Volkswagen’s Hiltrud Werner – “Compliance has no Finish Line”
I first met Hiltrud over 12 years ago when she was an Internal Audit leader at BMW. She was already breaking the mould then, with her vision and clear thinking. Now, as the Volkswagen board member for Integrity and Legal Affairs, she is leading the renaissance of the company with a whole new risk management and compliance culture, framework and processes.
In a candid interview, with important lessons for all business leaders, not just risk management and compliance executives, Hiltrud describes the birth of the global initiative “Together4Integrity”, the implementation of their 10 point risk management plan, the framework, processes, procedures, internal controls and assurance monitoring, for a business with over HALF A MILLION employees, group-wide!
We all know that the competitive drive for performance in business can easily be polluted if there is no balance in business objectives, measures and rewards.
Hiltrud may be the only woman on the board at Volkswagen, but a lot has changed. With her 30 years in the automotive industry, she understands the business processes better than most. A good stint in internal audit has helped too!
The difference between a project or initiative and a process, is that a process does not have an end date. The observation in this interview that “compliance does not have a finish line!” resonated strongly with me.
I recommend reading this interview for 3 reasons:
- It is a thought-provoking insight on the realities of driving genuine business change in a global organization
- It offers guidance on making global risk management and compliance an effective reality
- It demonstrates the power and positive influence of women in leadership
It is a 5 minute read, but you may, like me, return to it several times. You can find the full interview here
Our ‘Something To Consider’ snippets are framed as small, digestible, ‘dashes of insight’ around the pillars of what we define as “World Class Finance” – Process Optimization, Financial Control and Compliance, and Risk Assurance, all underpinned by technology enablement and integration.