Patrick Quinlan, CEO of Convercent, a leading global provider of modern compliance management software with hundreds of customers in more than 130 countries, recently spoke to us about company integrity in light of a merger and acquisition. At our 9th Annual Global Ethics Summit next week, Quinlan will be moderating a plenary session on day one of our Global Ethics Summit. Click here for more on Quinlan’s session.
Highlights from the interview:
Ethisphere: While there has been increased M&A activity in 2016, it is expected that companies in 2017 will see an uptick— how should compliance officers/ legal professionals start preparing for this?
Quinlan: Many indicators agree that 2017 will be a busy year on the M&A side. I think we’ve seen over the past several years the challenges buyers have faced as they acquired companies that may have lingering ethics issues or even unknown problems that come to the surface later on. It’s important to put together a plan to understand what the due diligence process is and which members of the legal community you’d be working with on this transaction.
Ethisphere: At the Global Ethics Summit this year, you will be leading a panel on this same topic featuring top leaders like the General Counsel of Dell; and the SVP, Office of internal Governance at the Boeing Company— what are hoping to touch on during this panel and what takeaways should attendees of this session expect?
Quinlan: We’ve got some great organizations like Dell and Boeing on the panel and when you think about regulatory risks, the third party ecosystem is where many of these risks lie. Boeing is one of the greatest manufacturers of the world have a true global network of third parties and has an advanced process in place to ensure that the values and integrity of the company travels throughout their third parties.
