Will technology adoption require a skills upgrade?
November 4, 2022
As firms move towards more sophisticated technologies to assist with their compliance obligations, the industry needs to consider the scale of education and skills needed to underpin this direction.
The change in technology and in particular vendor tooling capabilities is fundamentally challenging existing industry norms and expectations as new and more sophisticated means of monitoring and detection are introduced. Coupled with a growing realization within firms that compliance like functions need to be more cost conscious and supportive of business growth, this is allowing firms to challenge their existing technology and approaches with a move towards more automated and sophisticated means to detecting risk, reduce false positive production and minimize the level of manual case handling needs.
With the adoption of capabilities like Entity Resolution, a growing use of third party data sources, Network Analytics, Contextual monitoring, as well as machine learning and other data analytical techniques, the quality of monitoring is vastly improving and the detection of risk outputs are much more complex compared to todays basic periodic review cycles, rule based alerting and screening detection methods. However, this will require case handlers to review more sophisticated typologies, make use of more data points and need to analyze and contrast many more red-flag considerations compared to historical approaches. As a result, the benefit of reduced false positive detection will come at the cost of more complex investigative needs.
What was once primarily the domain of level two case handling functions (critical thinking and judgment-based decision like functions), is going to become more of the norm for level one. This also means the higher costs typically associated with level two functions, will migrate into level one on a larger scale. As a result, skills and workforce optimization is a challenge firms will need to solve if they want to embark upon the next generation of approaches, else they run the risk of a disparity between detection output management needs and the skills required to manage those outputs effectively.
Firms are usually faced with two approaches to skills acquisition, educate their staff or hire the skill set. Many firms tend to rely upon hiring specialized skills sets rather than investing in educational setups within their own organization. This is often due to the long learning times needed to build the experiences and knowledge necessary. Coupled with the fact that many of these specific skill sets are in short supply, means that these skill sets come at a premium cost.
While training is a regulatory requirement, more complex educational needs are still often challenged within firms as taking people “off the floor” to attend or deliver training programs impacts production, challenges SLA’s and creates backlogs, all of which have their own complications with regulators, internal compliance organizations, business units and the customer experience. Larger firms are also challenged with higher attrition rates and continual need to onboard quickly large numbers of people. Due to this, training is often hindered by a mindset that it must be non-invasive and have minimal impact to production, often resulting in speed to market training approaches that promote prescriptive procedural application and general awareness rather than develop foundational skills and
With the shift in technology and desire of firms to move in this direction, the industry is faced with a conundrum when it comes to skills availability to underpin this adoption. Hiring the skills will only become more challenging in the short term as firms cherry pick the best skill sets. Until educational programs in universities and colleges adopt more of these courses into their curriculums, there is no ready pipeline of future talent. As a result, firms are going to re-need to think not just their technology strategies, but their strategies around education and training.
Asif Alam is the Chief Executive Officer at Compliance.ai. A leader in shaping disruptive technology, his experience includes building products using AI and natural language processing for GRC, payments, lending, risk, trading, and new solutions, from Fortune 500 companies to startups.
In his most recent role, he served as the Chief Strategy Officer of ThoughtTrace, unlocking new revenue streams and markets, and reignite portfolio growth. ThoughTrace was then acquired by Thomson Reuters earlier this year. There, Alam designed and launched a new Technology Practice for Thomson Reuters that generated over 150% in Y2 and 180% in Y3 and secured partnerships with enterprises like Amazon, Google, Salesforce, Adobe, and Samsung.
He brings more than 20 years of management and business experience; increasing profitability, unlocking new revenue streams and markets, and reignite portfolio growth for companies like Thomson Reuters, Crux Informatics, and Finastra. Asif is a forward-thinking expert driving engagement via client forums, public presentations, and white papers.
Co-founder, Chief Product/Strategy Officer & Board Member
With more than 25 years of experience in hi-tech, Kayvan leads operations, strategy, sales, and marketing for Compliance.ai. Most recently, Kayvan led the identity strategy at RSA, and represented EMC on various industry alliances such as the FIDO board. He is Co-Founder and CEO of PassBan (acquired by RSA), a company focused on mobile identity assurance. Kayvan also led strategy at LiteScape (as CTO and later as CEO), creating security and mobile identity solutions for VOIP based networks. He was Co-Founder and CTO at BeNotified, a cloud mobile communication service provider. Prior to that, Kayvan co-founded AVIRNEX, a cloud-based enhanced fixed and mobile communication service provider.
Kevin Jacques
Board Member
Kevin Jacques joined Cota in 2021 as a Partner. Prior to Cota, Kevin was Vice President and Head of Corporate Ventures at Visa. During his tenure at Visa, Kevin led the company’s venture investment efforts serving as lead partner on over 25 FinTech transactions. Prior to Visa, Kevin spent seven years at Intuit directing Corporate Development and Investments. At Intuit, Kevin and his team completed over 30 acquisitions, seven divestitures, four direct corporate venture investments, as well as 11 FinTech venture fund investments with total deal value approaching $2B. Prior to Intuit, Kevin spent nearly 12 years as a venture capital partner with Sevin Rosen Funds and Palomar Ventures. Kevin was also the CEO of Globeranger, an RFID middleware provider, and a consultant at The Boston Consulting Group. Kevin received a B.S. in Industrial Engineering from Stanford University and an M.B.A. from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
Ben Malka
Board Member
Ben Malka joined Cota in 2019 as a Partner on the investment team, where he is focused on sourcing, evaluating, executing and governance of venture investments. Prior to Cota, Ben was a General Partner at F-Prime Capital, a San Francisco-based financial technology and enterprise IT-focused venture capital fund. At F-Prime, he served as lead partner for a number of investments, including Snapsheet, Vestwell, Toast Inc, and Blispay. Since 1999, Ben has also served as a General Partner at North Hill Ventures, a financial technology focused venture capital fund. At North Hill, he was the lead partner for investments in Compete Inc, Placemark Investments, Paychoice, Simple Tuition/Valore Books, CashStar, and FSV Payment Systems. Previously, Ben was with The Boston Consulting Group, where he was the Project Lead for a number of clients across strategy development, acquisition strategy, new product evaluation and operations improvement. He began his career at Bank of America as a Statistical Analyst. Ben graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Political Science from Stanford University and a MBA from the University of Chicago.
Bobby Yazdani
Co-Founder & Board Member
Bobby Yazdani is Founder and Managing Partner of Cota Capital, a firm investing in private and public technology companies. Bobby has successfully mentored entrepreneurs and invested in over 100 early-stage startups. In 2014, Bobby was ranked #1 out of 2000 angel investors for successful follow-on funding by CB Insights. In 2015, Bobby endowed the Signatures Innovation Fellowship at University of California, Berkeley to support data science projects with commercial promise.
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Richard Dupree has held multiple Risk, Compliance and Operations positions at regional, national, and global financial services firms including Wells Fargo, Silicon Valley Bank, Bank of the West and BNP Paribas. Rick currently advises FinTechs and RegTechs and sits on industry panels, contributes to industry whitepapers, thought leadership efforts, and speaks at industry seminars on Risk and Compliance challenges faced by banks and FinTechs.
Mariam is an Operating Principal at Cota Capital. Mariam has experience providing guidance on strategic and operational planning to Venture and Growth stage companies. Prior to Cota Capital, Mariam spent her career in management consulting as a Director at KPMG. She has experience leading global transformation programs and developing innovative service offerings for Fortune 500 companies in the Technology sector. Mariam has an MBA from UCLA’s Anderson school of management with an emphasis in Finance and Entrepreneurship. She has a Bachelors in Science in Finance and a Bachelors in Science in Economics from Santa Clara University.
Drake Ross is a former bank regulator who specialized in compliance with consumer protection regulations while at the OCC, FDIC, and OTS. While at these agencies, he provided extensive training and guidance and developed materials to ensure full comprehension and proper application of rules, laws, policies, and guidance, and served as a Subject Matter Expert in numerous areas. Because of his expertise, he often presented at agency and industry events. He also played a significant role in successful windup of the 2008 IndyMac Bank failure, where because of his extensive knowledge of the FDIC deposit insurance regulations, he was called upon to administer highly-complex insurance determinations.
Chris Callison-Burch is an Associate Professor in Computer and Information Science Department at the University of Pennsylvania. His research interests include natural language understanding and crowdsourcing. He has served the Association for Computational Linguistics as the General Chair for the ACL 2017 conference, as an action editor for the Transactions of the ACL, as an editorial board member for the Computational Linguistics journal, and an officer for NAACL (the North American chapter of the ACL) and for SIGDAT (the special interest group for linguistic data and corpus-based approaches to natural language processing)
Tom Ladt is an experienced executive and investor. Tom has lead and served on the boards of several public and private companies serving highly regulated industries such as technology, healthcare, real estate, and food processing. Tom has also served in key governmental roles and on numerous community boards.
Jeroen Plink is a global executive with a proven track record of developing and growing businesses, teams, and technologies with innovation and passion. Jeroen was CEO of Practical Law US during its acquisition by Thomson Reuters. He now serves on numerous boards and acts as a strategic consultants for start-ups.
Global Legal and Compliance executive with 15+ years of success in the SaaS technology and financial services industries. Partner to the CEO and executive team in corporate transactions, business development, product expansion, and regulatory navigation during periods of intense growth and organizational change. An advocate of effective risk management that starts with sound business practices and putting the customer first.
Brian advises clients on legal and regulatory compliance in the financial, tech, and procurement sectors. His passion is helping businesses succeed in heavily regulated environments. As counsel and trusted advisor to businesses of all sizes, and as a former regulator, policymaker, and federal official, Brian acutely understands the unintended burdens that even well-intentioned government requirements can put on innovation and business growth, as well as how to create policies that strike the right balance.
Brian served as National Ombudsman in the Obama Administration, leading the federal Office of Regulatory Enforcement Fairness in assisting hundreds of startups, entrepreneurs, and small business owners in every industry and every state.
Dr. Marsha Ershaghi Hames is Managing Director of Strategy & Development at LRN, a leader in advising and educating organizations about ethics and regulatory compliance, as well as corporate culture, governance and leadership. With the focus of inspired behavior versus required behavior, LRN is a leading voice in the industry for companies to build ethical cultures instead of “check-the-box” compliance approaches. She’s advised Department of Justice corporate monitors on successful program transformation under CIAs (Corporate Integrity Agreements. With over 20 years of experience in leading multinational ethics and compliance strategies, Marsha has become a highly sought-after thought leader on leading Corporate Compliance and Ethics practices.
Carla Carriveau is currently the Senior Managing Counsel at Wealthfront, an automatic investment service firm in Redwood City, California. Carla was previously Senior Counsel, Division of Trading and Markets, at the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. As a former regulator with over 15 years of experience in helping small businesses navigate legal and regulatory needs in the financial services sector, Carla advises Compliance.ai on financial services regulation, the regulatory landscape and industry practices.
Carliss Chatman is an Assistant Professor of Law teaching Contracts, Agency and Unincorporated Entities, Corporations, and Transactional Skills. Her work is influenced by over two decades of service on non-profit boards and involvement with community organizations. Through leadership positions, she has developed expertise in corporate governance and non-profit regulation. She has also been instrumental in strategic planning and fundraising efforts. Prior to law teaching, Professor Chatman was a commercial litigation attorney in Houston, Texas. In practice, she focused on trial law, appeals and arbitration in pharmaceutical, health care, mass torts, product liability, as well as oil, gas, and mineral law. In addition to negotiating settlements and obtaining successful verdicts, Professor Chatman has also analyzed and drafted position statements regarding the constitutionality of statutes and the impact of statutory revisions for presentation to the Texas Legislature.
Hugh Cadden is a recognized expert in derivative financial and trading markets including futures, options, and swaps. Hugh is currently a senior consultant and expert with OnPoint Analytics, Inc. an economic, finance and statistical consultancy specializing in expert testimony for complex litigation. He has been specializing in the organization, operation, and regulation of financial and trading markets for over 40 years. Hugh’s experience includes both the public and private sectors and he has held senior level positions with the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission including serving as Director of the Division of Trading and Markets and Deputy Director of Enforcement. He has been qualified as an expert on financial and trading market matters before the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the U.S. Tax Court, Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, National Futures Association, American Arbitration Association and federal courts.
Maria Devassy is a RegTech, Content, and Technology leader with over 20 years of experience helping companies bridge the gap between technology, product, and business. Maria has held leadership positions with MetricStream, KPMG, Oracle Corporation, and other technology companies. She has launched several successful RegTech products, business partnerships, and advised Fortune 100 clients on risk management, audit, advisory, and compliance business across Industries.
Cesar Lee is a Principal at WRV, a venture capital fund focused on early-stage investments in hardware, semiconductor, and other technology-related companies. Previously, he was an investment professional at Riverwood Capital, a technology-focused, late-stage venture capital, and private equity fund. He began his career at RBC Capital Markets, where he was part of the Mergers & Acquisitions group for two years and the Equity-linked & Derivatives group for one year. While at RBC, Cesar spent a majority of his time working on M&A advisory transactions for technology companies.
Cesar’s investment experience includes buyouts, later stage, early stage and seed rounds. Cesar has completed transaction in the U.S., Latin America, and Asia, and in technology sectors including data centers, software, semiconductors, consumer electronics, robotics, big data, and internet.