For Refinitiv’s Phil Cotter, jump from distilling information to divining fincrime risk, protecting the vulnerable, the ‘highlight of my career’ -…

ByBrian Monroebmonroe@acfcs.orgAugust 21, 2021

For Phil Cotter, the choice to jump into the fincrime compliance field boiled down to career advice he got more than 20 years ago: forget titles and salaries. Ask yourself what will you be doing every day? Who will you be helping and how?

Then go a step further, breaking down the potential position into things you enjoy doing and things you dont. If it largely contains the things that you enjoy doing, then you are likely to be successful simply because if you enjoy something, you are likely to do it well.

Cotter, now Group Head of Customer & Third-Party Risk Solutions, Data & Analytics at Refinitiv, a London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) business, not only believes he made the right decision some seven years ago, he calls it the highlight of my career.

Why?

Because I real feel that we are contributing to the greater good through the work we all do, he said. I love working with people who are passionate about what they do, and you feel you are making a positive contribution to society.

Prior to joining Refinitiv then Thomson Reuters Cotter was previously Managing Director of Experians Credit Services business in the UK, ran his own consulting business and served as a non-executive director on the board of Bisnode AB, a pan-European information services provider based in Sweden.

He also holds several advisory positions including University of Nottingham Business School, where he is an Honorary Professor.

Refinitiv, though it might seem a newer name in the fincrime compliance data, analytics and technology space, is actually a multi-billion-dollar company with tens of thousands of employees, commanding a long, rich history in the field.

The company is an American-British global provider of financial market data and infrastructure.

Refinitiv was founded in 2018 when Thomson Reuters sold a majority stake in its Financial & Risk (F&R) unit to private equity firm Blackstone Group LP in a deal which valued the total F&R business at about $20 billion, according to media reports.

This business was formed into Refinitiv, with the firms predecessors including Thomson Financial.

Refinitiv became part of LSEG in January of this year after the $27-billion-dollar sale from Blackstone Group LP, which held a 55 percent stake and Thomson Reuters, which owned 45 percent.

Refinitiv is also the parent of the venerable World-Check, now more than 20 years old, a widely relied upon database of politically exposed persons (PEPs), negative news and heightened risk individuals, firms and entities.

The focus to create a company that can help a broad array of financial services firms strengthen fincrime programs and better manage resources to improve results follows top industry watchdog groups and countries shifting the focus from technical compliance with laws and regulations to effectiveness.

The goal in this new regime: not just managing AML analysts and dispositioning transactional alerts but elevating compliance efforts to more efficiently discern and create intelligence valuable to law enforcement that could be the foundation of cases or take ongoing investigations further.

Often the focus is on compliance, which of course is important, but, in my view, the critical point is the role we all play in helping to protect society, Cotter said.

That has spurred Refinitiv to craft stronger public-private partnerships, eventually becoming co-founders of the Global Coalition to Fight Financial Crime along with Europol and the World Economic Forum, a powerful pathway to promote improved dialogue with regulators, policy makers and governments.

Many people think financial crime is a victimless crime or a few banks losing some money, however, he said, we know that money laundering is the result of serious crimes that often prey on the more vulnerable in society.

Cotter was kind enough to share some of his insight in our latest ACFCS Member Spotlight:

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For Refinitiv's Phil Cotter, jump from distilling information to divining fincrime risk, protecting the vulnerable, the 'highlight of my career' -...