What is the mantra by which you work?

“Put clients first and everything else will follow”. This quote by BBH Partner Douglas (Digger) Donahue is not just a company catch phrase. It’s the first tenet in how our team operates, our number one priority. We live by client service.

When it comes to helping clients meet their operational, regulatory and control needs, keeping them safe doesn’t always mean doing exactly what they want. Sometimes it means working together to find the right solution.

All asset managers should expect that mentality of their service providers. To do it right, the product, client service, operations and control teams must work together to ensure things align not only from a regulatory and control perspective, but also to address market needs and pain points.

Managing risk for our clients is a round-the-clock endeavour. Tell us a little about your typical day?

I start very early! My role is global in nature, and I end up working in all time zones. People are also surprised to hear how client-facing my role is as I spend a lot of time in client meetings and planning client engagement efforts. While it’s easy to think of policy as black and white, there is actually a lot of grey area and that’s where ongoing, direct communication with clients helps ensure we get to a solution that’s right for the client and BBH.

We must keep in mind that most of the services we are providing to clients are serving a client’s regulatory and/or risk management obligation. We must make sure our services meet those client needs while at the same time ensure BBH is compliant with our own regulatory and risk management requirements. When we get it right, we do both extremely well.

So, I start my day by addressing what’s happened overnight and handle calls with teams and clients in Europe and Asia. By noon, I’m checking in on systems development and then switching over to service U.S. teams in the afternoon.

My TA AML/Sanctions and Regulatory Product team is organized to support the global nature of our TA work with subject matter experts in each region who stay steeped in the local regulatory and industry landscape. Their on-the-ground insight coupled with the systems expertise of our teams in the U.S. and Krakow allow us to provide clients with proactive, differentiated service like our T-Up alerts and custom TA solutions like Client Transaction Monitoring Reporting Services.

While the expansion of my role to cover Service Delivery Regulatory, Control and Compliance is brand new, the approach will be similar. I’ll work with Service Delivery business line owners to enhance our approach to governance, program, practice, and process across Service Delivery.

What personal passions impact your professional role?

I am an avid but very amateur equestrian in my spare time, and I have an Irish sport horse named Qualtiko.

There are a few areas where my hobby influences my work:

• Partnership - To ride, you must be working in trusting partnership with your horse. The same can be said of my relationship with my teams. None of us can provide this service to clients alone – we must work together toward common goals.
• Leadership – riding with Qualtiko requires give and take between us. This is something I bring to my job every day. As a leader, I’m responsible for knowing when to motivate and coach and when to listen.
• Resilience – no place does the saying “get back in the saddle” apply more than in actual horseback riding – falling off is tough! But we must put things in perspective and take one moment at a time. I bring this same sense of fearlessness to the table to work in partnership with teams and clients in a complex industry where failures can happen but don’t stop us from constant improvement.

If you could go back in time, what would you tell yourself on your first day at BBH?

I’d say “get ready, it’s going to be a wild ride!” I’d also remind myself to stay focused on the big picture. It’s my 20-year BBH anniversary in July and I’m still in awe of the unexpected and exciting.

BBH develops people by moving them around functionally and sometimes geographically and I’ve benefited greatly from that, holding roles in Service Delivery as well as Compliance and working in both the Boston and Luxembourg offices. I’ve never been pigeon-holed because I am a lawyer, instead I became a value resource because of it. BBH is a great place to grow your career.