A key component of the modern world economy, the chemical
industry delivers products and innovations to enhance everyday life.
It is also an industry in transformation where chemical executives and
workers are delivering growth and industry changing advancements while
responding to pressures from investors, regulators, and public opinion.
Discover how leading companies are approaching these challenges
here on the chemical show.
Join Victoria Meyer, president of Progressio Global and
host of the chemical show.
As she speaks with executives across the industry and learns how they are leading
their companies to grow, transform, and push industry boundaries on all frontiers.
Here's your host, Victoria Meyer.
VictoriaM: Hi, this is Victoria Meyer.
Welcome back to The Chemical Show, Where Chemicals Means Business.
Today, I am speaking with Tom Fox, who is the president of
the Compliance Podcast Network.
So Tom is the Number One Voice of Compliance and founder of the award
winning Compliance Podcast Network.
He's a lawyer, and an international bestselling author
with 33 books on compliance,
business ethics and leadership.
So Tom and I are going to be talking today about the role of compliance
and the power of podcasting.
Tom, welcome to The Chemical Show.
Tom Fox: Thank you.
I'm really thrilled to be here with you.
VictoriaM: Tom, what's your origin story?
How did you get started even being interested in pursuing
a career in compliance?
Tom Fox: So I was a recovering trial lawyer.
I defended petrochemical companies along the Texas Gulf Coast largely.
So I had a lot of experience with health and safety in the 80s and 90s.
In the first decade of this century, I went in house and I
did contracts at Halliburton.
I leveraged that position as a general counsel's position at another oilfield
service company who in 2007 had the largest bribery and corruption fine
in the history of the world over, uh, there's a US law called the Foreign
Corrupt Practices Act, which prevents US companies from engaging in bribery and
corruption outside the United States.
I was part of the new management team brought in to, uh, clean it up
and put in a new compliance program.
So that was really my first experience with compliance.
I did that for a couple of years, the company got sold, my job went away.
I decided, what I really wanted to do with my life was race bicycles.
So I went off on this great adventure to race bicycles and I was over 50.
I could ride in the senior division.
I had great fun, got in great condition until, uh, one training
ride, I got taken out by a Hummer.
VictoriaM: Ooh.
Tom Fox: that ended my cycling career.
Fortunately, um, I wasn't banged up too badly.
I was really bruised internally and just took forever to heal.
So I was on a walker and then crutches and a cane.
So after a couple of months of, uh, convalescence in the hospital
and at home, I realized I was going to have to go back to work.
And, um, so I got on my walker and huddled into my office and,
decided what I really enjoyed.
was building a compliance program inside of a corporation.
And it really tied into my prior life as a trial lawyer in the following manner.
What I saw in compliance was what I saw in safety in the 90s.
That journey of safety being something everybody kind of knew about to
number one priority of every company, everywhere, um, that became, uh,
the same story for compliance.
This was 2010.
The only time I left the house was good physical therapy.
So I couldn't meet people.
I couldn't have a drink, couldn't have lunch, couldn't go to a
conference, couldn't go to a meeting.
Um, and so I started exploring social media, which at that point
in my life, I knew nothing about.
VictoriaM: Well, it was also the very early days of social media.
Tom Fox: So Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and in six months, I built a worldwide
consulting practice literally out of my house and way before work from home.
So I've been working from home since 2010, and that's how it started.
VictoriaM: Yeah.
That's very cool.
And then how did you get into podcasting?
Tom Fox: So as a lawyer, I'd always written a lot of articles.
So blogging was sort of natural extension as, and part of my
social media marketing outreach.
And then podcasting was a natural extension of blogging.
And then in 2017, I got this bright idea.
Well, let's form a network of compliance podcasters.
So there's three trade organizations in my world.
And so I went to each one of them and said, Hey, let's form this consortium
and we will be the one stop shop for all information in the compliance format.
And we won't take away from what you're already doing.
Um, and I could get no interest.
VictoriaM: Yeah, I was going to say, would they buy in at that point?
Tom Fox: so I just said, bleep it.
I'll do it myself.
So I did.
And so in 2019, I decided I either had to fully commit or move it
back to hobby status and start practicing law full time again.
For me, that meant compliance.
And so I quit practicing law, bought all the cool toys, which you see.
I built a huge network, and I mean huge network.
And at the end of the year, I'd made about 10, 000.
And I thought, well, that was an interesting experiment.
I have to go back to playing lawyer.
So I did in 2020 till they shut the country down on March 15th.
And, uh, what happened was starting May 15th, I literally got a call
from every product provider in the compliance space with, which had the
same question, which was how long to get access to your network, because
even by then I had the largest social media presence in compliance and prior
to COVID almost all marketing was done at trade shows, conferences, breakfast
roundtables, Or that sort of event.
And of course that wasn't available and all that money was just
sitting there waiting to be spent.
So they spent it on my little network.
And because of the work I'd done in 2019, the answer to everyone's
question was the same 24 hours.
Cause it literally was just a plug and play.
Because of everything I'd done.
So my little world blew up and I have since that time tried to consolidate
the explosive growth I had in 2020.
And like I went to 200, 000 downloads a month in one month.
And then, um, so I've just tried to grow that network now and make
it more professional and see if it can be an ongoing viable business.
VictoriaM: I love it.
I love it.
And, uh, I am nowhere near as, uh, as close or as big as you are at this
point in time, but absolutely see the, the role that podcasting plays
in building connections in enabling leaders and companies to tell their
stories and reaching people in a much more personal way, um, in a
more impactful way than a lot of the traditional trade media conferences,
et cetera, even though post COVID, a lot of those things have come back.
All right, so let's talk a little bit about compliance.
Um, And it sounds like you've done some pretty impressive things
through your career, but what's critical about compliance today?
Tom Fox: So.
As I mentioned, I'm a recovering trial lawyer, and in the late 80s and early
90s, there were three massive, and I mean massive, chemical plant explosions.
In Houston, Harris County and the Gulf Coast for the Texas Gulf Coast, huge loss
of life, millions of dollars in damage all leading up to the Exxon Valdez and
the Exxon really became the leader in safety because Exxon said, we will make
this will never happen to us again.
We are very embarrassed.
And we are not gonna let this happen.
And we're going to make safety the number one priority of our company.
And guess what?
If you want to do business with us.
You have to make safety the number one priority.
So all of these companies that did business with Exxon, uh, had
to, uh, put safety as number one.
Now, most of those, many of those, I should say, had gone through
these chemical plant explosions.
Chevron, um, used to be Amico, but it's now BP, uh, and one other one.
But, they had, you know, huge losses.
And so they changed their safety culture.
So what I saw from that was when leadership makes a decision
to change something, they can.
And I, uh, when I went in the corporate world, I went with Halliburton,
obviously an oilfield service company and Halliburton had that same ethos.
Safety is number one in our company.
Now it doesn't matter to me whether it was altruistic.
It doesn't matter to me if it was a business decision.
The result was safety was number one.
And, you know, even lawyers opened every meeting with a safety moment
and that really drives home safety.
Now you're still going to have incidents.
You're still going to have accidents because people are involved.
There was a huge shift in the nineties.
That shift didn't start with leadership just saying we're going to change.
They put in safety programs, they put in training programs, they
gave up employees, the ability to raise their hand and speak up.
Um, they did a monitoring of safety.
Data to make sure that an ongoing basis safety was being still taken care of.
So a lot of, almost all of the things you have to do in compliance.
Things we had to do in the nineties and first five years
of this decade around safety.
And so I really looked to safety and frankly, compliance is still not as
sophisticated as safety is in training.
Um, and I don't know why we can't get there, but we can, for me, I
had that model in mind and I saw it play out in front of me in the first
decade of this year, this decade, uh, this century compliance was
written by lawyers and for lawyers.
You were these massive codes of conduct and massive policies and procedures,
VictoriaM: Really kind of boring.
Tom Fox: Well, not for a lawyer, but you couldn't read
them if you weren't a lawyer.
And so the person who's trying to read it, trying to do the right thing.
It was.
Virtually encipherable.
So that was sort of the first evolution of compliance was to move
away from strictly a legal, um, basis.
And then it moved to more business basis, meaning that it had to integrate into
the company and not simply be no, Dr.
No, from the land of no, you had to actually help the business.
Well, now the evolution is data and data analytics.
And what can you move?
There are three parts to every compliance program, prevent, detect, and remediate.
We've gotten pretty good at detection, but we are still moving towards prevention.
And that's what data analytics promises, which is to prevent
something from happening, whether it's a safety incident or whether it's a
compliance violation before it happens.
So
VictoriaM: So what are the trends that you see in compliance today?
And in particular, when we think about, um, chemicals and energy
and this heavy duty infrastructure that we're working with.
Tom Fox: I typically focus on safety because in the chemical industry,
compliance to me is largely around safety or HSE, safety, health, and environment.
A huge part of ESG and something that every corporation involved in this
industry, um, literally has to have as part of their corporate governance.
I still do contract work or small contractors along the Texas Gulf
Coast in the petrochemical space.
And so these are 30, 50, 150 million companies that are too small to
have their own general counsel.
And I, uh, see in these contracts and increased awareness of compliance
because the plant owners are requiring contractors to sign on
to very robust compliance programs.
Part of it is around.
You know, gifts, travel, and entertainment for plant employees.
Part of it is around conflicts of interest.
Part of it is around paying bribes to third parties.
Part of it is around making sure everyone has their documents that
is hired and works for a company.
Part of it is around, of course, drugs and alcohol use.
Um, And that's, you know, for safety reasons, obviously, but, um, so
I see all of these requirements that the top chemical plants have
for themselves being pushed down in these contractual provisions.
So, literally, a 50M dollar company that does 1 thing very well, they
have to sign on to and have compliance programs in place for the Chevrons of the
world, or you name the chemical plant.
VictoriaM: Do you think they understand it?
I think to some of the, contracts that, you know, even when I was at Shell and
Clariant, there were occasionally there would be a provision thrown in and then
somebody be like, Oh yeah, that's great.
Um, we can sign that.
And yet, and then somebody else takes a look at it and be like, Oh,
do you know what you just agreed to?
So do you think there's a, a clarity of understanding and how.
How do companies ensure that they understand in order to be able to comply?
Tom Fox: Well, if they have me as a lawyer, they do because
I know what to look for.
Uh, so I don't focus really on the commercial terms.
Um, I know what the legal terms are.
I know what they should say in the petrochemical industry.
One, in contractual negotiations, we're all moving towards the same goal.
Doesn't mean we don't represent our client, but everybody
wants a contract sign.
The plant owner wants a contract sign, and the contractor wants a contract sign.
And they're fairly, uh, established parameters around compliance, around
risk management, and the legal terms.
Now there's some room for negotiation, certainly.
Um, and I guess the easiest would be are you going to cap your overall liability?
If so, what's that cap going to be?
Is it going to be the amount of insurance required?
Is it going to be something above that?
Is it going to be 15 million?
Is it going to be 20 million?
Uh, because that's a big deal.
Because you have unlimited liability, potentially you could lose your company.
But, um, so everybody kind of understands what the parameters are.
And, um, you can have a tough negotiation and still be fair.
And my job is to, I don't tell clients what to do.
I say, here's your risk.
You have unlimited liability.
If you want to swallow very hard and accept that that's your call
cause you're the business owner.
VictoriaM: One of the challenges I hear from companies sometimes, is
different standards and understanding when they're working globally.
Right, because depending on who you're dealing with, they
don't always understand that.
Right?
So a counterpart in India may not recognize that what they're doing, which
may be a standard business practice to them may actually be in conflict with.
A U.
S.
perspective, a European perspective, et cetera.
So do you see that often?
Tom Fox: Uh, it used to be more, um, common, but now
if you do business with a U.
S.
company and you're in India, or you name the country, you're going to be
generally aware that you're going to have to do business ethically and compliance.
And if you don't, um, it's up to the company that hires you
to give you that training.
But most.
Businesses outside the U.
S., they understand that it is a true business differentiator and
a business plus for them to do business in compliance with U.
S.
law, to have had training, and to be able to demonstrate that they can meet The U.
S.
company's requirements under U.
S.
law and, uh, just makes them more marketable as a subcontractor
or a business partner,
VictoriaM: Make sense.
What about digital?
Right?
So we're living in the world of, uh, of digital, the digital age, um, digital
transformation, AI and data analytics, and you referenced data earlier, um.
How are they, uh, impacting compliance practices would be one thing.
And then the second piece is, are there new things to be looking for
and what do companies to be, need to be aware of as they go more digital?
Tom Fox: The evolution has been fascinating because it started with
data and, uh, sort of in the last second decade of this century and the DOJ started
talking about data and data analytics.
And then they got more serious around the time of the pandemic, and then
they hired a guy who was a chief compliance officer at a company
called AB InBev, which in the U.
S.
is Budweiser.
And he, his company had gone through an enforcement action, and as a result
of that, as part of his remediation, He put together the most sophisticated data
analytics program for compliance in the U.
S.
And the DOJ hired him, and he brought that institutional knowledge
to the Department of Justice.
So number one, the DOJ could tell you had a really adequate data analytics
program, but equally importantly, they could tell when you didn't.
And so last week, we had a huge release of information from the DOJ on their
expectations around compliance and data was once again, a very big part of it.
But here was the twist.
We've always known you had to have a data analytics program, but
the DOJ focused on data access.
Which is different.
And they said the compliance function has to have access across
all data silos within your company.
And that means all.
And if you don't, you're going to get negatively graded.
And if you say, well, I didn't have the resources.
Well, shame on you.
You're going to get negatively graded and that they have elevated.
the compliance function to having access to the data and then using the data.
It's no, it used to be sort of a gold standard, then it moved to best practices.
Now it's just table stakes.
So that has been one evolution.
Literally, we saw that capstone last week.
When it comes to AI, obviously we're still sort of in the infancy of that, but in
the compliance realm, what the DOJ has said is it's about your data quality.
Uh, what's going in to your AI or using chat GPT, which is everyone's
data, or do you have a dedicated.
Uh, AI or generative AI rather for your company with your company's data.
How do you determine data quality and data security?
The issue I have with chat GPT and not really, I don't know if issue
is the right word, but I ask a compliance question, I get an answer.
I know if it's right or wrong because I know the answer.
The problem is if you don't know the answer and you ask a
question, you don't know if you've been given the right answer.
And so the, the best example, uh, is I think everyone's heard of the
lawyers who filed some briefs done by CHAT GPT and it turned out it
cited cases which didn't exist.
And everyone went, ah, stupid lawyers.
And yes, they were.
But the greater point is, You have to double check the information you're given
and it was that lawyer's responsibility to go site check those cases to see if
one they existed to they said what chat GPT said they did for precedent purposes.
So, I have asked chat GPT some pretty, uh, detailed questions about, uh,
risk and risk management and I've got some pretty good answers back, but I.
I'm confident I know the answers.
If you're a newbie and you put it in, you don't know the answer.
So that's the biggest problem right now.
VictoriaM: Yeah.
It's a risk.
Well, and even, Google is offering up a lot of AI based answers right now.
I've seen this myself personally, I forget what I was looking up and
I'm like, That cannot be right.
Like I was looking for resources.
Um, I think I was helping with one of my kids with a
problem, a school related thing.
And I was like, I don't think I believe this.
Right.
And so, um, it's presenting information that may or may not be factual.
In fact, one example as well that came up recently, business colleague
was telling me that, um, she had gone on in it searched on The Chemical
Summit, which is the conference that that I host that I started last year.
This is year 2 and she's like, well, it's interesting.
It came up with AI answer.
It attributed the conference to a completely different company as the
founder of the company, I don't know what's working behind the scenes, to
your point, if you don't have at least a glimmer of what the right answer
is, you could be really led astray.
Tom Fox: So the, yeah, the exact, this happened to me.
I was researching a bank fraud case from the nineties.
And the, there were two defendants, two men, one of the men was married to Linda
Carter, who was the original Wonder Woman, and I vividly remembered that,
um, you know, for all the boy reasons.
Uh, so I, I was Googling, or our chat GPT asked to tell me about the two defendants,
and they said the defendant who was married to Linda Carter, And I said, who
is the son in law of the other defendant?
I knew that wasn't right.
So I said, who is he married to?
And it gave me the daughter of the co defendant.
And I knew that wasn't right, because it wasn't listed as Linda Carter.
So the third query I said, please describe the relationship between Linda Carter
and this other woman, whoever it was.
And it came back, we are sorry, we made a mistake.
Robert Altman was married to Linda Carter, not so and so.
So one, number one, chat GPT apologized at two, it recognized it made a mistake.
But if I had known that, and it was absolutely positive about
that, when I typed it in, I would have put the wrong information in
whatever resource I was creating
VictoriaM: Well, and so this, I think is 1 of those things that
keeps people a little bit fearful.
If I come back to compliance, you know, you reference the D.
O.
J.
and I think, people's greatest fear around compliance around anti bribery
around all kinds of things, because you did not want to get called into a DOJ
query investigation, et cetera, et cetera.
So my guess is people are a bit concerned rightfully so that one of the risks
around AI, the risks around some of our digital solutions is there's a lot
of imperfect information out there.
And so sorting through that imperfect information, um, is pretty challenging.
Tom Fox: right now.
I have found it very useful in terms of, uh, new ideas.
Or give me different ways to think about things or put a transcript in
and get a 1st draft of a something.
So, it can be useful if you have a general understanding of the subject matter.
So, and I'm sure it's only going to get better, but right now, what the
DOJ said for compliance is you have to have clear visibility into the data.
The data has to be secure.
And you have to know where the answer is coming from.
And as a lawyer, if, uh, there's another example, I think it was Air Canada.
They had a, a bot that, um, customers could use on customer service questions.
And the bot told some customer, do something this
way and you'll get a refund.
And it turned out it wasn't true.
And so he sued Air Canada and Air Canada said, well, it wasn't us, it was the bot.
No, one thing I learned a long time ago, if you, if it went out under
your name, you're responsible.
Now you may have an indemnity right from somebody, but you know, if you're
in a chemical plant and there's an accident, they're going to come to you.
So the same basic legal principles apply around AI.
Once it goes out under your name, it's yours.
VictoriaM: So what role does lead do leaders play in this?
When I think about just, you know, we've touched on a variety of things
related to compliance and ethics, I guess, ties into this in some ways.
Um, whether it be HSE, data analytics, the use of AI, what role do company
leaders play in fostering that culture of compliance and, and really instilling it?
Tom Fox: Leaders are absolutely necessary.
It is absolutely necessary that they lead not simply in
thought or in word, but indeed.
And they have to talk the talk and walk the walk.
It does not work if your leaders do not.
I'm doing business ethically and compliance and demanding their company
do business ethically and in compliance.
So it's just like safety back in the 90s.
And when Exxon said, we're going to change and they did that came
straight from the top and that That principle still holds true today.
VictoriaM: All right, Tom.
So let's turn our talk to podcasting.
So you have been, uh, on the air, I guess we could say, uh, although
it's, you've been digital and on video and publishing podcasts for a
decade, primarily about compliance.
How is this influencing business and compliance?
What do you see changing from the time that you started, um, doing what you
do to where we are today in terms of the role of podcasting in business,
in compliance, in other areas?
Tom Fox: Sure.
So there for the business, there are five reasons to have a podcast.
Number one, thought leadership.
Number two, audience engagement.
Number three, relationship building.
Number four, content creation and number five conversion.
So each one of those is a little bit different and has
a little bit different focus.
You can have multiple reasons within there, but, um, you need
to have a reason for doing that.
Having said that every business should have a podcast period.
You are missing the boat if you don't have a podcast.
Over
85 million people listen to multiple podcasts per week.
And over 160 million people have listened to a podcast.
Those numbers are just incredible.
If you're not using a podcast format to publicize yourself and your company,
you're missing a incredible resource.
Number one.
Number two is from a podcast.
You can generate social media marketing content and create video grams,
audio grams, tweets, LinkedIn posts, Facebook posts, Instagram posts.
If you want to go all the way, you can do a Tik TOK post.
Um, but, uh, it's, it's.
As powerful a marketing tool as you can have, it's not going to
replace what you're doing, but it's going to supplement it.
People trust.
because of the audio format more than they trust the printed
word or even visual or video.
Uh, but if I go back to those five reasons to start a podcast, number
one, thought leadership, you want to show you're a thought leader.
Well, um, here's the great thing about a thought leadership podcast.
You get to learn from every person you talk to.
And I see around corners further and faster than anyone compliance.
It's not because I'm the smartest person is because I'm talking to the smartest
people and I'm putting all those dots together because I'm talking to everyone.
And so it gives me the ability to improve my Speaking skills, my book, writing
skills, my thought leadership skills.
Cause I'm interviewing people to, um, relationship building.
If you want to do business with a company and I'll just use myself.
I mean, Melomans and my name is Tom Fox.
I'm a solo lawyer.
I've experienced in contracts.
I'd like to talk to you about doing contract work for you.
They may or may not respond by email them and say, My name is Tom Fox.
I have this podcast network.
I want to interview you for a podcast and I want you to talk about you.
You will get 100 percent response 100 percent of the time and
it will be 100 percent yes.
Everybody wants to talk about themselves.
Uh, three relationship building, excuse me, um, content creation.
When we were getting ready for the pod, you asked me how I
managed to write all these books.
Well, it's because the podcast is a part of my content creation, a process.
It can be, um, a podcast leads to a blog post, leads to a white
paper, leads to a chapter of a book.
can be, uh, I wrote, uh, modestly, I would say the definitive compliance handbook.
And I wrote it.
And to edit and proofread, I can't just read.
I have to read out loud.
And it dawned on me that if I'm reading this out loud, that's
a podcast if I record it.
So for a year, every day, I did a podcast based upon a couple of pages
I wrote for a book and I literally had a red pen with me and every
time I saw a mistake, I circled it.
I didn't edit while I was recording.
I just circled it for later reference.
And so that worked for me.
Uh, you can kind of use the flip side of that.
Say you want to, uh, my latest book I published this summer.
Uh, I, um, did a 10 part podcast series.
On 10 separate things you have to do if you find yourself
in an enforcement action.
And I use those 10 podcasts to form the basis of 10 separate chapters for my book.
So, uh, it's a wide variety of, of ways there.
Conversion is how do you convert somebody from a top of the funnel, listener,
engager, going behind your gated website, whatever it may be to a customer.
So that's a different track as well.
I got one in there somewhere.
Um, but I'll think
VictoriaM: Well, Tom, I'm gonna, I've got a little bit to learn from you
because I do have some books on my horizon, um, leaning in, obviously, to
what I've done with the podcast, so, uh, you know, but you are way far ahead
of me on that, so I'm going to have to, um, learn some of your wisdom and
methodologies, but I agree with you.
I mean, I think, uh, Podcasting has a huge influence on business, and I certainly
see it with the folks I interview, with the conversations I have, with the
relationships I've built, um, across the industry and, you know, one of the
things that always amazes me when I, um, when I talk to people, number one, just
how personal it is, not just about me, but about the leader and the number of
times I've had, um, People tell me, oh, yeah, I listened to one of your podcast
episodes when I was going to interview with that company or with that leader,
and I understand a lot more, um, because you understand a lot more now, I would
tell you in the world of compliance, uh, if this falls into a compliance category.
Um, there's a lot of leaders that are still concerned about being on
a podcast, certainly in the chemical industry, because, um, corporate
communications doesn't want to invest relations is afraid of it.
But, you know, as as you and I talked about before we got started,
this is a friendly conversation.
You know, there are no state secrets.
It is not investigative journalism.
Uh, if you're looking for that look elsewhere.
Tom Fox: So let me give you the best answer to that.
VictoriaM: Yeah.
Tom Fox: Uh, I read about a company that started an internal podcast for
company employees only, and it was senior executives on whatever the topics were.
And it turned out that the podcast was hugely successful and not
for the reason they started it.
It was successful because it humanized the ELT, who most people had never met.
I mean, when I was in Halliburton, I think I knew one of 10 people on the ELT and
that's because he was the general counsel and I was in the legal department, but it
actually drove positive corporate culture.
Because they felt like they had a relationship with those people and
that they could sit down literally.
And if not talk to them, they could listen to them talk on a podcast.
So, uh, it can be a great boon for your corporate culture.
If your leaders talk about themselves,
VictoriaM: Love it.
Love it.
Tom, this has been fun.
Um, where can people find you and your podcasts and your podcast network?
Tom Fox: They can find the Podcast Network at www.
compliancepodcastnetwork.
net.
Uh, you can find me on LinkedIn at Thomas R.
Fox.
You can email me at tfoxx at tfoxxlaw.
com or you can call me at 832 744 0264.
If you've thought about having a podcast, um, I'd love to talk to you.
Or if you just want to chit chat, I'd love to talk to you.
VictoriaM: Awesome.
Love it.
Tom, thank you so much.
And thank you everyone today for joining us.
Keep listening, keep following, keep sharing, and we'll
talk with you again soon.