The recent spate of scandals in the banking industry has once again focused attention on the seriousness of risk management and the important role played by compliance managers in building a culture of compliance amid the steadily widening web of laws and regulations.
Compliance begins at the top. Incidentally, the major characters embroiled in the latest controversies have been mostly men. It is inevitable that some advocates of gender balance in corporate boards have begun to argue that perhaps fewer organisations will be experiencing these kinds of troubles if only more women were taking charge of risk management.
Would women make more suitable compliance managers than men?
'I have seen both men and women do well in compliance roles, but in general, women tend to get right to the problem and are more willing to bring issues to the surface and deal with them,' says Dianne Challenor, chief operating officer for Citi's Global Transaction Services in Asia-Pacific.
'Women do have different leadership styles, and this diversity is the benefit of having women in the workplace, as well as in senior roles. Generally speaking, women tend to be more team-orientated, with a focus on getting the right outcome for the organisation and the team. I think this is why it is important that companies embrace women in senior management roles - in order to ensure that their teams have the right balance of styles and approaches,' she adds.
Elspeth Renshaw, a partner at Talent2 International, which provides talent acquisition, human capital consulting and workforce management solutions in Asia-Pacific, wants to see more women playing a greater role not only in risk management, but also in all areas of business operations.
She cites a report by McKinsey & Co in 2010 that demonstrated a direct correlation between the number of women in top leadership roles and company performance. It also established that companies with the most women on their executive boards outperformed by a significant margin their competitors in the same sector with all-male boards.