Podcast S5E10 | The 3 I’s of Risk: Rahmat Amanullah

TRANSCRIPT

Kimberley Cole 0:01
This is Risky Women Radio, a show that connects, celebrates and champions women in risk regulation and compliance. We’re here to share the insights on the biggest issues in our industry and hear inspiring journeys from our global members. Sign up to our newsletter at riskywomen.org. I’m Kimberley Cole, your Chief Risky Woman.

Kimberley Cole 0:23
Welcome to Risky Women Radio. Today’s risky woman is Rahmat Amanullah. She is the Director of Business Intelligence for South Asia at Control Risks. Welcome Rahmat!

Rahmat Amanullah 0:35
Hi, Kimberley, thanks so much. Very, very happy to be here. Thanks for inviting me.

Kimberley Cole 0:40
Pleasure. So I’ll just give a quick introduction. Rahmat leads on complex multi jurisdictional assignments, delivering strategic business intelligence, due diligence, anti bribery and anti corruption risk assessments as well as compliance reviews, investigations, crisis management, and litigation support. She is currently based in India, but has had a career that was also spanning roles in London. Today’s topic is the three I’s of risk: intelligence, investigations and integrity. So really looking forward to finding out more, and we’d love to sort of start off and think about the whole ecosystem of opportunities in risk and compliance. So if you can start, Rahmat, by telling us a little bit about the work of Control Risks.

Rahmat Amanullah 1:29
Surely surely Thank you, Kimberley, I mean, Control Risks, a lot of people would know it in different ways. So for instance, the board members of companies know Control Risks as crisis managers, possibly for their businesses and investments in different parts of the world. Global Security heads would refer to the company as the best in class in terms of security, support of any kind. Perhaps compliance and risk professionals, general counsels, business development heads, as well as private equity, asset management companies, etc, would probably talk about Control Risks more as their compliance and risk trusted advisors in that domain. We also have the top technology companies probably thinking of Control Risks as cybersecurity experts, or political risk analysts in any part of the world be it any hostile environment, be it any complex jurisdiction and Control Risks is there to support, whether it’s security issues, whether it’s any kind of political regulatory issue and, or whether it’s an integrity issue. And I think that is the wonder that Control Risks is in terms of how people different people would kind of think about it and relate to the company. So I’ve been with the firm for 12 years now, across various departments and capacities. Done quite a lot of work, of course, in South Asia, where I currently am, but also in Europe, also Africa, when I was based in London. And more broadly, I think some of the work that we do is multi jurisdictional, global in nature. So for instance, running compliance programs, or risk audits, or something like that on a very global scale across 40 countries, all continents, etc. So it’s actually quite interesting to be working at Control Risks. And there’s a new challenge that you get to face every day.

Kimberley Cole 3:29
Interesting. And you didn’t actually start in compliance, did you? So sort of tell us more about where you started and how you got to where you are?

Rahmat Amanullah 3:38
Yes, that’s a very interesting, probably the most interesting thing that I, I mean compliance was not even in my mind frame in terms of pursuing a career in that field. I am an MBA and sales and marketing and strategy. That’s what I studied. That’s what I started working in, in my career. And then suddenly, I got a job at Control Risks, because they wanted a marketing person to help them figure out their goals in South Asia. So I was with them for just about a year or so. And suddenly, you have these two very large investigations that the company is doing, and somehow a stroke of luck, or whatever, I got involved in those projects, in trying to gather intelligence, which was essentially quite critical for those investigations. And that’s how I realized how interesting and unique this entire sort of space is. And once I got involved in those investigations, I think the head of our South Asia practice at the time, was very quick actually, to basically offer me a job in their compliance and investigations and intelligence team. And that’s how the journey really started. And I haven’t looked back, and it’s been incredible, to say the least.

Kimberley Cole 4:59
Well, that’s fantastic and it’ll be great to sort of explore more of what you’ve done across those 12 years. And obviously, as we said, intelligence investigations and integrity is really interesting areas that you’ve got involved in. So thinking about your journey, what are some of the most interesting lessons that you’ve kind of learned along the way?

Rahmat Amanullah 5:18
Yeah, very good question. I think one of the key things is that when I was part of the industries, when I worked for a conglomerate for several years down in Mumbai, one of the biggest conglomerates in India, I worked across their sales division, their marketing division, I worked in strategy for a bit, we also kind of started a media company, which I was sort of part of. So it was like a startup within a conglomerate. So kind of having experienced all of those things, in terms of what actually goes on in whether it’s all of these sales, marketing, business development, what are the pressures that people feel? What are the sort of day to day activities? What are the policies, procedures that are followed, actually in practice, so kind of having that experience firsthand, and then moving into compliance and risk, particularly integrity risk, and integrity risk, as you know, would cover everything from bribery, corruption, fraud, embezzlement, siphoning, etc, etc, money laundering, and so on and so forth. Just kind of understanding that perspective, and why and how that would impact teams on the ground, actual sales and marketing and BD and procurement and all of that, and vice versa. Why is it so important? What’s the importance of the compliance of the internal audit, of the legal, of all of these functions in actually ensuring that a business is sustainable, that a business is robust? I mean, my experience is basically learning that in all of these years that I’ve been and you know, they don’t actually teach you this in MBA, which is quite interesting. They don’t teach you the importance of compliance, or the importance of all of these, what we call support functions. There’s really no focus. And I’m guessing things have changed since the time I did my MBA, but I do keep in touch with my colleagues at my B School and juniors, etc. And I don’t think that realization has kind of set in as much as it should. Because no matter what the business wants to achieve, it can’t really achieve without having a solid foundation. And that solid foundation requires compliance, risk, legal, I mean, all of these functions to work together and kind of be embedded across the business, and be part of decision making have a seat at the board level. I think that’s absolutely critical. And I think that’s my main learning over the years.

Kimberley Cole 8:00
And I think that’s become increasingly apparent with a lot of the issues that we see from certainly an integrity perspective. But also, then you’ve got all of these other risks like cyber, and maybe we can talk about some of the broader risks around the sort of ESG, environment, social and governance risks as well. But I think that’s really interesting. So sort of the importance and the impact is really interesting. And the fact that there’s maybe a lack of focus, I also think the other thing that’s interesting is really the compliance and some of those areas you talked about, it’s like stopping things going wrong. And so how do you know you’re successful? Will you know that you didn’t have an issue, which is kind of proving a negative is often challenging, I think!

Rahmat Amanullah 8:49
Yes, yes, absolutely. I think in the way that we have as in Control Risks as a company, and even as a risk consulting space that we now have, of course, we offer advice and support to investors, prior to them making investments and therefore making informed decisions about really huge strategic investments, large ticket investments, as well as you know, of course, a range of sizes, and all of that. But we also support when things go wrong actually, on the ground, right. And that’s when we kind of would manage that crisis, and then figure out preventative ways of ensuring that it doesn’t happen again, or the impact is not as bad or something like that. So it’s both the things that we do. So in that way that we help companies, both pre investment and then post transaction while they are operating, even when they need to exit, what are some of the things that we can do? So we’re kind of helping them across the lifecycle of an investment, the lifecycle of companies kind of operations in a particular region, etc. And therefore over the years I think globally, investors have become more conscious and cognizant of the various kinds of risks that they face and that they may face. Our job is not just to talk or get into the nuances and depth of potential risks that clients already know about. But our job is to identify what risks in the future can they encounter, given the sort of local context, given the sector and the target and their reputation and all of that. So it’s also pre emptive, in that sense, anticipating what could happen. So in that sense, increasingly, investors are looking at us to focus on not just the traditional anti bribery and corruption and integrity risks of all kinds. That’s, of course, the very, very key concern. But ESG, as you mentioned earlier, environmental and social issues have really come to the forefront, I think, pretty much every due diligence project that we do now has a massive environmental and kind of social aspect to it. And that is essentially a combination of us speaking discreetly within the sector to understand the potential concerns, but also physically deploying to the ongoing project or whatever it is, and also trying to find out from the local communities there, what impact the project is having on them, what regulators are saying about the project, and so on, and so forth. So that I mean, ESG is really come to the forefront, particularly for investments in South Asia and other kinds of developing regions of the world. I’d also say that cybersecurity is a key concern for those companies targets, which are heavily reliant on technology for their business. And I think that’s the case with pretty much I mean, you name it, every business is reliant on that. And I see that request from investors and from other clients increasingly coming in for checking how strong cybersecurity kind of levels are in a potential acquisition target.

Kimberley Cole 12:09
Interesting. So before we dig more into those areas, and what you’ve been working on, tell us, back to your career, what do you think are some of the biggest risks that you’ve taken?

Rahmat Amanullah 12:20
Oh risks in my career! I mean, the first risk was actually entering into the compliance, intelligence and investigation space without really kind of having prior experience or even knowledge of it until I reached Control Risks and have since had excellent colleagues and managers and really sector experts, experts in anti bribery and corruption risks, experts in human rights issues, you know, environmental experts, I’ve learned from them on the job throughout. I mean, it’s thanks to this company that I can say today in hindsight, that it was a safe, safe risk to take. But yeah, I think that was very, because you know, for somebody who has studied marketing and sales, and that’s the jargon that you’re used to and you know, all of that, like the back of your hand, and strategy, and suddenly you’re thrown into this bit. And I think the reason I took up the challenge was also because I found it so interesting, and found it like, Yes, I can actually do this. And so of course, it’s a skill. And it’s an interest that I realized several years into my career, but only for the better. So I think, yeah, that’s the biggest risk thar I’ve taken.

Kimberley Cole 13:31
And I love that because I love the fact that you can see that people can have these sort of zigzagging careers. And I also think that there are a lot of skills that people can apply and bringing different perspectives to roles and to companies is also good on Control Risks for doing that. Because I do think if you just have everyone who thinks the same way, you’re not gonna get very interesting results.

Rahmat Amanullah 13:56
Totally, totally. So I think even within Control Risks, I got quite a lot of diverse opportunities. So I joined sort of gathering intelligence and figuring out what are the best sources of intelligence, how can we get it in an ethical manner, and so on and so forth. I still do that to this day. But then I also got involved in investigations, which meant a lot of computer forensic work, which meant also a lot of data analytics. I then got exposure into doing a lot of ethics and compliance work. So whether that was anti bribery and corruption, risk assessments, trainings. I mean, I’ve done marathon, anti bribery and corruption trainings across South Asia and across various sectors. And initially, I started out doing trainings with people, of course, who’ve been doing that for several years. And now I’m kind of you know, I have juniors that I’m kind of training to go with me and do such trainings in the region. Then subsequently, I also got exposure in our cybersecurity business based out of London and you know, just kind of helping support the growth and the expansion of that business across sort of Europe, Middle East, we have an incredible cyber response team. We have computer forensic, which supports all of the investigations into any of these cyber breaches. And we have a threat assessment team. And we also have a cybersecurity advisory team. So kind of just ensuring that the offerings that we have are in line with where the market is headed, we are very well placed in terms of training in terms of hiring the right technical experts, and so on and so forth. So kind of really ensuring that our cybersecurity practice is up and running. So it’s been like a variety of challenges. And now, of course, I lead the intelligence team out of South Asia.

Kimberley Cole 15:50
Fantastic. I mean, that’s really, really interesting from a sort of sales and marketing background. But if you weren’t doing this, what would have been your dream career?

Rahmat Amanullah 16:00
Very good question, I would either have been a cricketer which, if I hadn’t studied too hard, I probably would have ended up being a cricketer. I think I made a conscious decision of studying as opposed to playing too much of cricket. Or I would probably be heading the marketing and sales team of some kind of company, hoping to become the CEO sooner rather than later.

Kimberley Cole 16:30
Excellent. I love it. Well, you know, clearly, cricket is huge, huge business in India. So you know, you could have had an amazing time. Anyway, so let’s move on to our sort of three pillars that we wanted to work through intelligence, investigations and integrity, where you’ve sort of outline all of the things and I think there’s so many different interesting areas that you’ve talked about, how do you get intelligence ethically, all of the computer forensics, around investigations, etc. And then that ethics and compliance angle. You’ve already sort of spoken a bit about those areas. So when you’re working with customers, you said, there’s an element of obviously, they may have a particular project that they want you to work on, but you’re trying to also anticipate things. When you’re thinking about, outline, sort of that broad scope of how you’re working with customers?

Rahmat Amanullah 17:20
Very good question. And just before I come to that, perhaps worth noting that all of these three I’s are really kind of the way you want to look at a problem, right? So you could look at a problem from an integrity perspective, you could look at a problem, and if you wanted to get more information, you lean on intelligence to get that information. And of course, if you’d want to then figure out what the issues are, you need to do an investigation. So it’s kind of you know, obviously, how you kind of look at it. And therefore, when we scope things out, we first figure out, okay, what the issue really is, get a lot of information from our clients. In terms of say, for instance, there’s been a whistleblower complaint of some kind alleging a few malpractices, they may have named certain perpetrators, alleged perpetrators, etc, in their whistleblower complaint, and so on, and so forth. So we would, of course, review all of that information, speak to our client point of contact, try and understand any kind of context behind this, etc, what’s been going on, and then kind of try and figure out also what the client has already done, the steps they’ve already taken in their journey to resolve this issue or look further into the complaint, for instance, and then subsequently, once we have all of that information, and that is really the make or break of a case, if you don’t scope it right at the beginning, if you don’t kind of get all of the information, you need to understand what the client problem really is. And then of course, you need to translate that onto paper when you’re scoping it out. I mean, if you get it wrong at that stage, then the entire investigation becomes pretty futile. So that’s where we do make a key investment in terms of take time and energy to kind of really plan out what needs to be done. And that’s only when you spend enough time figuring out what the issues are, and so on and so forth. So I think that is really a key thing. And then of course we would, based on whatever information we received from the client, we would put together a scope of work outlining what we would achieve, the questions that we would answer, the methodology that we would use. So intelligence gathering, of course, can be discrete, can be overt. It could be public records, it could be discrete human sources, it could be sources in the deep and dark web. It could be sources in government, sort of agencies, etc. So you could have multiple, so we need to figure out what the best way forward is based on discussions with the client. And then of course, we have timelines, client’s budgets and all of that, that we need to keep in mind when we’re scoping it. And, of course, if there are any kind of regulatory commitments that our clients have, in terms of disclosure of certain things to a regulator, and if they want us to work towards helping them provide deliverables in a manner which would help them internally to communicate with the regulators, or any other stakeholders, internal or external, we would, of course, keep that in mind and work with the client to basically support them throughout that process.

Kimberley Cole 20:34
Really interesting. And can you give us some examples around particular industries that you’ve worked on around investigations? And maybe that brings to life even some of those areas that you was talking about scoping out?

Rahmat Amanullah 20:47
Absolutely. I think there isn’t really an industry where we haven’t worked to be very honest. So you name it. And, you know, I could probably give you several examples. But perhaps let me quickly just maybe speak about a few. So one would certainly be in the manufacturing space, we do a lot of work, whether that is any kind of equipment manufacturer, whether it’s a pharmaceutical manufacturer, or a pharma company, for instance. So we’ve done a lot of investigations of late and as you know, I think during COVID, the number of deals in the pharmaceutical sector and the number of deals in hardcore technology companies, these two were the ones where we had the maximum investor interest. So from that perspective, a lot of startups, a lot of midsize technology firms, we kind of looked into pharmaceutical sort of biotech and all of these companies we looked into, I mean, this I’m talking about from more of a kind of investigative due diligence perspective, figuring out if there are any potential risks and vulnerabilities from an investment point of view. But if you look at hardcore investigations, I’d say in the last six months or so we’ve investigated, again, companies making counterfeit pharma products, for instance, companies, which are again in some shape or form into manufacturing. We’ve also looked at a lot of financial services companies, whether they are non banking financial companies, or even banks that we’ve looked into for a host of issues, right from lapses in following SOPs to frauds, embezzlement and siphoning of funds, all of these issues we’ve investigated. So yeah, I think those will be some key top of my head examples.

Kimberley Cole 22:33
And you kind of mentioned earlier about the importance of sort of compliance and managing risks, and the impact and how you use that, I guess, as an enabler to make sure that the business is sustainable and robust. So I guess once again, maybe picking I remember we had a conversation around alcoholic beverages, and what was the requirement and how you were looking at that industry? So I’d love to hear more about that.

Rahmat Amanullah 23:01
Yes, absolutely. I’m glad you remember that. That is, I think one of the key sectors that at least in India, we’ve worked on extensively, and I have personally worked in, wherein I think there isn’t an international alcobev company operating in India that we haven’t supported, or investigated, for that matter. So and as you know, or maybe not many people may be familiar, but the regulatory environment in the alcobev sector in India, is excessively anal, for lack of a better word. It’s essentially, when you’re sending or when you’re transporting any form of alcoholic beverage from one stage to another, you need an export license to export it, it’s officially called an export, you need an import license, if you’re receiving it in your state. Every player in this sector, right from the raw material provider, to the manufacturer, to the transporter to the distributor to the warehouse company to the retailer. I mean, everybody is responsible to basically provide details of their business and details to the excise officials in the country and excise officials are there in every state, they actually sit in the factories, they actually sit at the distribution hubs. So you have to report to them on a daily basis, sometimes even multiple times in a day. So it’s very, very regulated, and of course, heavily taxed. And as you can imagine, when you have so much of interaction with government officials, there are bound to be severe issues of corruption. And that was a real challenge for us when companies a few years ago, certain companies which figured out that there were issues in their operations in India came to us, asking us for advice and support in terms of a) can you investigate what’s going on b) can you help us clean this up and c) what do we have to do to kind of be compliant to international anti bribery and corruption laws. So across all of these three domains, I think we worked. And of course, these assignments take time, and you can’t come up with answers in a short span of time. So it took months for us to kind of support these companies and their sort of boards, and also their local CEOs to figure out what was going on and all of that. And I think the key thing, the key development, from our association with all of these alcobev companies, was really that we were then invited by the association of these companies in India, to basically talk them through our findings, because ultimately, in order to find a solution to a sector, which is prone to systemic corruption, change, yes can happen, one company can lead that change, but it will not be sustainable if the others don’t join hands together and work towards a common goal. And that’s what we tried to then do through that association, which is to essentially get several of these large alcobev companies to work together to find solutions to fight all of these issues, including, of course, corruption being the main one. And I think that is what sort of came out as a very big learning, even for us because if a sector as complex and as challenging as alcobev in India can figure out challenges and can try and work in a compliant manner, there is really no reason why other sectors can’t!

Kimberley Cole 26:47
That’s a fantastic example. And I was, that was going to be my next question is, what does success look like? Because I think often with risk programs, it’s often hard to identify when it’s done. Well, as we were saying, like if you’ve stopped something happening, or your anticipated that something needs to change. Have you got other examples of what success looks like, if you like have a strong risk program?

Rahmat Amanullah 27:12
Yes, absolutely. I think one very good example would be the telecom infrastructure sector in India. And again, you had long history, but I won’t get into that. But essentially, in the last sort of seven to eight years, you started seeing international investors trying to pick up stake in these massive telecom infrastructure companies in India, which were essentially earlier, homegrown companies started off as telecom operators, who then diversified into having telecom towers, basically, to expand their network, get more customers, etc, etc. So those companies very soon the homegrown telecom operators figured out that actually expanding into or diversifying into the telecom infrastructure space is fine. But that’s not their core competency. And it’s a dedicated business in itself, which has its own set of challenges. And again, setting up telecom towers and managing telecom towers is, again, a very, very, what should I say, a messy business in the sense that in every city, you have a different set of regulations that you have to follow. So it doesn’t even change state wise, some cities have a totally different requirement. So it’s, you know, you reporting and having these licenses and permits for every telecom tower that you have. And of course, companies have 1000s and 1000s of telecom towers in the country, right. So imagine the complexity of that. And I think the first biggest deal that happened in the sector, we conducted the due diligence, on the homegrown telecom company, and of course, found a lot of issues, including the total lack of licenses and permits for the existing telecom towers. And that was a time in India, when actually most telecom towers operated like that, they were not fully licensed. And then, of course, we figured out all of these issues and also supported the client in figuring out mitigation measures, that yes, this is the scenario, but what is it that you’ll need to do in order to post acquisition in order to set things right? And then, you know, what are the timelines involved? And what support can you get from the company from other external advisors, etc, etc. So we kind of worked towards that. And I think since then, we’ve looked into every kind of meaningful telecom infrastructure provider in the country. And that sector as a whole has really evolved in the sense that compliance is really, if not at the top, at least top three things that CEOs of these companies are thinking about. I’m looking at. And I think all of this has been brought into where it is now, because of international investors who do have high standards who do have international regulation that they’re accountable to. And therefore, you can’t really have issues, when things are in the gray or things are shady, or you need to have a clean business model, you need to do business cleanly. And I think that sector has evolved in a way that CEOs are very conscious of compliance and of how important that is. So yeah, that’s a positive example.

Kimberley Cole 30:34
Interesting, like around those collaboration, as well, to drive a lot of this. And also just that ability to try to navigate how all of these regulations etc, can come together. But that risk mitigation and really enabling business, I think, is a really interesting point. So you talked about obviously, now, some of those industries have really raised the bar in terms of where they came from, or where they are now. I mean, when you think about other areas, other companies or other industries, who were doing risk and compliance well, which ones are those? And what are the impacts you’ve seen there?

Rahmat Amanullah 31:11
Good question, I’d say there are quite a few financial services companies that are doing really well, in terms of keeping compliance up front and center in what they do. And I’m talking about companies operating in South Asia, unless you want me to talk about the sort of investors and what kind of investors are more conscious, or what sectors.

Kimberley Cole 31:35
No, I guess it’s any perspective. Because I guess even from the customer perspective of what is that drive? Does that give you more confidence? Does that mean that you trust those companies or those industries more, etc?

Rahmat Amanullah 31:48
Yeah, absolutely. Generally, I think and let me start from our clients’ perspective. And honestly, the way that things have evolved, at least in the last 12 years that I’ve been witness to firsthand, you know, the questions that investors are asking us, it’s no longer and this is, I think, done to death with in terms of I’m sure, this has been spoken about a lot. But of course, it’s my first hand experience as well, that what may have started off as tick the box exercise 15 years ago, actually, is no longer that. People are invested in understanding the risks with, of course, the opportunities there, but a understanding the risks and be taking measures to mitigate it, or even walking away from the deal. Right? I didn’t have that many examples of people walking away from deals 12 years ago. Now I have more examples of that as well. So that kind of talks, of course, we’re not deal breakers here. We of course, want the investment to move forward. But of course, the risk and opportunity that the weighing that the client has to do, they need to kind of figure out whether the investment is worth the risks. And hence, I mean, I’ve seen that trend, again, nothing to be too proud of, but certainly that just shows that at least investors are not thinking about doing business by hook or by crook, rather, there is genuineness in their intentions, and in the manner in which they want to kind of do business. I think that’s a positive thing.

Kimberley Cole 33:19
Yeah, definitely. That it’s no longer just to tick the box exercise. That’s fantastic.

Rahmat Amanullah 33:23
Yes, yes. And I think in terms of the companies here in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Maldives, the countries that we cover, there is certainly increased cognizance of compliance challenges, etc. And I think the conglomerates in India, the big conglomerates have, of course, I think been the first to adapt to compliance challenges, and really take it head on and give them the respect that they deserve. But there are other sort of examples as well, of smaller mid sized companies, which are very well run. So I think it’s, of course, the understanding and the importance of Compliance and Risk sort of management is certainly increasing. But of course, there’s still a very long way to go.

Kimberley Cole 34:17
Oh, that was going to be my last couple of questions here to wrap this section up. But what areas still requires more focus? And then I guess, to end on a positive, what improvement or something that you’ve seen recently, or it doesn’t even have to be recently but from your perspective, what is most exciting new about the progress that’s been made? So what needs more focus? And then what’s the great thing that’s happening?

Rahmat Amanullah 34:44
Absolutely. So I think companies and businesses starting up or operating in this part of the world, certainly can do very well. If they were to look at legal and compliance and bring opinions and views from their compliance risk legal counterparts, and include that in their business development, strategy, discussions and conversations. So, for instance, how much is a conglomerate strategy team in India or in Bangladesh or whatever is talking to their legal compliance risk counterparts, I mean, colleagues, and really involving them in those strategy discussions, I don’t think a lot of it is happening. So there’s definitely scope for more, because this is again, firsthand experience, you will not face a problem or a bad problem in the future, if you take care of it. And think about it and sort of anticipate, envisage something like that. And envisage a scenario like that right at the beginning. And you know, have a solid contract, for instance, have certain SOPs and policies in place, hire the right kind of people. So I think that is one side of the story. The other side of the story, which I said right in the beginning, is actually I wouldn’t say teaching people about ethics and integrity, and all of these risk issues, but really, at least bringing about some level of sensitivity about the importance of these things, at the B school level, at the kind of postgraduate level, and I don’t think we’re having those many conversations, particularly in B schools, because most people from B schools then go and run these companies and businesses, startups. So you need to have these discussions at that stage and sort of sensitize them with the importance, because what I see and I still see is, you know, how strong is the business model? How much money are we going to make? Are the fundamentals of the revenue model? Strong? How is the economy doing? How is this doing, and there you have a business partner, that is critical to your growth of your business, who basically defrauds you, and that’s the end of your strategy, or you’ve just selected, you know, you don’t have the right policies and procedures in place, which means you have leakages across your supply chain, and you’re running into losses, or whatever it is. So if you’re not going to be conscious and sensitive of these things, right in the beginning, or as a professional as a person, if you’re not sensitive and conscious of these things, or, for instance, I’m giving you very micro examples, but real examples, on a macro level, if you have a regulation that completely, for instance, plastic in India, we have a regulation in terms of regulating the use of plastic in the country. And pretty much every business uses plastics, particularly the businesses, which are into packaging. And we did have a client who was investing into a plastics manufacturer and kind of company, which was also into logistics and all of that. And one of the key things was that with the new regulation, that business model, I mean, part of it, it makes the business model irrelevant, that regulation, introduction of that regulation. So then that company should have had some thinking behind it, because obviously, it wasn’t that the regulation came in suddenly. There was talk about it, there were discussions about it, and eventually it ended up there. But being conscious of regulation, political issues, political risks, even security risks, we have so many companies wherein because of the violence and because of the impact that a particular project has had in a local area, have had to either disengage and go to another state, stop their operations in one state and relocate to another state. Imagine the cost involved of doing that midway into your project, or not be able to start in a particular state after you’ve hired so many people and started an office.

Kimberley Cole 38:52
So it’s like the risk of not collaborating, not using all of the skills and knowledge that you have, and as you say, making sure that even the graduates who are coming out have a broader view of the importance of risk and compliance.

Rahmat Amanullah 39:06
Absolutely.

Kimberley Cole 39:07
I think some great advice there for everybody. And now we’re going to wrap up that section and move on to our fun rants and revelations. So what’s the one thing that if you had a magic wand that you would change? If Rahmat was ruler of the world for the day? What would you do?

Rahmat Amanullah 39:28
I would stop all conflict in the world!

Kimberley Cole 39:32
Excellent! So world peace would be your your revelation that you would say we have world peace.

Rahmat Amanullah 39:39
I feel like a contestant for Miss World contest!

Kimberley Cole 39:46
Excellent, Miss Risky Woman. And what about your rant? What’s the one thing that really annoys you that you would like to see done differently or something that you would change?

Rahmat Amanullah 40:02
I mean, again, not entirely related to my work. But I think the manner in which governments not just in my country, but in several other countries, kind of just don’t get it right. In terms of good governance. I think that is just too terrible to keep see history repeating itself, too terrible to see people making the same mistakes. Yeah, it’s unfortunate. And it’s really something that annoys me.

Kimberley Cole 40:34
That’s great. Okay. So just to wrap up, though, we want a couple of Risky Women Recommendations. So what’s a book that you would suggest everyone read, and something worth watching?

Rahmat Amanullah 40:45
So there’s a book called Radical Candor, which is a very nice book, which I recently read. And it’s just about kind of being a good manager. And I think that something that people can use universally, I’m forgetting the name of the author. But it’s called Radical Candor. So that is certainly something worth reading. I’m also reading the book that recently won the Booker, which is but in Hindi. And this is the book that for the first time, a book in Hindi, won the Booker, and it was also translated into English. And that’s by a lady called Shree. It’s called Tomb of Sand. And it’s a tome, it’s that fat. I’ve a long way to go.

Kimberley Cole 41:29
So we need a good holiday to go and lay on the beach and read that one.

Rahmat Amanullah 41:34
Yes, yes, absolutely.

Kimberley Cole 41:35
And what about anything to watch and your favorite podcasts?

Rahmat Amanullah 41:39
Actually, honestly, I’ve not had time to watch or listen to anything!

Kimberley Cole 41:45
Well, that’s fair enough, but at least you’re reading something. So that’s good.

Rahmat Amanullah 41:48
And of course, I think just generally, and this trend has stopped in many places of the world with the advent of news on your phone, but just reading the newspaper, and we still get the newspaper in this part of the world. It’s something that out of habit we can’t live without. And when I moved to London, this was my biggest complaint that you don’t get newspapers delivered to your doorstep every day. And it was a pain reading the news on my phone on my small phone screen, it was just painful. So yeah, I think reading the newspaper back to back is something that one must do, because that just kind of a) opens up your head and gives you a lot of perspective.

Kimberley Cole 42:49
I do like getting the physical newspapers on the weekend. I’m a reader back to back on the weekend, but during the week, I am a bit of a skim on my iPad. Well, it’s been absolutely fantastic talking to you. And it’s been absolutely fascinating as well, to learn more about intelligence, investigations and integrity. I think we covered a lot of ground and I want to thank you very much for joining us on this podcast Rahmat. So thanks for coming along.

Rahmat Amanullah 42:56
Thank you so much, Kimberley, and it was absolutely lovely to speak to you. And thank you so much for inviting me to do this. And I look forward to being associated with Risky Women.

Kimberley Cole 43:06
Excellent. Great to have you as a Risky Woman tribe member.

Rahmat Amanullah 43:11
Very proud to be one. Thank you so much.

Kimberley Cole 43:15
Thank you for listening to this episode of Risky Women Radio, be part of the ongoing conversation and learn more about our events and other programs at riskywomen.org