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CFOs thrive on accurate information. But in a world awash in misinformation, knowing what’s true can be challenging. That makes due diligence an increasingly important part of a CFO’s job, especially as compliance the world over becomes more complex. Understanding who your company is working with, who your customers are, and what your employees are up to are critical to avoiding non-compliance and fraud.
But where to start? Cynthia Hetherington is the CEO and founder of the Hetherington Group, an intelligence and investigations consultancy, as well as the founder of the Osmosis Institute, an international association for the development and sharing of intelligence skills. She’s an expert in open source intelligence (OSINT), the use of publicly available information in answering investigative questions, and she recently published OSINT: The Authoritative Guide to Due Diligence.
Why should organizations care about doing good due diligence? It’s a cost center for a lot of organizations and our audience is concerned with how much things cost and how much profit they produce.
We could say that chief financial officers are not out there at the front line with a shotgun protecting the gates. But yes, he or she is, because if you start making financial moves, or accepting proposals for what they look like, or not fact checking the companies you’re getting involved with, not only could you be getting in bed with a company that is fraudulent, you can crush the entire company, taking the livelihoods out of the staff.
The [chief] financial officer is the front line. They’re not the accountant at the end saying, “This is how we, at the end of the year, put our financial statements in so that we can be accountable”; they’re the front line keeping the company safe.
To keep reading about the CFO’s role in due diligence, click here.—DA
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