Presentation Slides

Abstract: Enforcement of corporate misconduct has never been more aggressive, resulting in the proliferation of corporate compliance departments throughout every industry. However, not all of these compliance efforts are effective at impacting employee behavior. Ethical decision making in a business setting is driven by the underlying corporate culture and core values of a company. Strong ethical cultures foster openness of communications; a freedom to speak without fear of retaliation; outlets for questions when uncertainty arises; and managers who encourage and promote doing the right thing as a business imperative. Too often, the "tone at the top" of a company is characterized by ethical commitments made at senior levels of the company that are not followed through with supportive policies and incentives, or are stymied by subordinate managers with a singular focus on financial rather than ethical objectives. Such cultures create a ripe environment for bad decisions and choices. Government agencies and regulators are increasingly scrutinizing the underlying ethical causes of bad decisions, and holding the companies accountable for a failure to create an ethical corporate culture.

This presentation will identify how strong values-based ethics programs can create a "return-on-investment" by (1) limiting the financial and reputational losses of undiscovered frauds, (2)helping companies demonstrate ethical due diligence to government regulators by "walking the talk" and operationalizing their ethical commitments, and (3)mitigating the most punitive government fines and penalties through a commitment to remedial action.

Biography: Eric Feldman retired from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 2011 with over 32 years of experience in Inspector General oversight and federal auditing, in both the Executive and Legislative branches of government. He has served in executive positions with Offices of Inspector General at the Department of Defense, Defense Intelligence Agency, and CIA, and was the longest serving Inspector General of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) from 2003-2009. At the NRO, he presided over a highly successful procurement fraud prevention and detection program, widely recognized by the Department of Justice as a model throughout the federal government.

While serving as a Federal Inspector General, Mr. Feldman was an active member of the National Procurement Fraud Task Force at the Department of Justice, and chaired the Private Sector Outreach Committee. In this role, he was a driving force behind the amendments to the Federal Acquisition Regulations requiring the mandatory disclosure of contractor fraud and the implementation of business ethics and conduct programs for federal contractors.

In 2009, Mr. Feldman was appointed Senior Advisor to the Director of the NRO for Procurement Integrity. In this role, he helped the Director ensure that the NRO’s industrial partners were meeting their integrity and ethics responsibilities required by law and federal regulations. He accomplished this through in-depth assessments of corporate ethics and compliance programs at over 40 government contractors in the aerospace and defense industries. These assessments involved reviews of corporate codes of conduct; development or enhancement of ethics training approaches; analyses of corporate compensation incentives; improvement of corporate communications techniques; and discussions/briefings with “C-Suite” executives and boards of directors.

A former Senior Intelligence Service Officer, Mr. Feldman is a 1995 graduate of the Federal Executive Institute, and is both a Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE) and Certified Inspector General (CIG). He is a member of the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors of the Association of Inspectors General, and was the founding President of the California Chapter.

Mr. Feldman is a frequently sought-after speaker and author on the topics of procurement fraud detection and prevention, corporate business ethics and compliance, and managing an Inspector General function. During the last year, he has given presentations at national conferences of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, the Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics, and the Association of Inspectors General.

Contact: Eric can be reached by e-mail at EFeldman@AffiliatedMonitors.com for additional information about this Weekend Conference session.

Website: www.affiliatedmonitors.com

Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/pub/eric-feldman/29/575/211