Presentation I:

“The Power Few”

Speaker: Denisen Chatani

Description: Organizations are under constant pressure to implement standardized compliance and ethics programs. Often process oriented and analytically designed to curtail unethical behavior while mitigating risk, most programs are based on historic trends which occur more or less predictably. However, in practice, notable and pervasive wrongdoings at the heart of some of the most serious compliance and ethics failures from even the world’s most prestigious firms (e.g. Goldman Sachs) are in actuality - less predictable - and alarmingly symptomatic of a more ominous problem. Individuals who have “outsized ethical influence” and power over the organization called the “power few”.

Have we missed the mark on designing, implementing, and monitoring compliance and ethics programs too broadly, without the deeper cultural and critical individual factors where extreme unethical or illegal conduct are less likely to occur, yet cause exponential damage? Organizations will need to shift this balance of power, retune their strategy, and harness the true power of ethics in order to combat such heightened behavioral risk and potential fraud from the “power few”.

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Presentation II:

"Elder Financial Exploitation"

Speaker: Quatana Hodges is a Senior Social Worker for the County of Orange. Ms. Hodges has been a social worker for 15 years and is passionate about serving vulnerable populations. She began her career in child welfare and have since worked with regional center clients and CalWorks/CalFresh/Medi-Cal recipients. She currently works with elder and dependent adults as an Adult Protective Services social worker. Her experience in various programs has given her an array of knowledge in the field of social work. Ms. Hodges also holds a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology from the University of California, Santa Barbara.