Non-Financial Misconduct Miniseries: Episode 4 – The Impact of Toxic Culture on Hiring and Retention

On this final episode of Ropes & Gray’s Non‑Financial Misconduct Miniseries, Amanda Raad, co-leader of the firm’s crisis management and global risk practices, and Katie Daniels, director of ethics, compliance, and insights at R&G Insights Lab sit down with Jamie Browne, managing director at Leonid Group, a leading talent advisory firm specializing in corporate governance hiring. The trio share a candid conversation about how toxic workplace culture is now one of the biggest forces shaping hiring and retention, posing a very real attrition and reputational risk—as well as a financial risk due in part to the significant costs of re-hiring. Together, they unpack why culture has become a make‑or‑break factor for candidates, what companies are getting wrong, and the practical steps leaders should be taking to ensure hiring best practice, ongoing diligence and stronger post-hire monitoring.

What is RopesTalk?

Ropes & Gray attorneys provide timely analysis on legal developments, court decisions and changes in legislation and regulations.

Amanda Raad: Hi, everyone. Welcome back to our Non-Financial Misconduct podcast. We are here for the fourth part of our series. I wanted to give just a little bit of a recap of where we’ve been and then a little bit about where we’re going today. Just as a quick reminder, we spent the first episode catching up on the regulatory framework with regard to non-financial misconduct and how that has changed. Then, we spent time with our employment law expert, Sharon Tan, speaking about the employment impact of some of the developments and some of the important employment considerations that we need to think about when we’re considering non-financial misconduct generally. And then, in the third episode we had culture top of mind, and we thought about assessing culture, thinking about culture in the context of non-financial misconduct and the role that it plays, and we had the fabulous Michelle DiMartino with us for that episode to explore culture in this context. Today, I am thrilled for this final episode that we are going to be joined by two very special guests: I have my fabulous colleague Katie Daniels, and we also have Jamie Browne with Leonid Group. Katie, over to you first.

Katie Daniels: Thanks so much, Amanda. And thank you, Jamie, for everything you’re going to share with us today. Everything starts with people—selecting, nurturing, choosing the right people and the right culture is essential to an organization to go forward, especially these days, so, excited about the conversation.

Amanda Raad: Thanks, Katie. And, Jamie, tell us about you, tell us about Leonid Group, and tell us about the perspective that you bring to non-financial misconduct.

Jamie Browne: Well, thank you very much, Amanda and Katie, for asking me to join. As a brief introduction, I’m the co-founder and managing director of the corporate governance division of Leonid, which is a specialist advisory firm, and we specialize very much within the world of compliance, investigations, as well as legal risk and audit. At Leonid, we’ve got two main arms of the business: one being our search function and the other being our talent intelligence consulting. When it comes to search, we work with chief compliance officers, heads of investigations, general counsels to build their teams from the ground up around the world, and that could be in Texas, Tokyo, or anywhere in between—the U.S. being our biggest market. And finally, our consulting arm, talent intelligence, is where we help leaders benchmark their teams against peers in the industries. Are their teams structured effectively? Are the people within those teams paid competitively, treated fairly? And what skills are missing in those teams? And we have the data and the information to provide that tangible and practical advice to companies. So, linking to what we’re discussing here, like I said, investigations has been a huge part of my focus over the last two years in helping staff those teams around the world.

Amanda Raad: Great. So, with both of you here, we have the opportunity to talk, as Katie said, about people generally and what is motivating people when they’re looking to join a company—what the big draw is, maybe what some of the detractors are for sure. And then, particularly with the work that you do, Jamie, in hiring for the investigative functions, hopefully we can talk a little bit, too, about the benchmarking for how people are structuring roles and groups with regard to looking at non-financial misconduct type issues, which is something that we’ve flagged a little bit in some of the earlier podcasts as well, thinking about whether this is an HR issue, a regulatory issue and just how teams are actually looking at this.

I just want to give a very quick overview before we get into some of the data just with where we’ve been and reminding everyone that non-financial misconduct, we’ve talked about not being something that maybe historically was seen as a separate issue, separate from the regulatory work, something that maybe would somehow get siloed with HR sometimes. We have heard people, rightly or wrongly, characterize some of this as perhaps soft issues or issues that are harder to prove, and I think that’s where some of the soft terminology comes from, where it’s a little bit harder to find concrete evidence sometimes and you do sometimes have to get a little bit more creative as you are investigating some of these issues. And with the developments that have happened in the regulatory landscape, the FCA has really sharpened its focus on bullying, harassment, discrimination, and sexual misconduct, and they’re now treating these as conduct issues, as regulatory issues with actual potential supervisory consequences.

So, today, we’re going to spend little bit more time touching on culture again, the behavior elements, and the impact of a company’s culture on recruiting, which, Jamie, we’ll love to hear your perspective, and also, what trends you’re seeing in the market, and, as I mentioned, how companies are actually setting up their teams: what are some best practices? First, Jamie, tell us a little bit about the scale of non-financial misconduct issues. Is this something that even comes on your radar?

Jamie Browne: Very much so. And I think what’s important to really focus on here is that this isn’t hypothetical—it’s happening on the ground. I think it was a recent CIPD report that said that 25% of UK employees have experienced conflict or abuse in the last 12 months. And out of that, only 36% of those employees say that the conflict had been fully resolved—but interestingly, 70% of employers believe that they have effective procedures for resolving interpersonal conflict. So, clearly, there’s a gap between what employers think is happening and how employees actually experience it.

Amanda Raad: Katie, do you have any reaction on that gap and those numbers generally? Does that surprise you at all?

Katie Daniels: It is sobering, and I’m happy actually to see evidence of what I would perceive to have actually been occurring. Generally, the disconnect between how people charged with the duty of thinking about misconduct and remediating misconduct and how people experience it when they have been victims of or perceived that they have been victims of misconduct, there’s always been a gap. This gap between expectations of employees for a safe workplace and how employers are managing those issues is fundamentally something that’s going to impact the commercial success of an organization, leaving aside the regulatory directive. So, that’s one of the reasons I’m so excited about the conversation today and the evidence that Jamie’s bringing forward.

Amanda Raad: Let’s dive straight into thinking about culture and the overall context of an environment and, as you said, Katie, a safe working environment and the role that that plays in recruiting. Jamie, what can you tell us about that?

Jamie Browne: It’s having a real direct impact now. For companies, it’s a 360-degree risk. Candidates are increasingly screening potential hiring companies for culture risk, and that has been a shift, I think, over the last 10 to 15 years. Back then—and I’m generalizing a little bit—it was very much about compensation, maybe prestige of the company, “What career progression can I get?” But now, while companies are, of course, evaluating a candidate’s conduct risk, candidates are increasingly evaluating a company’s culture before making a decision. And they’re doing that in a few ways. We’re seeing an increased reliance on leveraging their existing network—people that they know and they trust— to ask for feedback on a particular company, “What experience or what have you heard about this particular company,” as well as relying on external sites like Glassdoor. What they’re trying to understand and get under the bonnet of before making a decision on whether to join a company or not is, “What is the tone from the top at the company? What authority does a particular compliance investigations legal team have to actually make decisions and make an impact, or is it purely seen as a box-ticking exercise? What can we find out about the turnover of the team?” If you’re seeing compliance officers enter in one door but quickly leave another, it’s a red flag for people. We’ve heard of several cases, especially in the last 12 to 18 months, where candidates have turned down otherwise excellent opportunities on paper because they picked up some serious red flags from culture perspective, especially around how previous misconduct was handled.

Amanda Raad: I’m not surprised to hear any of this. Sometimes, people even have trouble explaining what is a good or a bad culture or where things are challenging. And you touched on the fact that candidates are assessing both the culture and how companies are dealing with issues, but is there a kind of issue? Is there anything more you can give us about context on that? What are the kinds of issues that are becoming showstoppers for people? And is it that they’re getting most of this information by talking to people who have left the company? Any more you can give us just for how it’s playing out in practice?

Jamie Browne: It’s a range of things. Now, it could be, of course, people that have left the organization and they may have a certain image or view of the company because of that, but it’s not only that—it will be speaking with people in the network that have interacted with that business or that compliance department through other avenues. It wouldn’t be just relying on one particular scenario. The types of culture issues, I guess, that are causing a bigger impact on decisions ranges—it’s not just the big headline cases. If you see a company that’s gone through an issue with the DOJ—an FCPA enforcement—of course, that means that they’ve had issues. Nowadays, I think we’re seeing things that are touching a little bit on what we’re saying here around if there’s been allegations around sexual misconduct, bullying, harassment, these topics that may be—and, again, I’m not saying that this is right but—seen as an HR issue as opposed to a true legal compliance issue and making decisions based on this as opposed to purely the headline cases that you may read about in the papers.

Amanda Raad: Do you see the flip side as well? So, when you’re working with the companies, are they trying to help explain the positive intentions and/or defend where there may have been a historical issue or concern?

Jamie Browne: I think it depends on where they’re at on that journey. If they can show tangible ways of how they’re trying to transform the culture or the reputational issues that they’ve had in the past and can show that they’re making progress, then I think that’s something they want to get across to the hiring market. However, if it’s that they’ve not really reacted or changed anything tangibly, then it’s going to be difficult to persuade candidates to just trust them.

Katie Daniels: How do you navigate these conversations? As you said, sometimes, a company may not actually have come to grips with the fact that they’ve got an issue that they need to address or may have a different perception of their response to non-financial or poor financial misconduct. So, you are sitting between a candidate and the company that’s paying your mandate—obviously, you have an interest in making sure it’s a success for every party, but how do you navigate those conversations, which are likely quite sensitive and may be a first instance for the company?

Jamie Browne: If we look at it initially from the candidate side, when I’m speaking to these candidates, I always want to start early. I want to understand what kind of culture, what type of environment does that particular candidate like to work within. What do they thrive in? But also, what do they see as a red flag or a potential deal-breaker for them? I’d rather have that conversation right at the beginning. And then, when it comes to talking about the particular company that we’re working with, I like to be transparent about what we know. Typically, the companies that we work with we’ve worked with for a period of years—we get to know them inside out. When we first start working with these companies, a lot of the time, we’ve been recommended to them by a close contact of mine within my network that I trust as well. Over that time, working with a company, we get a really good feel for what is their leadership like. What’s the team dynamics? What’s the maturity of the program that they’re joining? And that usually gives some insight for the candidates there. Also, for us, as a company, we’re really fussy on who we work with. I need to be confident that if I do say “yes” to a particular mandate, it’s going to be of interest to my network or my community. So, we need to also do that deep dive into a particular company. But I always encourage candidates to do their own due diligence, as I mentioned earlier, use their networks—compliance investigations in the network built up around trust and confidence, and it’s important to leverage that. But as well as that, I will give some tangible advice, particular questions they can ask during interviews to open up the conversation. So, it could be, “What is the process when an allegation comes in through the hotline? How is that handled? How is it escalated? Talk me through the process a little bit.” Or I would ask an interviewer, “How would you define the tone from the top in this organization and how does that impact you in the function that you’re in?” It’s always important to remind candidates I’m speaking to that this is a two-way street—an interview situation needs to be as much about a company trying to get across the benefits of them as opposed to just the candidates telling their skills and experience. So, I think from a candidate side, that’s how I’d navigate that conversation with them.

Katie Daniels: I’d be delighted to hear about your experience with hiring in the midst of a crisis. A company, perhaps their chief compliance officer, general counsel that has been exited, they’re actually in the eye of a storm and you’re trying to bring on new talent and change the environment. What happens in those extreme circumstances?

Jamie Browne: It’s an intense period for that, but for the right type of candidates, an extremely exciting opportunity. They’re in a process of change, and it’s a certain skillset and a certain type of person that’s not afraid to roll up their sleeves that would find that a really exciting prospect. For other people, they’d find that terrifying, to join in that environment. And it’s really trying to understand the balance. Going back to what I said earlier about what sort of environment does a candidate like to work in, what you described there, it’s a unique situation. Certain people will thrive—other people, again, would run away.

Amanda Raad: You mentioned the diligence that you do as well on the company to make sure that it’s a placement that you feel comfortable with and that you want to represent. For those examples where it may be the middle of a crisis, that’s known. How do you get yourself comfortable that it’s a company where they’re committed to making the right change? Are there any kind of diligence questions or things that you particularly look at?

Jamie Browne: I would look at, depending on where they’re at in this crisis period—if they’ve started to bring in new people, I’m going to be looking at who they’ve brought in because I think that’s a real sign of the journey that they hope to go on. If it’s someone that I know with a great reputation that’s in my network, and I’m comfortable with their background and skill set, and I can reach out to them and get their perspective on how they’re initial onboarding process has been within the company and have that discussion with them about how they see the journey going through this transformation. The one or two key hires they make right at the beginning is a really important signal for where they want to go—I think that’s the first point I would look at.

Katie Daniels: What’s happened if you have seen the head of talent or HR or the general counsel is aware that there is a culture problem or some non-financial misconduct issue but maybe the commercial side of the business isn’t as comfortable with that conclusion or the CEO or the head of business development is still wedded to high performers who may have some issues? What type of conversations do you need to have when the C suite isn’t in alignment with that nature of the problem?

Jamie Browne: So, firstly, I would say that, from a hiring perspective, at that stage they’re not ready to go to market. This is where we’d probably be focusing more on our talent intelligence side of things and using data as a starting point, showing them objective information on their attrition rate compared to their competitors on their culture reputation in industry, again, compared to competitors—data that they can’t argue against. From that, from our perspective, what we’ll be doing is framing it as a talent risk, rather than just scolding them for the reputation—it’s the impact it will have for them. So, their ability to attract senior, experienced compliance and legal talent will be directly tied to how confident people feel about the culture in that organization, and that will have a real direct business impact. You can look at the time it takes to hire. It’ll be a longer process. They’ll have a higher chance of offers being declined. There will be a higher turnover rate, which has a significant cost. All of that will have a dollar and cents impact on the business, but also, show them examples of companies that have managed to turn it around, whether that was FCPA enforcement where they needed to transform or other issues that they’ve been through. So, all of that is what we’d be doing before we even look to go to market for any hiring. If, from that, we can sense that they are serious about change and they’ve reviewed the talent and data that we’ve got and they’re coming up with a journey to change that, then when they do go to hire, they’re much better prepared. And there’ll be certain candidates out there, like we said already, that would find that transformation journey exciting and they’ll want to get their teeth into it, but we need to be sure that they’re serious about making those changes.

Katie Daniels: I think where you ended there, Jamie, about relying on the data, leads us very naturally into the second theme which we were going to discuss today, which is, “What’s the information you have on hiring practices themselves? What happens when a company doesn’t get this right? And what are the impacts on the hiring and retention market?”

Jamie Browne: If we look at what we saw last year from a hiring perspective—this is coming from a number of allegations increasing to hotlines, caseloads increasing, demand for investigations/investigators is up—in 2025, we saw a 22% increase in investigations roles compared to 2024. When we look at broader compliance hiring, we saw a 40% increase in 2025 as opposed to 2024—50% of that was U.S.-based positions. So, even though in the news and the headlines there was a lot of talk around FCPA pause, we did not see a change in direction when it comes to hiring for companies—as I mentioned, it increased considerably in 2025. So, I think that’s a positive sign of the value that companies are placing on compliance and investigations. If we look at the cost of a bad apple, let’s say, on companies—there’s a real measurable cost on turnover, on team fragmentation and reputation—it costs quite a bit to replace a departing employee. If someone leaves in the company, you wouldn’t want to leave because of the reputation or the bad apple in the organization—it will come with a significant cost. It usually ranges between 1.5 to 2 times that employee’s salary to replace that person once you include the recruiting costs, the onboarding process, the lost productivity over that time, as well as other indirect costs. I’m always telling my clients, “The cost to retain someone is considerably less than the cost to replace.”

Amanda Raad: Circling back just to culture generally and a healthy versus a toxic culture, I assume you see—and we’ve talked a little bit about it—people leaving not necessarily because of the FCPA issue but because of the unhealthy culture and the bad apple with regard to any of the non-financial misconduct issues that we’re talking about, whether it be just creating an environment that feels unsafe, bullying, or any kind of discrimination or something along those lines as well as, of course, the sexual misconduct, sexual harassment type of allegations. What can you say about the role that that kind of corporate culture actually plays and the cost of that when people leave over it?

Jamie Browne: When people think of attrition or people leaving, they’ll say it’s because of compensation or they’re not earning enough so they move somewhere else—of course, that will have an impact on attrition. But a toxic corporate culture was by far the strongest predictor of attrition—it was actually over 10 times more powerful than compensation in predicting a company’s attrition rate relative to its industry average. So, really significant and tangible cost there.

Katie Daniels: Jamie, this is really terrifically fascinating data points for us to consider and you’ve spoken about the cost, but what I’m interested in learning more about as well is the time. What happens to a company or an institution if they don’t get that hiring right and bring in possibly the wrong person?

Jamie Browne: We heard of one company that continued to hire one senior leader, even though there were clear red flags during the hiring process, just because they wanted to make the hire. The cost will be considerably more in the long run because of those decisions. If I was looking at a typical timeline, the challenge with a bad apple joining a company is that it’s not an immediate fix—it will take a period of time. It could be that the first three to six months of someone joining an organization, there’ll be disengagement from the team; they will take a little bit longer for anything to escalate. So, let’s say, six to 12 months is where then formal complaints are happening, under-performance is noticed, allegations are made. But then, for that to work through, probably we’re looking at a 12- to 18-month timeline of investigations or mediation attempts, and the leadership time diverted through this process. And, let’s say that then, at the end of that process, that the bad apple is let go or terminated, there’s still more time required to go back to the market, recruit the new person, onboard that person, and settle them into the organization. So, quite easily, you’re looking at a two-year timeline. Putting all the cost to one side, that’s two years that could’ve been lost because of that one hire, and that’s not really even touching upon other indirect costs, the lost productivity over that period of not just the one person but the broader team. The disengagement from the team will have ripple effects on others leaving within the team, again, directly linked to the hire of that bad apple and the amount of focus that has been lost to this one issue, all from one hiring decision made what may have been two years ago.

Katie Daniels: I feel there’s this strong parallel to when Amanda and I have discussions with companies on the risk of a monitor or some compliance intervention, where people may be focused on the dollars lost and really underestimate the drag on executive attention and their ability to focus on commercial objectives when they’re dealing with this unfortunate situation, whether it’s a person or some other misconduct issue. So, good reminder on that.

Amanda Raad: All right, Jamie, one of the things we talked about on some of our previous podcasts and just a little bit earlier is that people are setting up different kinds of responses to these issues as they become more prevalent. So, can you tell us a little bit what you’re seeing as people are staffing up this function? What does a successful set-up look like for you and what are you seeing in the benchmarking?

Jamie Browne: Of course, there are differences from industry to industry, size of a company, but if I was giving a best practice benchmark, I think it’s important for a company to have a dedicated investigations function. More typically, it now sits within compliance and/or legal as opposed to investigations being done purely by HR, and those functions need a really clear arena, triage criteria, independence for sensitive cases, especially around bullying, harassment, sexual misconduct. And there needs to be a formalized cross-functional investigation process that involves compliance, HR, and legal working together, which tend to deliver better outcomes, including faster resolutions and a stronger employee trust than an investigation done only through HR. We’re also seeing a shift of EEO investigations moving from HR to legal and compliance because, as these are seen as more high-risk investigations, HR teams can lack the forensic skill sets required for these in-depth investigations. Where you’ve been working over the last 12 to 18 months with one company that has monitorship ongoing and we’ve been able to build their compliance investigations functions out and we’ve been hiring EEO investigators, they’ll see it exclusively within the legal and compliance function, which I think would be a shift from maybe five years ago. I think that’s been an important shift. Another area that we could have a whole conversation about is companies spend so much time on due diligence when they bring that person in, but what is then happening post-hire? What we’re seeing with the best practice is more of post-hire monitoring, so whether that’s poll surveys, leadership 360s, refreshed checks on employees, not just when they enter the door but an ongoing basis, I think those are a few things that I would say are best practices at the moment.

Amanda Raad: Yes, one of the things we’ve talked about on multiple episodes has been avoiding silos. You summed that up really well, where not having one type of investigation covered by one group and a completely separate group looking at another kind of investigation, but instead, trying to make sure you have the right stakeholders involved that are trained up to be able to holistically look at issues. That’s a big one, for me, because very rarely does an issue completely fit within whatever bucket nicely—there’s so much crossover. I see regularly when I’m working with companies it may very well be something that starts out looking more like a financial fraud type of issue or something that is more in the financial bucket and quickly turn into something that is more culture based or non-financial misconduct based, and there’s just so much overlap when you’re dealing with people. So, I think it’s interesting to see that you’re actually seeing that shift play out in practice a little bit.

Jamie Browne: If the left hand’s not talking to the right hand, there’s going to be a lot of duplication, and it doesn’t necessarily mean the risks won’t be mitigated for it to happen again if the departments aren’t talking to each other.

Amanda Raad: Are you seeing people get specifically trained up in or otherwise certified or trying to show their expertise dealing with sensitive issues or non-financial misconduct issues?

Jamie Browne: So, there is a strong focus where investigators are understanding the importance of these areas now, and they need to make sure that they handle it in a very sensitive manner. These are different types of investigations than if you’re doing a bribery allegation or a corruption allegation, and it needs to be handled differently. So, I think companies are turning to different sources of training and approaches than they maybe would have done for lawyers handling bribery cases. It’s still a developing picture, but I agree that it needs a different approach.

Katie Daniels: Are you seeing any differences between perhaps in the UK or the EU versus the United States? Obviously, in a geopolitical perspective, we’re seeing a lot of choppiness at the moment, but wondering in terms of developing these practices if you’re seeing any differences depending on the jurisdiction?

Jamie Browne: If we go back to some of the headline statistics on the hiring we did last year, you might expect that compliance hiring, investigations hiring would go down in the U.S. because of what you read in the news, but, as I’ve said, that continues strongly. I think one thing that companies—at least companies that are doing it right—understand is that reputation is global. And regardless of the differences in regulation between, say, the U.S. and EU, we’re seeing companies creating more global standards when it comes to investigations and compliance, and aren’t differentiating between those markets—so, a global standard, regardless of the regulatory differences.

Katie Daniels: One of the issues you and Amanda have just spoken about is the need to make sure there’s information and sharing across silos and the right discipline brought to a question. But the flip of that, of breaking down silos, is the issue of confidentiality and the need for confidentiality, especially in these sensitive types of investigations. How have you managed or what’s your recommendation for managing the confidentiality issues, which can in turn impact the health of the program as well?

Jamie Browne: Really good question and I wouldn’t say there’s an easy answer to it, because certain things will have to remain confidential, even if you are trying to incorporate a better communication between departments. If we’re looking at, say, compliance and investigations, you’re using speaking with people that understand the confidential issues that can come with this and can talk around the issues without breaking any confidentiality. However, it is a challenge—it can be a stumbling block as companies look to break down these silos. I’d actually be quite curious to get your perspective on this, Amanda and Katie.

Katie Daniels: It’s really important to make sure if something’s come up, you have a quick meeting with (I’m going to call them) the interested parties—somebody’s line manager, perhaps the CEO if it’s a very senior person who’s implicated—and anybody’s who’s going to be investigating, just to set the parameters of what the review is going to be and how the compliance and HR team is going to address it and make sure people have clear expectations as to when they’re going to get information and when they’re not going to get information. It’s also, at the end of an investigation, really important for the compliance, HR team and the organization as a whole to have a sense of what we can share. People who have put things into the pipeline that are on their minds—financial or non-financial misconduct—will want to know and have some sense that the process has been fair and that their concern’s been taken seriously, even if they instinctively know they may not know the outcome. Possibly, one of the most important and consistent conversations I’ve had in 25 years of doing this is either no one can ever know about this or everybody needs to know about this, and threading that needle in terms of how you can share important data points with your organization, making sure people know that the system is fair, but respecting people’s confidentiality, can be tricky. But you need to have a conversation about what people can really expect. Amanda, you may have a view on this.

Amanda Raad: I agree with everything you’ve said. I think, also, it’s just the reminder to slow down because depending on how sensitive the issue is, everybody wants to (quite rightly), move as quickly as they can for the sake of everyone involved to get to the next right thing. Even if you have a plan in place for how you’re going to handle issues, it’s really important to take a moment and make sure you get all the right voices together, talking about exactly what steps you’re going to take, how information is going to be handled and how everything’s going to work in that exact situation to avoid missteps. It’s great to have a plan, but then, also, try not to move too quickly when the issue does come up. This has been the most fabulous discussion—I want to wrap with one final takeaway. Jamie, on this topic, if there’s one thing you want to leave people with that they should really be thinking about when they think about culture, non-financial misconduct, and the impact that has, what would you say?

Jamie Browne: I don’t think it’s fair to delegate culture risk solely to HR. They’re brilliant at what they do, but that’s a lot of workload to be putting on them. It’s important to share that across the organization, and I think it’s important to treat misconduct trends like any other risk metric—if I was looking at one important factor, I would look at that. One final comment: the phrase that “it takes a lifetime to build a reputation and five minutes to break it”—an employer brand is fragile, and it can change quickly. Especially in compliance, word spreads quickly about a reputation, so, it never stops.

Amanda Raad: Thanks, Jamie. What about you, Katie?

Katie Daniels: I think making sure that you are slowing down. You closed with that, Amanda, and I think in the context of non-financial misconduct, people can really jump very quickly— because of what Jamie just said: the brand is fragile and there’s a rush to action—so, you need to be thoughtful. You should have thought about how you would react to a bad news update before the bad news update comes—so, a little discussion and possibly a light tabletop or just making sure everybody’s coordinated before you start.

Amanda Raad: Thank you. For me, I think it’s culture and non-financial misconduct issues aren’t soft issues, and they have to be treated seriously. And I think we’ve had a great discussion today about the very real consequences that can come from them. So, what a way to wrap up a four-part series with the very human consequences of all of this. Cannot thank you, Jamie and Katie, enough. Thank you, everybody, for listening and staying with us for the four-part series. You can listen to all of our podcasts wherever you regularly listen. And we hope to talk to you soon.