i. How I started

“So, you came to watch everyone, if we are doing everything right in this company. And if not, you are telling on us to the management board.” said a coworker from the finance department to me at a coffee break just a couple of days after I started my first position in compliance at the largest Insurance group in the Western Balkans, the Triglav Insurance Company.

Some other comments that I’d received back then were that others before me already started to work in this compliance job, but very soon they gave up, it’s very complicated work, it’s so administrative and boring, a waste of my talent and what not… Some looked really happy that they could “get rid of” the most annoying workload, others were irritated on the other extreme that I “took” important responsibilities from them or had “the nerve” to ask them questions about the processes they were in charge of, thus did not hesitate to demonstrate hate against me.

I was based at headquarters in Slovenia’s capital, Ljubljana, in a beautiful historic building designed by legendary architect Joze Plecnik. I felt so excited to transition from the inhouse legal department at a medium size stockbrokerage company to this large corporation and well-known household brand. I understood the compliance position I successfully applied for at Triglav to be another level for my professional career and by substance it felt more in line with my work and life aspirations. I was always mission driven. I wanted to do something meaningful and values-based with my legal education; something that emphasizes the fairness side more, requires deep mental work and is also challenging enough for my young ambitious drive. The description of the compliance job requirements at Triglav seemed just that and this was the first such job ad that I saw.

Hearing all these comments almost daily during the very start of my compliance career, all that marble on the walls and beautifully carved heavy wooden furniture in conference rooms, which I considered myself so lucky to be surrounded with, started to feel less fancy…  I wondered. What does this ‘Independent Compliance Specialist’ title I just took on really entail? Will I quit, too, or worse maybe – will I really police my coworkers? What did I just do to leave the inhouse legal career possibly behind me…

It was late 2007, the new generation of EU Anti-Money Laundering and Market in Financial Instruments regulation just started to become effective for financial companies, and the data privacy protection requirements started flourishing. In addition, Triglav Insurance Company just started the preparation process for the IPO of its shares, and all the stock-exchange disclosure requirements were going to be mandatory for the first time for the company. There were not many compliance officers anywhere near; the closest ones seemed to be in the City of London. In Slovenia I could count just few colleagues who managed the compliance function full time and who were – like myself – lawyers by background and just starting to figure out what the compliance job is and how it’s supposed to be performed.

ii. Persistence and some luck – compliance officers’ best friends

It was good that I didn’t fully understand what I just took on and how heavy the new compliance requirements for the insurance company really were, so many at once. Let me add that this was the first compliance work position for the insurance company, too, so no one before me set the compliance management program with all the internal systems. Many policies needed to be written, and many new processes implemented – from scratch. At the time, I was also the single compliance professional in the company (and the entire group) designated for this work.

The not-so-high awareness by everyone else about all this was also in my favour to some degree. I had space and time to figure out the work and to establish the systems that were not in place before and that allegedly few others started prior to me and gave up. I guess no one really had great expectations for me either. My then boss, my closest colleagues and a few others from the senior management were hopeful. And this was a good position to be in. It gave me quite a lot of freedom in how the job was supposed to be done. It required extensive learning and extensive work at the same time, still under deadlines and expectations for end results, with so many new compliance requirements emerging.

I was also lucky to be somewhat stubborn with a youthfully fierce character, which did not conform well to ‘you can’t do it’ threats. I was in my early 30s and had just tasted enough bitterness of being a young lawyer in the financial sector at that time. So, I trusted that this compliance position was something that I could model to be more in sync with my beliefs and values, be more independent in as a professional, and have a role in overall internal governance. I was determined to give my best, work the hardest, clench my teeth and be successful in work that felt worth it.

So, I did. Since I had to build the entire function from scratch in such early days of the compliance profession, every bit of progress I made in the company was a win and needless to say – a surprise to many. In time I had a chance to show everyone I was there to help and support them in many challenges that the business had. Instead of hate, I started to receive positive attention and recognition. Even some of the greatest sceptics became good colleagues. My team started to grow locally and internationally. We started to be invited into new business projects to give an early compliance perspective, were consulted about every important marketing campaign to make sure the company was in line with the data privacy requirements and ethical business conduct. I gave compliance reports at almost every management board  weekly session and the high-level risk committee, had training sessions on compliance and code of conduct topics at important strategy meet-ups and got a seat at many other tables. The compliance office became a place to go to for advice, collaboration and problem solving. We were part of the team.

I have spent the rest of my so-far-career in business compliance and ethics figuring out systems and methods that helped myself and others manage compliance integrity programs effectively. Eventually, there always is and probably will always be the good old push-back from the business in situations when they need to conform to increased compliance requirements, take the harder and longer way towards commercial objectives, or be checked and take the consequences for compliance integrity breaches.

I consider myself lucky to have lived in times when I could build a local professional network in Slovenia, connect to so many other associations and professionals around Europe and the world and devote my work to discovering and sharing ways how to make this job easier and also pleasurable!