I am delighted to announce the launch of my new business, The Compliance Consultant. I got my first job in Compliance when it was a new discipline in Irish financial services, in the early 1990s, so I have seen lots of change and worked through a few boom and bust cycles since then. When I was offered that first job I wasn’t quite sure what Compliance was, but my boss convinced me that my background of a law degree and professional accountancy qualification equipped me well for the role and luckily, he was right. Down through the years I have developed some golden rules that have stood me in good stead as an in-house Compliance expert and which I will apply to my new venture:
- The Customer is King – at the heart of good Compliance is ensuring that the interests of your clients are always put first. If any proposed action or activity might compromise this then, even if it complies with the letter of the law, it’s not good Compliance and shouldn’t go ahead
- I have found that the “Keep It Simple Stupid” principle also applies to complying with regulatory requirements; the difficulty and expertise is in finding out what simple is!
- Ask questions – If I’m asked to provide regulatory guidance or advice on a specific issue I always answer the question with at least one question to ensure that I fully understand what the issue is. In my experience the real question might turn out to be very different from the first question I was asked
- One size does not fit all – although regulatory requirements are generic; judgement is always required to ensure that requirements are correctly interpreted and applied to individual businesses and business lines
- Talking is good – I very much look forward to hearing from you I can be contacted at paula@thecomplianceconsultant.ie to start a conversation