One of the most common pieces of feedback we heard from first-time attendees of the recently completed 14th national Compliance Week conference in Washington D.C. was that they wished they had discovered our three-day GRC-palooza sooner.
Why? Often, professionals from particular industries every year will reflexively book conferences or events that are hyper-specific to their jobs, with the idea that learning about new regulations or best practices in their areas of specialty is the best use of their valuable time. What that creates, though, is an echo chamber of sorts, where you see the same people, listen to the same voices, review the same topics, year after year.
We’re here to tell you why you should plan a detour from the same ‘ol, same ‘ol, and save the date for Compliance Week 2020:
- Diversity of topics and opinions, challenges and solutions: Compliance Week doesn’t specialize in any one particular industry or area of compliance, and that is reflected in our cross-industry, diverse agenda. At no other conference can you spend an hour getting a sneak preview of the Justice Department’s new policy on leniency for strong compliance programs, then spend the next hour discussing touchy-feely topics like encouraging a speak-up culture and measuring how “effective” your program is, before later hearing from experts on what you should be looking for in the compliance officer of the future and how Big Data is changing how we all do our jobs. The topics on our agenda, generally, are less technical and more philosophical, less specialty-focused and more industry-agnostic. They’re designed to get you thinking at a high level in ways you probably don’t have the opportunity to in your everyday interactions. This year, we answered big questions around human behavior, like what motivates good people to do bad things, and why some personality traits sought after in a high-performance culture can actually lead to compliance failures.
- Unique networking opportunities: You’ve probably spent countless coffee breaks at other conferences chatting up the same executives from the same companies. And while there is value in that, we’d argue there’s even more value in networking with your fellow high-level executives from a more diverse set of companies and industries you’ve never interacted with in the past. The CW national conference attracts CEOs, CCOs, general counsel, chief auditors, risk specialists, third-party specialists, investigators, and many more from Fortune 1,000 companies across industries (banking, securities, retail, aerospace and defense, food and beverage, pharmaceuticals, healthcare, and non-profits, to name a few). Our attendees not only include executives from public and private companies, but also academics, regulators, and other officials from agencies like the FBI, the SEC, and the World Bank.
- Quality of the speakers and panels: Compliance Week spends the entire year leading up to the national conference booking keynote speakers and panelists that are truly experts in their fields in order to give delegates a one-of-a-kind thought-provoking, educational, and entertaining experience that gives them actionable advice they can take back to their organizations (and yes, we provide continuing education credits, too). This year’s star-studded lineup included the new No. 3 official at the DOJ Claire McCusker Murray, former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and current best-selling author and podcaster extraordinaire Preet Bharara, compliance and ethics pioneer Hui Chen, best-selling author and motivational speaker Kristy Grant-Hart, and former Head of the White House compliance and ethics program Stefan Passantino, who took us inside the early days of the Trump administration from a compliance perspective (and yes, it was as crazy as you’d think it was). We even reserved an hour toward the end of the conference to talk about an emerging topic that lends itself to creative headline-writing: cannabis compliance.
Don’t take our word for it, though. Here’s an endorsement from one of this year’s Top Minds recipients who had attended the CW national conference for the first time.
“When it came to choosing conferences to attend over the course of my career, my practice had been to focus on those specific to my work as a compliance professional in the securities space,” said Chuck Senatore, the head of risk oversight for Fidelity’s private investment arm. “After having attended Compliance Week 2019, I saw unique value from hearing how compliance officers from different industries handled similarly themed problems. Since many of our challenges are industry agnostic, seeing how my colleagues from other industries addressed these issues provided fresh and valuable insights.”
In our special report you’ll find highlights from the most engaging sessions, and subscribers can watch videos from selected speakers and panels starting in July, but there’s no replicating actually being there. So if you’re sick of the usual alphabet soup of conferences year after year, consider a break from the ordinary. If you’re like most attendees, you’ll be glad you did.
Hope to see you at the historic Mayflower Hotel in D.C. next May 18-20!
