Christian Perez Font is the founder of Thinkeen Legal, a law firm that uniquely incorporates data analytics, compliance and law. He began his career as a corporate attorney and in 2008 joined Baxter International, a multinational healthcare company, as in-house counsel. When he joined Baxter, his work was 10% compliance-related and 90% business-related, but by the time he left 5 years later, he was doing 65% compliance work. The key to becoming a better compliance professional, he proposes, is to become a better business person. He and host Tom Fox discuss the importance of data in compliance and in business.

Data as Fuel

When people think about Data Analytics they imagine some form of AI that’s going to automatically pinpoint problems. Christian says that the truth is that Data Analytics has to be at the core of compliance: data is the fuel that powers the compliance engine. It’s the data that will tell you how you should be communicating compliance policies and doing training so that you can achieve your business goals. Most of the data that is used for compliance purposes is already there from the business side; you just need to understand how to aggregate it, how to look for it and how to plug it in. You have to understand your industry and your company goals before you start collecting that data.

How Thinkeen Uses Data

Tom asks how Thinkeen Legal uses its data proficiency in mergers and acquisitions, transactional work and compliance. Christian shares how his company used its data expertise to advise clients in cross border transactions. Because we know where the touchpoints are, he says, we’re able to incorporate them into the due diligence process and ask the right questions and get the right information. They can identify areas of risk which helps their clients decide whether to proceed with an acquisition. Christian finds that general counsels are becoming savvier about compliance and they appreciate that his firm gives them advice and support.

The Future of Data and Compliance

The intersection of law, data and compliance will continue to evolve, Christian predicts. He is happy that the importance of Data Analytics is being acknowledged. If you don’t have the right data, you won’t get the right information, without which you can’t make the best business decisions. In addition, a big part of what we do with data is benchmarking, Christian says. The more information that we can share in the industry, the better.

Resources

ThinkeenLegal.com

Thinkeen Legal on Twitter | Instagram

Christian Perez Font on LinkedIn