Compliance Stuff

  Behind every corporate chorus of “My door is always open” and “We want to hear from you” lurks an uncomfortable truth: Saying it doesn’t make it so. Roxanne Petraeus, a former Army officer and co-founder of compliance training provider Ethena, talks about h ow superficial speak-up policies actually silence the voices companies claim they want to hear. In what feels like a lifetime ago, I served in the U.S. Army, including in Afghanistan during the 2010 surge. Later, I helped train foreign militaries in Cambodia and Mongolia as a part of Special Operations. I eventually left military service in 2016 and went on to co-found Ethena.  It’s admittedly a circuitous (difficult) route to  compliance , but I remain incredibly proud of my time in service and find that occasionally lessons from the Army inform both the way I build Ethena’s  company culture  as CEO and how I approach serving the clients we support today. One observation that’s stayed with me is the dang...

  As ethics and compliance professionals, we work hard to create robust programs. But is this enough in a trade where we seek everyone’s adherence to our values? How do we communicate about what we do? Are we visible to the broader organization? How do we leverage other functions—particularly leaders—to trickle down our message? In this article, we will provide insight and practical tips on how to effectively invest in our communication and thus sell our critical mission to the broader organization to have a lasting cultural impact. Getting your product, brand, and message right Product The first thing to do will be to identify what you are selling. Are you selling compliance, are you selling ethics, are you selling business integrity? There is no right or wrong answer to this, but it is important to identify what works for you and your organization. To help answer this question, we recommend focusing on outcomes rather than processes, as your product needs to bring value to the ta...