Over the past decade, the European Institute for Compliance and Ethics (EICE) has established itself as a key driver in the development and professionalization of business compliance and ethics in Slovenia and the broader region. To gain deeper insights into the organization’s achievements, challenges, and vision, we spoke with Andrijana Bergant, President of EICE – the European Institute for Compliance and Ethics. Founded with the mission of connecting professionals in the field of compliance and providing a platform for knowledge exchange, EICE has become a leader in promoting international standards, building capacity, and advocating for best practices. This article delves into EICE’s most significant accomplishments, the lessons learned along the way, its contributions to advancing business ethics in the region, and its vision for the future. Additionally, we explore the impact of technology, particularly generative AI, on compliance and ethics, and the importance of developing essential competencies for success in this demanding yet highly impactful profession.
What do you consider EICE’s greatest achievements over the past 10 years?
We have started as a platform for professional networking and knowledge exchange for compliance officers in Slovenia in a time, when there hasn’t been any formalized terminology in this filed in Slovene language.
So, one of our first important achievements was to support the translation of the then current ISO 19600 – Compliance Management Systems – guidelines, into the Slovene language backed by the Slovene Institute for Standardization.
Creating a solid membership base and a knowledge center was and still is at the core of our success metrics. It demonstrates the fulfillment of our mission to broadly connect, support, and integrate the compliance profession in Slovenia. At first, mostly professionals from the financial sector were joining, followed by companies from the non-financial sector with strong international elements – either through ownership, business partners, or export. While lately during the last few years, we are seeing increase in the compliance workforce (and thus in our membership) at state-owned enterprises, driven by a strong tone from the top about business compliance and corporate integrity from the Slovenian Sovereign Holding.
We have successfully advocated for provisions about the compliance function in the Slovenian Corporate Governance Code for Listed Companies and had significant contributions to the Slovene Whistleblowers’ Protection Law.
As a small organization with such a niche focus in a small country, we were naturally reaching out to other professional and business associations to form partnerships. We are a proud official partner of the ICA – International Compliance Association for both membership and professional qualifications.
EICE’s core role in forming ENFCO – European Network for Compliance Officers, from the very beginning in 2018 is another milestone and success in our journey, as we always aim to link our local compliance community with the international networks.
Last, but not least… Our huge pride and success is already traditional and well-recognized Bled Compliance and Ethics Conference (www.bcec.eu). It’s such a great networking and professional development support for our audience in Slovenia, as well as in the region of Western Balkans. As a high-ranking, high-quality international conference in this field, now taking place every 2 years (the next one coming in 2025), have helped us form seven (7) partnerships region-wide, and host speakers and attendants from the three (3) continents and over ten (10) different countries, Europe and World-wide.
How has EICE contributed to the development of business ethics and compliance standards in Slovenia and beyond over the last decade?
In addition to what’s already been explained under Q 1, we believe that the key contribution of EICE is fostering excellence, so highly professional work in compliance and corporate integrity, helps apply internationally comparable standards and encourage good practices sharing, while providing a supporting environment for tackling many challenges in our compliance and ethics jobs 😊
We are doing this by promoting already existing standards and providing our own professional resources for members and broader users, through our events, website, LinkedIn, newsletters, at corporate conferences, and in-house trainings.
We have developed practical approaches and methods, some of which are of specifically high interest, like: the compliance and integrity risk assessment matrix, regulatory compliance management principles, and 5-star Integrity Leadership Manual (open source at: www.5stil.com).
We ae also sharing professional resources in business compliance and ethics produced in other ENFCO member associations and making them available for our members (like the integrated compliance function, the compliance function white paper, etc).
Could you describe the most challenging moment in EICE’s history, and how the organization managed to overcome it?
There are many. It’s mostly challenging for a small organization to sustain and to continuously serve its purpose on a high-professional and high-quality level, from the resource’s perspective.
So, it took almost a decade to figure out a more sustainable business model and make it reliable: in a combination of membership growth and providing continuous professional services to individual clients. This enables us to have resources for organizational support and professional staff, adequate office space, and other essentials to properly run an association.
COVID-19 lockdown and the threat of economic crisis showed to be quite a harsh challenge for EICE, as events were canceled, and everyone were focused to sustain the core business and employees’ health. We were lucky though to have built such good trust by that time, that we kept all the members at the year’s turn. Now that so much has moved online, and we have increased our resilience to such distress, I am more confident that we can find a way to preserve a normal operation and carry on activities in similar situations.
In general, the constant challenge is to keep finding new and effective ways to enhance support for our members in the most challenging situations that they are facing, and to keep track of what content is the most needed and current for them. So, we have started to make even more intentional connections and calls with smaller groups of members, and to have more one-on-one meetings. In the future, we are exploring how to form a continuous support group in cyberspace to be available between the meetings (like private chat groups).
What impact has EICE had on the professionalization of the compliance function in the region during these past ten years?
I don’t think that EICE should take credit for the development of compliance in other countries in the region. However, I hope that it did help, perhaps by offering the international Bled Compliance and Ethics Conference nearby and ICA professional qualification more accessible. I am looking forward though to learning what more we can do together 😊.
What are the most important lessons learned over the last 10 years, and how are those lessons shaping EICE’s vision and plans for the future?
The most important lesson is that we need to keep focusing on the basis and supporting our members, to make more intentional connections between them, because in our part of Europe, good networking is something that we don’t have in our DNA necessarily.
I learned that there are so many more synergies to explore! When we manage to create such an experience, where members themselves share concrete tools and practices, like this year’s two-day national compliance symposium on the Slovenian coast…, everyone is super energized and inspired. We need peer-to-peer and face-to-face connection in small groups, including in a social activity. We need to have fun! When this happens at the same time, we all do a better job, which in the end results in better business practices and a better overall economic and social environment.
We have also learned that we need to align both with similar professions and organizations and also with cross-professions. So, we are going to align with the technology communities in the future, for example.
What key changes and trends have you noticed in the field of business ethics and compliance over the past few years?
There is much more focus on sanction compliance. Also, I see more and more compliance (and other) professionals exploring and seriously using AI in their work to their advantage.
I see more compliance colleagues advancing in their careers, more companies improving their tone from the top and so many more good practices applied, many in the prevention part. It used to be writing policies and procedures and all the regulatory compliance box-checking… Now we have so many companies celebrating compliance week or having an ethics day, they use company newsletters regularly to promote compliance topics, have in-house compliance and ethics training, and even produce short company movies, etc.
In what ways is technological advancement, such as generative AI, impacting the function of compliance and business ethics?
There will be an ENFCO survey on this published soon. Will be happy to share!
In general, I see that AI in LLM has the great potential to lower the analytical and administrative burden for compliance professionals, like in regulatory compliance, internal investigations, compliance and integrity risk assessment, compliance monitoring, and effectiveness of the internal controls testing, etc. And it’s already been used for a long time in specific fields, like fraud and money laundering prevention.
I am hoping that soon compliance professionals will be able to use AI agents to even conduct certain tasks for us, like using our computer files and all the accessible knowledge to make a compliance report and create a nice PowerPoint presentation to go along with that. Perhaps even a spoken introduction of the report for the management etc.
We will always have to have human oversight and human decision-making at the end. So, AI system literacy is going to be increasingly important for compliance officers. Also, from the perspective of having to support and supervise compliance in the deployment of AI in organizations, according to the new EU Artificial Intelligence Act, effective as of August 2024.
How aligned are organizations in Slovenia and the surrounding region with international compliance standards and practices?
My empirical knowledge is mostly from Slovenia, where I notice that practices are more aligned than ever and are progressing. Even regarding compliance and integrity and specifically, the corruption risks are being assessed and managed more methodologically within organizations. I see two factors playing key roles in this process, also in Croatia, Serbi, and elsewhere in the region; one being that the economy is becoming increasingly internationalized and even globalized, so the pressure comes from the foreign business partners and owners; and the second being the role of associations, such as EICE and your own. Because we help good practices in international standards application have more audience and echo throughout the professional and business community to showcase as an example and spread.
For Croatia, we can all probably notice that the compliance and ethics profession is growing and becoming more formalized. In practice, there might be challenges around securing senior management, and higher-level positions for the compliance function, there might be a lack of experience and practical tools. I also notice that the budgets for the compliance function are still quite limited in the region. Which is critical to be able to apply best practices and international standards more. We know that with a lack of financial and HR resources, without support and commitment from the top, it is not possible to implement the most effective and well-thought-out compliance and integrity management system. But there are actions that we – as compliance and ethics professionals and leaders – can do to keep the progress in the right direction!
What are the most essential skills and competencies needed for professionals in the field of business ethics and compliance?
Professional sharpness, personal resilience, strategic, communication, and interpersonal skills.
You need to have a strong mind, be able to process huge amounts of information, and never stop learning. On the flip side, we need excellent communication and interpersonal skills, to keep explaining what compliance is, what and how we need to be doing to comply and to reduce risks, and why all this is important.
We must be smart and resilient about the push-back and other pressures from the business, it’s intense for them, too. If we give up too easily, we miss the opportunity to make an impact. And the impact for better business practices is what we are in this profession for.
If someone is afraid to candidly and clearly present compliance and integrity issues with mitigation strategies, to senior management, or is afraid to investigate serious concerns, you should be doing something else. At the same time, we need to know when the push is too hard, no matter how professional and hard we work; for us to just exit an existing organization and go invest our energy and intellect where we can have the impact, and also not exhaust ourselves.
You need to be proud and learn to have joy in the compliance and ethics work for not to get exhausted. Exhausted compliance officers are easy to push back or to the side.
Can you share specific examples of how EICE membership has helped organizations enhance their reputation and build trust?
I notice that we are best doing this by inhouse trainings and workshops. When a company’s management or compliance officers hire us to do this for their leadership and employees it’s a huge responsibility, because I know we have been trusted with being placed in front of their teams, with their attention and time.
They do this because they want to get some messages across and align their teams in understanding corporate values and compliance and ethics principles in practice. There is always a certain objective behind these trainings and workshops, so achieving this most of the time is basically helping companies make an actual impact and build trust. The journey can be long for some because where there has been a history of not the best practices and sometimes broken relationships, we need a longer and more comprehensive program to achieve positive feedback.
We are happy to observe when managers and other employees share that they are seeing compliance and ethics differently now, that the training had helped them process dome of their dilemmas better. It’s also great when compliance function and a compliance officer gain more visibility and understanding, and when employees better understand what their role is in an effective compliance program…
In the past year, we have conducted several compliance and integrity risk identification workshops, with employees that had never been in this kind of process. So, it’s something special to see them in the second part to contribute their views and relevant practical information about specific forms of compliance and ethics risks. This is so valuable for them and for the compliance and management team, because you would never know these risks otherwise… It gives them a chance to form very specific actions that have so much better impact.
What role has the ICA (International Compliance Association) played in supporting and developing EICE in recent years?
ICA has proven to be a great partner, through which we offer our members to also be part of the global compliance professional community, as EICE+ICA members, as well as offer reduced rates for all ICA professional qualifications. Which is creating a better opportunity to access ICA international qualifications, which are really up-to-date and high-quality.
ICA has also actively taken part in our program. We hold a compliance breakfast with ICA every year, usually in the first quarter, where an ICA representative presents current hot topics in compliance online and explains first-hand the ICA study journey. While they participate in person at our international Bled Compliance and Ethics Conference. Their contribution to the conference content is always very current and adds practical value.
Can you tell us more about EICE’s future vision and how you plan to further strengthen the organization’s role in the region?
I believe that we need to align even more and perhaps set common objectives for where we wish the compliance profession to be in our region in the next 10 years. My vision is to have a regional cooperative compliance and ethics conference with 500 attendees from the region, with venue rotation from country to country, at least every second year. What do you say, Ivan? 😊
What would you say to young professionals considering a career in business ethics and compliance?
It’s a great opportunity to advance your career, mostly in corporate. You will have a chance to develop a broad, high-level, strategic perspective, as well as in-depth knowledge about a certain organization and the general business environment. You need to aim to master this and have an impact.
It’s also highly stressful, complex, and demanding work, so you need to have and foster ambition and resilience through constant learning and advancements. Only take this path if you are a mission and higher-impact-driven person.
Find someone who is in this profession already and is willing to be your mentor. Also, find your nearest compliance association, ask for help, and acquire what’s already developed in terms of good practices and lessons for the job. Go to educational events, take courses, read available books in this field, and always be curious and learn.
Our conversation with Andrijana Bergant highlighted how dedication, strategic collaboration, and a well-defined mission can ensure the long-term success of an organization, even in challenging times. EICE has demonstrated that a small but well-organized community can significantly elevate the standards of business compliance and ethics, not only in Slovenia but across the region. The future presents both challenges and opportunities for further progress, and EICE’s work underscores the importance of collaboration as the foundation for creating a more sustainable and responsible business environment.
