Shifting Sands: Navigating Risk from the C-suite, an event organized by The Economist in conjunction with Behavox, wrapped last week, with a reaffirmed sense of optimism and duty around the future of compliance.

The half-day event brought together C-level executives from all corners of the finance world to discuss the challenges being faced by compliance teams and firms as a whole.

“The pandemic helped to show how we can successfully work in virtual environments,” said the Chief Technology Officer of a leading financial institution who was in attendance.

“Now, everyone across the business wants to accelerate digital transformation but it has to be done in an environment where you can manage risk and make sure you’ve got the appropriate controls as we move into this new working paradigm.”

This sentiment was echoed throughout the event, with the general consensus among attendees, that, while the last 18 months has accelerated the digitization of the workplace, it has also exacerbated a lot of the challenges that the C-suite had already been experiencing; chiefly, being able to monitor an expanding decentralized risk map. 

As an insights company, Behavox is committed to delivering actionable insights that enable firms to identify risk quickly and accurately, and prevent illegal, immoral, or malicious acts in the new workplace.

We believe financial institutions, and the C-suite in particular, have a moral obligation to undertake an honest reassessment of the risk landscape and utilize the latest technology to safeguard their working environment. 

Fahreen Kurji, Head of Customer Success at Behavox, touched upon how firms can leverage cutting-edge technology during the ‘The Role of Modern Compliance in the New Normal’ roundtable discussion. 

Speaking about the “almost limitless” opportunities afforded by AI and machine learning, especially with regards to compliance, Fahreen said: “Armed with actionable data insights, organizations can implement tailored training related to specific types of misconduct, which has been found to not only improve the compliance culture, but even lead to employees proactively reporting their own non-compliant behavior.”

To close out the event, Neil Wu Becker, Chief Marketing Office at Behavox, took part in the ‘Ethics At The Intersection Of HR And Compliance’ roundtable.

“Chief Compliance Officers are now increasingly thinking about how to deal with non-financial misconduct, as well as traditional financial misconduct, partly because they’ve been mandated to do so by investor, political, and regulatory trends,” said Neil.

“So, they’re looking to knock on the doors of HR. CIOs are also on their radar as cybersecurity issues and insider threats come to light from the compliance surveillance tools being used to monitor employee communications.”

The message from the event was clear: while there are unprecedented challenges and regulatory scrutiny ahead, there are also a wealth of opportunities afforded by technology, and data insights, to prevent and protect businesses from compliance, conduct, and security issues more comprehensively, and more effectively than ever before.

To watch Shifting Sands: Navigating Risk from the C-suite on demand, click here.