5 Biggest Fears of Overwhelmed Compliance Officers That are Often Not True (But Feel Very Real)

• I’m constantly competing for tech resources with customer-facing projects and I can never win this. And since I cannot have the tools that I need, we have no choice but to add more people.
• I need to anticipate and write down all relevant risks and risk indications for my company in advance, because this is a responsible thing to do.
• I need to keep up with all relevant existing regulations impacting my business, otherwise I will miss something and we may get in trouble.
• My gap analysis for new product launch must include at least 30 lines and I need a lot (at least 10, ideally 20 or even more) different risk categories, flags and customer types for our customer base to correctly categorize our customers and define specific monitoring and controls for each group.
• My compliance program is full of gaps and compromises, it’s a miracle that we have survived thus far, and I’m really scared, when I think about our next audit or regulatory inspection. We’ll probably get huge fines then.

Well, if you are anything like me (a few years ago back at PayPal), you may totally feel that all of the above is true for you and I just don't know your situation, your boss, your company or your circumstances. And the chances are - I won't be able to convince you otherwise, unless we really spend sometime together.

But let me ask you this - what if you just know, it's not true?

And on the opposite side - if you've come the full circle and realized that none of the above fears are really true - how has it changed your professional life? What has become possible?

Impact Mentorship is a 6-month mentorship program focused on individual performance and your ability to navigate risks and make decisions. It is designed for founders, senior FinTech leaders or individual consultants who are determined to overcome their current plateau and require support and accountability.

Impact Mentorship is the right fit if some (or many) of the following is true for you:

• You are facing hard choices and major uncertainties in your current business or career (team restructuring, loss of a partnership, difficulties with revenues, unfavorable regulatory feedback).
• You don't like the options you have in front of you and you wonder if there is something else possible that you don't see yet.
• You are observing everyone else in the company willing to spend money on new hires or new tools or new consulting... and you know this will be a waste, because something within the organization is missing.
• Every time there is a problem or a delay, the diagnosis is that this project needs better "ownership" and better communications, however, when a dedicated owner is allocated or hired to drive the project, not much changes.
• You are constantly trying to empower your team and delegate more decisions to them, but having nevertheless all important decisions escalated back to you.
• You are listening to complaints or "constructive feedback" from your team and colleagues about each other, knowing complaining is counter-productive, but unable to put an end to this...
• You have been unable to reach your goals within your business for several months (poor team performance, organizational resistance, external challenges...)
• You have a few revenue generating or new project ideas and require a sounding board and knowledgeable insights to help you structure and execute these new ideas quickly, on a budget and within reasonable but pragmatic risk appetite.

You may have tried:

• Creating project management dashboards. You wanted your company and your decision-making process to be data-driven, however, you know that many important risks or signs of real progress are not captured by these dashboards.
• Researching your competitors, signing up for their services, reading their T&Cs, doing test transactions on their platform... trying to reverse-engineer how exactly they structured it and how much this service may cost them, and your findings are inconclusive and you are not sure if you can replicate their actions.
• Delaying the decision hoping that the future will bring more clarity – but it didn't; You get status updates on important projects from your junior project managers and their dashboards and you trust the status.
• Taking on on some temporary projects and cutting expenditures just to get by – but you see no viable future if it continues;
• Networking, conferencing, making new connections – but these efforts have not converted either.

I have successfully pivoted my own business a few times, created one-of-its kind digital marketing presence in FinTech compliance, and have helped many clients do the same.

HOW DID I DO IT?

Many of us were raised to believe that we need to have a good plan before acting. We were also raised to believe that quitting or abandoning plans would be a failure, because having a plan is somehow (incorrectly) associated with having better control over what will happen.

The common strategy or a common solution that I offer to my existing clients is to find the right next step and unlock just one area, which allows your business to keep moving forward without having to resolve or wait for all the other areas to turn green. 

Action will create clarity.

The old world of long-term planning may be never coming back. If you are the kind of person who is ready to develop and practice new approach to making decisions, assessing risks and finally taking back the power over your business future NOW, I'm happy to support you with everything I personally learned and observed and practiced over the last years with my FinTech clients and students and in my own business.

You don't have to navigate this shift alone and fly blind!

Consider joining Impact Mentorship today!