"Cracking Compliance"- Compliance Theory for Health and Financial Industries for the University of Miami School of Business magazine
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Compliance boot camp offers undergrads rare look at growing field
By Lauren Comander
For the third year in a row, about a dozen undergraduate students gained valuable knowledge and experience in a growing field through the School’s Compliance Boot Camp. Ranging from freshmen to seniors, they each returned to campus a week early from winter break to study the basic concepts of compliance theory and practice in the health care and financial industries. They learned from business law faculty members Anita Cava and Mark Shapiro, as well as professionals in the field, then applied the information in developing case presentations on real-life compliance failures. The Boot Camp has proven so valuable that Shapiro is offering a new undergraduate business law course, The Art and Science of Compliance, this fall.
“We are not only sowing the seeds of critical thinking and decision-making, but also exposing our high-performing, motivated students to new career options,” noted Cava, who is director of the School’s Business Ethics Program.
The Compliance Boot Camp was born from a collaboration between Cava and Clivetty Martinez, vice president for global compliance at Perrigo, a health care products company. Martinez suggested the idea while working with Cava on the School’s Executive Education Certificate Program in Latin American Health Care Compliance. For this year’s Boot Camp, Martinez flew in from Michigan to lead an interactive lecture on standard operating procedures, speak with students about what they could expect from a career in compliance and comment on their closing presentations.
In analyzing the actual cases and offering suggestions for the companies involved, the students ably demonstrated the results of their immersion experience. For example, one group examined the lack of compliance procedures at HSBC from 2006 to 2012, which facilitated laundering of drug trafficking money and transactions with terrorist nations and resulted in nearly $2 billion in fines. The students proposed ways in which the bank might increase enforcement of compliance mechanisms and restructure risk estimates. “I was impressed with their grasp of compliance topics,” Martinez said. “This Boot Camp … will serve as a fountain of new talent for companies seeking to fill positions.”
Students attended the Compliance Boot Camp for free, thanks to generous support from an alumnus and additional funding from the University’s Center for International Business Education and Research. “It’s about more than just learning compliance,” said the donor, a recent School of Business graduate who prefers to remain anonymous. “It’s about fostering ethical business behavior in students before they enter the workforce. Thanks to programs like this one, they’ll not only graduate with marketable skills and get the best jobs, but they’ll also do the right thing when they get there.”
