A Bit of Advice: Speak Up

GUEST BLOGGER

Christopher Ekimoff, CFE, CPA
Manager, Investigative Accounting & Financial Litigation, Duff & Phelps
Washington, D.C.

As a boisterous child, I never found it hard to speak up. Whether shouting out a response without raising my hand or sharing my thoughts during lunch with a friend a few tables away, speaking up got me noticed early on (and not always positively). That characteristic has transitioned into my career as well. I’m always the first to comment on the quality of the food I’ve ordered or the potential inefficiencies in a particular process.

The idea of “speaking up” has grown in the media and around the business world in recent years. In light of the 2008 financial crisis, more and more investors, Congressional committees and regulators have asked, “Why didn’t more people speak up?”

In the May/June issue of Fraud Magazine, Preet Bharara, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and keynote speaker at the upcoming ACFE Global Fraud Conference in Las Vegas, Nev., outlines his focus on creating an environment that supports whistleblowing:

“First, there has to be a culture in which people who see something bad going on feel comfortable coming forward, and second, people who are taking in the complaints have to be smart enough and care enough to do something about it.”

In career terms, speaking up can be daunting. From reporting questionable behavior to inquiring about a specific task, fear of judgment by a superior can silence even the most confident individual. Often, however, the worry is twice as bad as the result. Speaking up to your superior about any number of issues can also work in your favor:

• Speaking up shares ideas – For any continually successful team, office or firm, sharing ideas and diverse viewpoints is necessary. By soliciting and valuing the opinions of all members, solutions come more easily and are more readily implemented.
• Speaking up differentiates you – A team member willing to share his or her ideas demonstrates confidence, a mastery of a certain set of tools and the ability to work collaboratively in a team setting.

Sure, we can’t all be famous whistleblowers. And being a whistleblower is hard. Harry Markopolos shared his take on Bernie Madoff with numerous government regulators, industry publications and media sources without being heard. Michael Woodford was fired as CEO of Olympus and shunned by his colleagues after reporting his concerns of improper write-offs to the Board of Directors. But, in time, their honesty and integrity erased any stigma that originated with speaking up.

Don’t be afraid to speak up. If you don’t, who will?

Highlights from the ACFE European Fraud Conference

GUEST BLOGGER: LIVE FROM THE ACFE EURO FRAUD CONFERENCE

Allan Bachman, CFE
ACFE Education Manager

It's snowing here in Prague this evening. This is a big difference from last year’s European Conference in London when the weather was surprisingly spring-like. This year the weather is more suitable for a native New Englander who has been describing the below freezing temperatures as "chilly."

Indoors at the Prague Marriott it is much different, as well, as the conference has welcomed representatives from 34 countries at last count. There is obvious European representation, of course, but I am excited to also see people from North America, Africa and the Asia-Pacific region. Once again, like the rest of the ACFE conferences, this is truly an international event.

ACFE President and CEO James D. Ratley, CFE, opened the conference with a new session on professional skepticism which mixed sage advice with his unique brand of humor. The luncheon keynote, Ian Foxley, is a whistleblower who is still tilting at the windmill of the massive fraud and corruption he found as project leader on a large multinational contract which reaches to some of the highest levels of government.

Concurrent breakout sessions featured a couple of returning favorites and some new notables including Pauline Roberts. Pauline is a retired FBI special agent and spoke on international investigations and how to navigate the waters of differing jurisdictions and legal systems. For her first outing as a speaker, Pauline was very well received and a pleasure to work with.

Tomorrow rounds out the conference with three more keynotes and several breakout speakers, but until then I think a walk in the falling snow in Old Town Prague is the perfect way to end this day.

Find more coverage and photos of the ACFE European Fraud Conference on the ACFE's Facebook page.

Top photo: Marek Dandar, James D. Ratley and Stevan Villalobos

Bottom photo: Attendees at the ACFE European Fraud Conference

The Fraud Examiner’s Role in Responding to Whistleblowing

INTERVIEW WITH IAN FOXLEY

Chairman of Whistleblowers UK and keynote speaker at the 2013 ACFE European Fraud Conference, 17-19 March in Prague

According to the ACFE’s Report to the Nations, more frauds are detected by tips than by any other method. What role do anti-fraud professionals play in ensuring tips are welcomed, encouraged and not punished?

Tips are only worthwhile if they are valid, verifiable and justified. Sources of tips should be aware that they may remain anonymous, but if they are to believed then the tip off cannot stand in isolation but must be provable – one way or another. Anti-fraud professionals have a role in ensuring that tips are valid and verifiable and sort out those that are worthy of note from those that aren’t. That way when a true tip is offered, the recipient, be it a company, organization, manager, director or compliance officer, knows that it is a worthwhile piece of information that is worth investigating.    

How have you seen the role of the whistleblower change over the past few years? Do you think this role will change in the future and become more accepted and praised?

The role of the whistleblower hasn’t changed – it still remains as a source of information that exposes wrongdoing in the face of resistance by those who should have dealt with the information properly.

There have been those who have tried to use whistleblowing to propagate personal aims or settle debts, and they do real whistleblowers a great disservice. But there remains a fundamental corporate distrust of whistleblowers that needs to be actively overcome. Whistleblowing needs to be recognized as a courageous and heroic act, not one born of disloyalty and self-interest. Whistleblowing is not the act of a “sneak.” It is the act of an honest broker who has tried to expose the wrongdoing and found only resistance, coercion and aggression.    

Reward is the wrong word to use – it offers the opportunity for detractors to profess that whistleblowers are merely “in it for the money.” But we do need to find a way to compensate whistleblowers for the stress, discomfort, family pain, financial loss, career stoppage and sheer hell of what we go through.

What do you most hope attendees will take away from your address?

An understanding of what makes a whistleblower tick and what they can do to help future whistlebowers.

Read more about Foxley and the other keynote speakers at this year’s ACFE European Fraud Conference. And don't forget, the last day to register early and save EUR 125 is this Friday, 15 February.