Meet Dawn

Q: Tell us a bit about yourself and your interests.

A: I am a mum of one who loves the ocean – I am happiest when in, on or by the sea. I sea swim all year round, I love to paddle board with my family and we also love rockpooling, trying to find lots of different local species of wildlife. During lockdown I even foraged and cooked up some seaweed from the beach, much to my family’s disgust! We are also a huge fans of the 2 minute beach clean and love to remove plastic and fishing waste from our shores at every opportunity.

Q: How would you describe what you do for your clients?

A: I help financial firms navigate the regulatory landscape. Helping them put in place efficient and effective governance, risk and compliance systems and controls or providing an independent assessment of such.

Q: Who is a typical client in your area?

A: A typical client would be a regulated firm that has identified a gap in its systems and controls or a firm looking for independent assurance that their compliance, risk and governance controls are working as effectively and efficiently as they can.

Q: Are there any trends in what’s top of mind right now for your clients? 

A: The upcoming revision of laws, rules and guidance will be on our clients minds. The impact of the proposed changes will vary depending on the licensee type but all regulated firms will need to do some kind of update to their compliance arrangements.

With the recent change to the Code of Corporate Governance and various other regulatory initiatives, both locally and internationally, Climate Risk and ESG will be at the forefront of many of our clients minds. Clients will be looking at the impact of these regulatory changes, not only on their own business, but those of their clients. They will need to be able to understand how to measure and assess those risks which is something BDO can help with.

Q: What would be your top tip to clients in a similar field who are looking to manage their risk / looking to develop their business / looking to grow operations?  

A: When considering the impact of new or emerging risks or regulatory requirements on your business be sure to document your conclusions, particularly where you have made a decision not to do something. Over the years as a regulatory supervisor for the GFSC and as an Advisory Consultant I’ve often seen firms undertake these large and complex gap analysis projects but then they do not take that final step to document all the decisions. As a result those firms will not be able to fully demonstrate their decision making process to an independent party such as the GFSC.