Excellence in Financial Services
Linda Gallagher
U.S. Leader of Financial Services Regulatory Practice
KPMG
When Linda Gallagher founded KPMG's financial services compliance practice 18 years ago, clients' needs were very different than they are today. "The issue most in vogue then was around fair lending and anti-discrimination," Gallagher says. "The focus was on compliance. It was about helping companies comply with very technical and detail-oriented laws and regulations."
In contrast, she estimates that the regulatory practice today is only about two percent compliance-driven and 98 percent strategy-driven. "Today's regulations are about concepts like consumer protection, which is a much harder-to-gauge standard. It's not always straightforward to know if your actions can be seen as deceptive or misleading," she says.
This evolution has also "changed the kind of employees and skills sets required by our clients. There's a well-known war for talent in compliance … and it's meant that I now spend the majority of my time in recruiting. It's my job to make sure that our new hires are up to the challenge of the rapidly changing marketplace. We're on track to double our staff this year and are hiring as quickly as we can, averaging two to three offers per week. Demand isn't abating."
And the competition for talent isn't just coming from inside the profession. "Our clients are trying to rapidly add staff, as are the regulators," she says.
Part of the challenge is to find senior talent that has developed deep knowledge in a variety of ways. "By design, I felt it was really important that we got former regulators, former industry executives, and seasoned career consultants all represented in our teams. They each come to client problems from different perspectives," she says.
The needs are across all staff levels, but "we've found that the best approach is to find the best athlete. Unless it runs counter to your business model, it's hard to go wrong hiring the best."
—J.S.
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