INTERVIEW WITH DR. KLAUS MOOSMAYER – NOVARTIS CHIEF ETHICS, RISK & COMPLIANCE OFFICER

Dr. Klaus Moosmayer, Ph.D. will be speaking at Corporate Parity’s upcoming 4th Annual Global Anti-Corruption and Compliance Summit.

In addition to his role as Novartis Chief Ethics, Risk & Compliance Officer, Klaus Moosmayer is chair of the Anti-Corruption Task Force of the Business and Industry Advisory Committee at the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD); co-founder and chair of the European Chief Compliance and Integrity Officers’ Forum; former co-chair of the B20 Integrity & Compliance Task Force under the G20 presidency of Argentina; and former chair of the task force under the G20 presidency of Germany. He has published numerous articles, including:

Businesses can and must make a difference in the fight against corruption

Taking the fight against corruption to the demand side of bribery

Responsible Business Conduct: A Conversation with Klaus Moosmayer

He has also published the following books (in the German language):

Internal Investigations

Compliance

Corporate Compliance

Compliance – Risk AnalysisAnti-Bribery Risk Assessment

Read our exclusive interview with Dr. Klaus Moosmayer below.

What is Novartis’ outlook for the future, and plans for this year specifically?

Novartis is on a business transformation journey to reimagine medicine. We are focusing on innovative transformational medicine that extends to cutting-edge developments in medicine. One example is Cell & Gene Therapy. This goes hand-in-hand with what we want to achieve in our Ethics, Risk & Compliance function. Novartis deeply believes in the unique leadership culture we are currently putting in place in the company.

It requires leaders to be servants who remove barriers and encourage their people to be curious and inspired and to speak up and share their ideasбas well as take more responsibility for what we do. As we all know, this is also the basis for a good compliance system in the company. We want everyone at Novartis to feel inspired by our purpose to reimagine medicine and to feel empowered every day to be their best self, to achieve their personal and professional goals and to live our values and behaviors.

We need leaders who serve their teams, enabling them to reach their full potential, take smart risks and learn from failures. We need associates to be compassionate to one another, be externally focused and constantly curious about new ideas that can produce better out comes for patients, physicians, customers and healthcare systems.

You were one of the esteemed speakers at the annual OECD Anti-Corruption and Integrity Forum. This year, they had an interesting focus on technology the risks and opportunities of new technologies for anti-corruption and integrity. What is your view on the fast changing technology landscape in today’s world? 

This is a wonderful topic. I have had the honour to serve as Chair of the Anti-Bribery Committee of Business at the OECD for several years and I have personally witnessedthese developments. Technology is moving very fast and this is a positive development. As a result of digitalized systems, we can draw from data mining to prevent misconduct and predict trends. At the same time, it provides needed transparency and lowers the burden for people to manually assess risks. We are all challenged with structuring the data to gain the most valuable insights on a daily basis, but we are making constant progress.

On the more critical side, we need to ask, “How reliable are the sources of information?” Social media is great – it provides additional transparency and issues can no longer be hidden under the table, but the real question is “What is real news and what is fake news?” This is of great importance for ethics, risk and compliance. Today we have journalists and as well as activists, so we need to have big debates at the OECD andother platforms on how we contribute in this fast changing world.

Any recommendations to how private sectors and civilians can be actively engaged in fighting against corruption?

I always say, “We win together or we lose together”. Whether we are the public sector, private sector or civil society (including NGOs), we have to overcome silo thinking and fight together for the same goals. This means we have to overcome mistrust and do benchmarking (of which the OECD is a great platform to have this open discussion). We also have to accept that the issues are the same whether you are a private company, a public entity, civil society oran NGO, so we need to increase our dialogue. In addition, each needs a good compliance system.

What difference do you find being a lawyer and being an in-house senior compliance executive?

That is a great question. I would say being a lawyer never hurts, because the skills you learn give you a toolbox that equip you in compliance to ask the right questions and be able to understand highly sophisticated legal systems and regulation. However, being a lawyer is not enough to be a successful in-house compliance officer. I have always had the policy that we need people from diverse professional backgrounds in an ethics, risk and compliance function. We need good lawyers, but even more, we need people from sales, procurement and other functions. To win the trust of the business, you have to understand the business. At the same time, it is such a great message if you can build a career in ethics, risk and compliance and then go back into the business or continue your career in industry. This has an extremely positive impact on the reputation of the function.

This year, we are pleased to engage senior executives from sports organizations. Do you agree that major sports organizations should play active roles in promoting ethics, integrity and compliance? 

Absolutely. Sports are a very important part of our lives, and the leaders in this area should be role models for society. For this reason alone, they should be required to be transparent, follow rules and fight corruption. Sports are in the center of all our hearts and minds and they need to be part of the game.

What do you look forward to discussing at the 4th Annual Global Anti-Corruption and Compliance Summit? What is the desired outcome of the event for you?

With so many experienced professionals from all kinds of backgrounds, we should really be able to go beyond classic compliance, policies, training and implementation, and definitely discuss the benefits and risks of social media. This is a big topic. We should put the point on the table as an industry, and be proud of what we have achieved. I believe we should also open up the discussion to all levels of society and this should be the focus of the conference.

When not busy with anti-corruption work, how do you like to spend your free time?

I think the best medicine is a healthy family and good friends. I spend my free time with them as well as enjoying sports, culture and my vintage car.

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