Vice President and Chief Risk & Compliance Officer, Fti Consulting
Search every verified Matthew Pachman interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Matthew Pachman, Vice President and Chief Risk & Compliance Officer at FTI Consulting, discussed his career and views on ethics and compliance in a September 2024 interview with the University of Illinois Gies College of Business. Pachman described entering the field after the WorldCom scandal, where he was asked to start an ethics program at MCI as the company emerged from bankruptcy. He later held similar roles at Freddie Mac and Altegrity before joining FTI Consulting. Pachman characterized the role of a chief ethics officer as akin to a "burglar alarm" salesperson, working with management to identify and mitigate risks, while maintaining the ability to report issues to the board if necessary. In the interview, Pachman identified privacy issues as a major current risk, citing rapidly changing laws in Europe and the United States. He also discussed corporate social responsibility (CSR), stating that while it may not always fall under the ethics officer's purview, a strong CSR program can positively influence corporate culture. Pachman emphasized the importance of learning from the history of the ethics profession and cautioned against its "commoditization," noting that the role requires a shift from a lawyer's mindset to a programmatic, problem-solving approach.
“It was at that point that the company came to me and asked me if I could start an ethics program at the company as it emerged and tried to reform itself.”
“To be a strong ethics and compliance officer, you need to be able to make that shift from thinking like a lawyer to thinking like someone who is responsible for a program, someone who is trying to achieve something from a programmatic perspective.”
“The typical lawyer is like the policeman on South Park who says, hey, nothing to see here, everybody go away, there's nothing here. Whereas the compliance officer and the ethics officer have to say, okay, let's find the problems, let's shine light on the problems, let's let everybody know what those problems are so tha...”
“You absolutely need to be in a position to stand up and say, I see something that's wrong here that needs to be fixed. And if you have to, take that all the way up to the top of the organization.”
“I'm like the guy who sells you burglar alarm services for your house. I'm going to go into your house, I'm going to look around, I'm going to see all the places where things can go wrong... And the point of that analogy is, I'm working with you. I'm independent, but I'm not an outside regulator. I am not the vice princ...”
“Many of us are consumed with privacy-type issues. The privacy laws are changing so dramatically in Europe and in the United States and elsewhere that the chances of someone violating something there and there being a significant fallout from that are tremendous.”
“We just heard about the Houston Astros baseball scandal and the players who were cheating and calling out pitches. And that's just traditional bad ethical behavior. It's famous because of who did it, but it's traditional bad ethical behavior.”
“Corporate social responsibility is an incredibly important thing for corporations and other businesses. A good CSR program can be really important in influencing culture overall... That makes a big deal for purposes of culture and that, of course, can affect ethics and compliance.”
“The concept of an ethics and compliance officer simply saying CSR isn't mine, I think is short-sighted. Whether CSR should report to the ethics and compliance officer, I think that's a more complex question.”
“This is an area where some of our professional associations and others can help us. Understanding where we came from and hearing stories that people tell are really important because there is no internet article that can really convey to you all of the things you need to understand or that you're going to face in this...”
“I learned about the allegations of fraud the same way most people did. I saw it on television the night it was announced. And obviously the next day in the office was an interesting day. At the time I was still doing litigation and administrative law for that company. And at a certain point the phone rang and it was th...”
“There was a culture at what had been WorldCom that was not a very strong culture when it came to ethical behavior. And there were a lot of things that weren't in the news that required cleanup. They weren't as sexy, they weren't as troubling to the rest of the country, but they involved minor things like petty fraud an...”
“The role is not just about being the vice principal or being the cop, far from it. It's about saying, okay, how am I going to take a group that may have had a bad tone at the top, may have had a not particularly healthy culture and turn that around.”
“Most ethics and compliance officers, the real fear that they have is something that blows up on their watch. And in my case, that wasn't what was happening. I was coming in after the wrongdoing had been revealed. And so I was doing more cleanup work.”
“For me, as the first compliance and ethics officer at MCI, there was a fair amount of support because of course everyone knew we had just gone through this terrible event and I think most of the employees were thinking yeah, the whole group needs a shower if you will. When you're appointed after a crisis, there's a lit...”
Matt Pachman, J.D., is the Chief Risk and Compliance Officer at FTI Consulting. Mr. Pachman is responsible for overseeing the ...
Matt Pachman, J.D., is the Chief Risk and Compliance Officer at FTI Consulting. Mr. Pachman is responsible for overseeing the ...
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