Veronica Stork— Chief Compliance Officer
My job is to help Daruma achieve its business goals within the boundaries of the increasing laws and regulations that apply to investment advisors. There can be a certain “big brother” aspect to what I do — when I’m checking on whether procedures have been followed in pre-clearing personal trading requests, for example.
But the more important aspect of this position is educating Daruma about our client and regulatory obligations and designing procedures that reduce the likelihood of a misstep — without getting in the way of people here doing their jobs. It’s not surprising that I gravitated toward a career in compliance. I love solving puzzles and figuring out how things work, whether it’s solving yet another Sudoku or taking apart my paper shredder to figure out why it only runs backwards (and, yes, fixing it). As CCO, I figure out how people work and how procedures can be “fixed” to accommodate regulatory requirements.
I worked in several areas of the law before I had an opportunity to move into financial services. I was attracted by the idea of helping clients figure out how to comply with regulations in the operation of their business, rather than just being involved in producing all the required documents in the right form to meet a deadline. After working at several law firms, I moved in-house to get more directly involved in problem-solving. How do we give our clients information that is useful to them and also complies with SEC disclosure obligations? How do we accommodate one client’s due diligence visit to see our people in action, while protecting other clients’ confidential information?
In the same way that “every stock counts” in Daruma’s portfolio, I want every policy or procedure we put in place to count — by catching errors before they happen, creating necessary records without interrupting workflow and supporting our responsibility to put client interests first.