The role of international compliance officer is oftentimes reminiscent of the octopus—hands moving about akimbo, trying to manage many facets all at once—but even if you had the extra limbs, you’d still be wishing you had multiple eyes for oversight into far-flung locales.
As the Department of Justice has emphasized, there is no one-size-fits-all compliance program. Similarly, in my opinion, there’s no one-size-fits-all compliance program within the same multinational organization. For maximum impact, you’ll need to customize various components in order to best speak the language of your colleagues (sometimes literally!). Even within Asia Pacific, there can be stark differences between stakeholders based in the antipodes (New Zealand and Australia) compared with the Asian and Indian subcontinent countries.
