Ensuring Regulatory Compliance Talent Outlook 2020

With the end of 2019 firmly in our sight in the lead up to the end of what has been a year of much legislative change where global economic challenges, increased pressure on major financial institutions and changing business landscapes have led to stricter regulations in most major industries and countries around the world, “Regulatory Compliance” has become a much talked about topic.

Organisations are increasingly having to elevate their processes and structures to enhance compliance with regulations. The increased business impact of new legislation, as well as the implications of non-compliance within each organisation means applicable legislation has increased the focus by the board on regulatory compliance. 

In achieving effective management in regulatory compliance within an organisation, the integrated governance roles of key management functions, mainly Legal, Compliance, Risk and Internal Audit must be understood and enabled. (We will be exploring these key management functions in more detail in follow up articles during the first quarter of 2020.)

An enormous effort in recent times and looking into the future, the Government and the various industry regulators have amended, introduced and enforced many pieces of legislation in New Zealand which has given impetus to a new age of careers within the regulatory compliance space. As regulatory reform continues and matures, legislation which is applicable to each organisation will vary depending on the type of industry and the nature of the organisation including the requisite skills required to ensure regulatory compliance. As every organisation has a responsibility to identify existing and emerging legislation relevant to its business and ensure that risks that may arise from the compliance requirements are well understood by the board and management with that comes the need for specialist talent to assist in the uplift of risk maturity within the organisation. 

In alignment to the key management functions within the organisation we are seeing an increasing focus on the need for specialist skillsets at varying levels with our clients who are some of New Zealand's leading Banks and Financial Institutions. They are developing teams as additional resources with particular focus on Technology & Operations (Process & Controls) | Risk & Compliance (Operations Risk & Conduct Risk) | 1st; 2nd & 3rd line Defence | Governance and Assurance | Subject Matter Experts (Conduct & Technology). These specialist skill sets are in demand and as the regulatory compliance environment matures in New Zealand the resource need for specialist talent will only increase. With this in mind we are also seeing opportunities develop for highly skilled internationals from countries with mature regulated environments such as, but not limited to, Australia; the United Kingdom and South Africa. 

In this current business landscape, where legislation emerges and changes continuously with increasing requirements to keep business on the right track, it is critical for every organisation to implement adequate and effective structures to embed a culture of compliance. We hazard a guess that the attraction of specialist talent and the development and upskilling of existing talent within the organisation will be a thought on the minds of the board and management for the year ahead.

Tyler Wren has a dedicated team of specialist risk & compliance recruitment partners who are readily available to partner with organisations to develop their talent pools in this space as well as guide talent themselves in their career development and that next opportunity in an industry that is seeing enormous growth.