Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hi everyone. Today we're going to learn how the right kind of Speak up program can bridge generational, cultural and organizational divides. I'm your host, Bill Coffin and this is the Ethicast.
On March 29th, 30th and 31st, Ethisphere will host the 2026 Global Ethics Summit. Held live in Atlanta, Georgia and virtually online.
This leading ethics and compliance event brings together leaders from nearly 500 organizations around the world, representing more than 60 industries as they share innovations, insights and best practices that help them tackle the real world ethics and compliance challenges that face companies everywhere. There is an enormous amount of content in this year's agenda, including interactive workshops such as One Speak Up Program, Many Voices Bridging Generational, cultural and Organizational Divides. This session directly addresses the challenges of navigating the different expectations and communication preferences of a diversified workforce. It covers how you can create a Speak up program that delivers the same levels of trust and confidence to your 22 year old warehouse worker in Manila as it does to your 55 year old manager in Munich and your stateside legal team.
Joining us today is this workshop's leader, Neila Gomez. She is a seasoned compliance, ethics and enterprise sales leader currently serving as VP Growth and Commercial Strategy for North America at SpeakUp where she shapes the region's strategic direction. With deep experience at companies including Oracle, Navex Global and Marketo, NELA combines expertise in enterprise sales with a strong focus on ethical integrity, risk mitigation and embedding sustainable compliance programs across complex operations. Nella, welcome to the Ethicast. It's great to have you.
[00:01:50] Speaker B: Thank you so much for having me today.
[00:01:51] Speaker A: Val, what are you most looking forward to sharing with our attendees?
[00:01:55] Speaker B: So this is really exciting because obviously SpeakUp has hosted and attended a lot of events, but we're most excited about this one because this workshop is truly going to be one that will allow compliance leaders to get get out of it with some really practical and immediately usable information.
What they will get at the workshop is truly ideas that not only will they have them to be able to use with their teams, but they will leave with a concrete 90 day plan that they can take straight back to their teams and be able to use with their organizations. That's huge because often I have heard it in my many years in the ethics, compliance and software that a lot of people just want to come out with workshops with something that they can do and use with their teams. And so we have truly designed this session to be highly interactive with peer problem solving, real life case studies drawn from challenges that we hear from other teams and really from organizations that have shared this with us that are facing those challenges right now.
In addition, the big focus, Julie, is to bridge generational and cultural divides in Speak up programs. That's becoming really apparent and not something that has been really studied or understood yet. So this is going to be a really cool workshop for us to focus and talk with other companies and compliance leaders. And it's something that we see every day working with organizations around the world. And it's something that we should focus on.
So whether you're a global enterprise or a smaller company, really those challenges show up in different ways and also in international organizations and in our international experience with SPICA being headquartered in Amsterdam, we truly do have an emphasis in seeing that across the globe. And it shows up and it allows us to share what actually works across different contexts. And so we're excited, excited to walk through this workshop with everyone and I'm really looking forward to helping our attendees kind of tackle those real life challenges and problems that they're dealing with and to co create the solutions with real, realistic, not just theoretical solutions. What I'm also really excited about, and this is a little bit of a, you know, exciting new thing that we just added, is that Dr. Hema Lomax, the DocuSign Deputy General Counsel and Vice President and Head of Global business integrity for DocuSign, is joining us for this and she comes with so much knowledge for this topic itself. She actually has done a lot of different events and talked about this. So it's exciting for her to join us and tackle this with us.
[00:04:22] Speaker A: What's happening in your industry or your organization right now that really inspired you to want to speak at the Global Ethics Summit?
[00:04:29] Speaker B: We're truly seeing Speak up programs become significantly more complex as organizations are managing increasingly diverse and multi generational workforces. Even in your introduction you shared that a little bit. But one of the biggest challenges that we're seeing right now is that simply competing for attention, employees are overwhelmed with messages, with platforms, with priorities.
And the ethics and compliance communications can easily get lost in that noise.
So at the same time, many organizations are realizing that one time training or just annual reminders are just not cutting it anymore. And so there's a growing shift toward more of a sustained campaign style approach, much more like how consumer brands think about engagement.
With that said, it has also highlighted the need for better collaboration between ethics and compliance teams and departments like Legal, HR Communications, so that they're no longer siloed these programs. We have seen us speak up with Companies that are looking to look into our solutions, that they work best when they're not operating in silos. And that realization really has inspired us to bring these conversations in the summit and to share them with your, with your audience.
[00:05:41] Speaker A: So what big changes or pressures are you seeing in the ethics and compliance space? And how will that reshape priorities for EC teams?
[00:05:49] Speaker B: Oh, great question.
I guess, you know this whole conversation is very important, right? But this is a really good one and near and dear to our heart because one of the biggest shifts that we're seeing is a move towards more compliance focused programs to culture focused ones. Organizations are under pressure to really make speak up programs genuinely accessible across all generations, across all roles and working environments.
Gen Z employees expect different communication styles than baby boomers as we know. And office workers engage very differently than the frontline or factory based teams. And so this is really driving the need for multi channel reporting options with ongoing awareness campaigns rather than just a one off initiative.
We're also seeing though, Bill, that there's growing interest in ambassador programs rather than, you know, truly just not allowing pure advocacy. There is a lot more need to build trust through people and not just policies. And so all of this really means that ethics and compliance teams increasingly need to think more like marketers, really, if you think about it that way.
They're trying to build trust within their cultures, reinforcing messages over time and meeting employees where they are in those different groups. And that shift is reshaping priorities in a really meaningful way. And it's something that we are again excited to explore with all the attention attendees at this workshop and give them some real life instructions to take away and walk away with.
[00:07:17] Speaker A: Well, Nella, thank you very much for stopping by and for sharing your insights and talking about the workshop that you'll be leading at ges. I expect you're going to be speaking to a full house.
[00:07:26] Speaker B: We hope so. Thank you both. Thank you for having us. We're really excited.
[00:07:30] Speaker A: Visit Attend GES to register for the Global Ethics Summit where you can save your seat in Nella's Interactive Workshop 1 speak, a program many voices bridging generational, cultural and organizational divides. Space is limited and ges will be upon us before you know it. So don't delay, Register and reserve your spot today. And to learn more about SpeakUp, be sure to engage with them at GES and also visit their website speakup.com and of course follow both Nella and speak up on LinkedIn. And if you're already set to attend GES, the Ethicast will once again be streaming live from the event, so please stop by and say hello. Who knows, we might even invite you to join the show.
Thanks for joining us. We hope you've enjoyed the program. For new episodes each week, be sure to subscribe to us on YouTube, Apple Podcasts and Spotify. And if you have not already, please follow Ethisphere on LinkedIn to learn more about how we help organizations measure and improve their ethics and compliance programs. Together, we can make the world a better place by advancing business integrity. That's all for now, but until next time. Remember, strong ethics is good business.
