the core values of the company? How does your ethics and compliance program project those values back to employees, stakeholders and anyone else who's interested?[4:12] How did you come up with a different form of messaging that incorporates all of that?[5:46] With CNH’s plan to separate into an on-highway and off-highway company, what are you dealing with and how are you tackling it and how does that all work out?[9:55] Will you be in charge of just one of those, then, or where does your role evolve into?[10:51] CNH does business in more than 100 countries, putting a large emphasis on supply chain risk. How important is training, communications, and tone from top in driving urgency about maintaining diligence over the supply chain?[14:01] What path did you take to wind up in a career in ethics and compliance? What do you find interesting still about the work that keeps you invested in it and passionate about it? What advice would you share with the younger professionals, especially women, who are just entering or looking to enter the E&C profession?

Dr. B. Sarah Haynes, chief executive of Bolt Mobility, a micro-mobility company with a mission to redesign cities and change human behavior, is hosted by LRN’s Dr. Marsha Ershaghi Hames in this episode of Principled.Haynes talks about how Bolt is entering the market and the impact its products offer in terms of access to education and healthcare. As a non-traditional CEO, with a Ph.D in neuroscience, Sarah brings a different skillset to the role, and describes how women need to have more conversations around putting themselves up for growth positions and embracing opportunities.What You’ll Learn on This Episode[0:53] What is Bolt Mobility’s purpose and mission?[2:10] What is micro-mobility? How is it transforming cities?[3:25] How is Bolt being brought into the market?[5:07] How does Bolt go into communities to provide a tangible transit solution to allow access to education and healthcare?[6:34] Was there a transportation dessert and did Bolt emerge to solve that problem, or is the company crafting a new cultural mindset around how we define the concept of access?[9:45] What skills from her career have helped Haynes in her current role as CEO?[12:36] What are the risks and opportunities facing the micro-mobility industry?

This episode of the Principled podcast interviews Ana-Paula Capaldo de Aoun, director of ethics and compliance for Tech Data Corp. Capaldo de Aoun has been passionate about the field of compliance since she was an undergraduate student. She went on to law school and focused her research on the field, while building up a network of like-minded professionals. She has worked in compliance for her entire career, and remains proactive in seeking out mentors from which she can learn. Her focus is on creating programs that resonate across cultures and locations, working collaboratively with other business units, and ensuring the business has a purpose beyond profit.What You’ll Learn on This Episode[1:03] How did she find her way to compliance?[3:57] How much did mentorship shape how she approaches compliance?[6:24] How does she challenge some of the defensive ways programs are set up to chartthe next course?[9:00] How does she scale policy and principles to a local level, especially outside the U.S.?[12:55] What are some of the areas she thinks ethics and compliance officers need to keep aneye on?

LRN’s Dr. Marsha Ershaghi Hames interviews Bruce Karpati, global chief compliance officer at KKR. Karpati has experience both within the government, when he led the SEC’s Asset Management Unit, and within companies, which gives him an appreciation of the importance for compliance and taking regulations seriously.He shares the key characteristics for a chief compliance officer to be successful, talks about innovative initiatives he is implementing to get lift-off for his programs across KKR’s portfolio companies. These endeavors help to ensure the company gets ahead of potential threats.What You’ll Learn on This Episode[0:53] Karpati shares a bit about KKR as an organization and its reach?[1:32] He talks about his program and how it approaches compliance across a global footprint?[3:09] How does he partner locally to convey some of the core critical messages? How does he hold those local stakeholders accountable?[4:38] How much two-way input is he open to from a cultural compliance standpoint?[5:51] What innovative tactics does Karpati employ as it relates to lift-off of his compliance strategy?[8:51] Karpati recounts his time leading the SEC’s Asset Management Unit and how his approach to E&C was impacted by sitting on both sides of the compliance profession?[11:31] What are some of the characteristics a CCO needs to have to be successful?[15:27] What drew him to a career in compliance?

“Our decisions, to a large extent, are predictable but not rational. Research has also shown that, when faced with ethical dilemmas, people behave virtuously not when they are moved by reason but by their intuition, emotion, and empathy. … If the rational was enough for ethical decision-making, then ethics professors would probably behave better than the rest of the population, right? Curiously, though, there is scientific evidence showing that now even ethics professors behave systematically better than the rest of the population.”“My key finding was companies that score higher on unethical culture are less profitable. … Companies with lower unethical scores--which is the say, the best ones--exhibit an average return on equity of 14 percent, about twice as much as the worst ones with the highest unethical scores.”This episode of the Principled podcast is hosted by Ben DiPietro, editor of LRN’s E&C Pulse newsletter, sits down to talk with Alexandre di Miceli, a professor, consultant, researcher, and expert on corporate governance and business ethics. Di MIceli is a founding partner of Direzione Management Consulting in Brazil and has authored several books, including “The Virtuous Barrel: How To Transform Corporate Scandals into Good Business via Behavioral Ethics.”Behavioral ethics is a new and multi-disciplinary field, which addresses two questions: How do people actually behave when exposed to ethical dilemmas and why do good people do bad things? Because behavioral ethics addresses the inner psychological factors and the contextual pressures that influence a person’s transgressions, di Miceli explains how it has greatly changed how companies address ethics and compliance issues. What You’ll Learn on This Episode [1:12] How did he develop an interest in behavioral ethics, and what led him down this career path? [4:17] Are companies understanding the importance of developing an ethical corporate culture, or is there still some way to go? [6:49] What role does emotion play in the study of behavioral ethics? [8:52] Is there an economic case to be made for using behavioral ethics? [11:00] What are two challenges companies face when they try to use behavioral ethics and what would you suggest they do to overcome those challenges? [13:45] Are there ethical considerations to companies using behavioral ethics on their employees, in light of things like artificial intelligence and technology? Find this episode of Principled on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, SoundCloud, Podyssey, or anywhere you listen to podcasts.

“Go out with people in the field. Watch them do their jobs. Ask questions. The challenge for a lot of compliance folks is we’re often telling people how to do things, as opposed to watching and learning how people are doing things and try to identify ways to integrate into their approaches. … In the end, it’s going to make your advice much more effective, much more efficient, and much more tailored to the specific needs of each functional unit that you are engaging with.”“One-size-fits-all approaches really don’t work. In fact, I think it’s the opposite; compliance risks are local. The best programs, in my view, for multinational companies are almost a series of individually designed programs for each locale. And the consistency surrounds the infrastructure, the rigor and the continued message about the importance of ethics and compliance.”On this episode of the Principled podcast, host Ben DiPietro, editor of LRN’s ENC Newsletter, interviews Jonathan Drimmer, a Partner of the law firm, Paul Hastings, LLP. Prior to his current role, Jonathan was the Chief Compliance Officer at Barrack Gold, a large mining company, where he worked to improve the programs across five continents, including workforce engagement, training, monitoring through metrics, driving company culture through behavioral modeling, and using values to positively identify third parties to work with. Jonathan explains how a one-size-fits-all Compliance program doesn’t work for a multinational company, and how programs, training and engagement can all be improved by taking a hyper-local approach to each locale.What You’ll Learn on This Episode[0:58] Drimmer recounts his journey from being a lawyer to getting into ethics and compliance, and what he does in his role at Paul Hastings?[3:25] During his time at Barrack, what were the main ethics and compliance challenges Drimmer faced and how did he handle those? How did the program change or improve during his tenure?[6:29] How did he deal with the issues in far-flung jurisdictions when integrating the ethics and compliance program with the human rights program.[8:49] What are some tips to ensure program consistency and yet still be specific to each locale that you are doing business in?[10:04] How can training better engage stakeholders in the company’s ethics and compliance program?[12:15] What are two things that companies should do, but often don’t, to better embed ethics and compliance in the organization?[14:10] Drimmer provides tips for ethics and compliance professionals to build key relationships that bolster buy-in and support in organizations?[15:32] What does he predict will be happening in ethics and compliance over the next 10 or 25 years?Find this episode of Principled on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, SoundCloud, Podyssey or anywhere you listen to podcasts.

On today’s Principled episode, Ben DiPietro, editor of LRN’s E&C Pulse newsletter, speaks with Lisa Beth Lentini Walker, founder and president of Lumen. Lentini Walker explains why now is a great time to be in the ethics and compliance profession, and how companies, boards and consumers are demanding more in terms of workplace health, inclusion and governance. She has been a mentor to many successful E&C professionals because she believes it’s a crucial part of developing future leaders and continuing to learn emotional intelligence and empathy as a leader herself. She discusses how fears some men have with mentoring a woman in the wake of #MeToo are unjustified, and how companies can improve and monitor diversity and inclusion going forward. What You’ll Learn on This Episode [0:52] What was her path she took to get to the point of starting her own company. [2:49] Was the need for wellness something she noticed as lacking in the marketplace, or did she experience firsthand the burnout in the people around her? [5:49] What can E&C professionals do to improve relationships with other business units, and are there any things that they should avoid? [7:25] What happens if E&C can’t get buy-in and support? [9:15] How important is mentoring in the E&C profession? [11:25] Some men have said they are less likely to mentor a female colleague. How can we ensure there aren’t lost opportunities for mentorship? [12:32] What are some of the biggest obstacles when working through issues of diversity and inclusion in organizations, and how should progress be measured? Find this episode of Principled on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, SoundCloud, Podyssey, or anywhere you listen to podcasts.

“I tell people that compliance is a misnomer; I really am a risk management, ethics and compliance officer. And if I do those first two jobs well--helping them identify risks, helping them identify the proper controls, helping them make ethical decisions--the third part of my job, compliance, becomes very easy.”“We’re not dependent on the executive team, the CEO--whether it’s the Braskem CEO overall or the CEO of the U.S.--for our budget. While I sit on our team, I create a good balance by being a good teammate with the ability to say no when necessary. I think that’s very valuable.”On this episode of the Principled podcast, host Dr. Marsha Ershaghi Hames interviews Joseph Henry, U.S. compliance officer for Braskem, a Brazil-based petrochemical company. Henry started his career as a chemical engineer, and quickly moved into technical sales, program management, and then compliance. With experience in large and relatively small global companies, Henry heads up many initiatives for Braskem, not only in the U.S. under a compliance monitorship, but also globally on the risk management and anti-corruption front. Henry explains the importance of getting all business owners on board with policies, leading by example, and walking the tightrope between disciplined control and bureaucracy. What You’ll Learn in This Episode [1:19] Henry shares his career path from engineering into ethics and compliance, and explains a bit about Braskem as an organization. [3:07] He may be U.S. compliance officer, but Henry talks about the need to have a broad global focus in his role. [4:06] In moving to a smaller company, he talks about building the business case for an ethics and compliance strategy. [5:51] How is he leading decision-making on the ground, locally? [7:34] How has he integrated ethics and compliance into the business? [8:23] What is his current reporting structure? What does he think is ideal? [11:23] What is his approach to scale training? [13:19] How does he bring shop-floor employees into his training strategy? [14:54] Over the next three to five years, what priorities does he forecast in the ethics and compliance space? Find this episode of Principled on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, SoundCloud, Podyssey, or anywhere you listen to podcasts.