“The main job of the compliance officer is to put him or herself in the shoes of employees and understand what their jobs and their lives are like, to have their radar tuned for changes in the company and in the world,” says Ted Banks, founder and partner at Scharf Banks Marmor LLC.
Banks knows that compliance officers must answer to multiple constituencies—shareholders, the board, company employees and the government among them. And these days, they must be increasingly concerned with a wide array of different issues, all of which jostle to take top priority. From social media policies to the risks of bring-your-own-device programs, from the potential pitfalls of corruption when doing business overseas to issues of privacy and data security, compliance officers who are trying to stay ahead of trends (because being on top of trends means being behind) are thinking ahead to 2016 and beyond. They’re noting the trends and concerns that will cover their plates in the years to come, issues such as data privacy and security, auditing and monitoring, interfacing with the board and more.