Compliance, Risk, and Legal Issues Take Center Stage in Nashville
When investors put money into a regulated fund, they trust its sponsors to manage risk responsibly, address problems before they threaten investor interests, and honor the promises made in a prospectus. Delivering on those expectations requires compliance, risk, and legal teams to work together: legal interprets the rules, compliance builds and tests the machinery that satisfies them, and risk identifies vulnerabilities that the rules and policies may not anticipate.
ICI is launching the Compliance, Risk, and Legal Conference, September 15–17 at the Renaissance Nashville, for the professionals who perform this essential work. Although firms compete vigorously, the industry’s reputation is a shared asset. Strong practices help protect that shared reputation, while a failure at any one firm can affect perceptions of the entire industry. The professionals who protect that reputation deserve a conference built around their work.
The Regulators Are in the Room
Every firm shapes its compliance program based not only on the rules themselves but also on examination findings, enforcement actions, regulatory guidance, and professional judgment. Compliance professionals try to anticipate areas of SEC scrutiny and get ahead of any concerns before they draw regulatory attention. The conference gives attendees the opportunity to hear directly from regulators, assess whether their priorities align with the SEC’s, and better understand where practices need to evolve.
Keith Cassidy, Director of the SEC's Division of Examinations, opens Tuesday morning with a keynote and a fireside chat with ICI General Counsel Paul Cellupica—an opportunity to hear how the Exams staff is setting priorities and where examiners think firms have room to improve. A panel of experts, including Sarah ten Siethoff, Associate Director for Rulemaking in the Division of Investment Management, will follow to discuss the SEC’s regulatory agenda. On Thursday, Joshua White, who heads the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis, will share perspectives from his current role, followed by a session bringing senior SEC Exams and Enforcement staff together with industry practitioners to discuss emerging regulatory concerns.
Those conversations come at an important time. The Commission has signaled movement on several issues, including e-delivery, the rescission of the pay-to-play rule, and Rule 17a-7. Meanwhile, firms are implementing new requirements under Reg S-P and the Names Rule while preparing for further changes in areas including anti-money laundering and adviser recordkeeping. The Commission’s goals may be clear, but translating them into workable procedures, controls, testing, and documentation involves difficult decisions. Hearing how regulators are approaching related questions can help firms move from technical compliance toward stronger and more sustainable programs.
Keeping Pace With Innovation
New technologies are creating opportunities for compliance teams to work faster and more effectively, while raising questions that firms and regulators are still working through. In a July survey, 85% of investment adviser firms named artificial intelligence their top compliance topic for the year.
Firms are already exploring how AI can reduce manual work, strengthen monitoring, and help identify potential problems earlier. But adopting these tools also requires decisions about governance, testing, documentation, data use, and how much human oversight is appropriate.
The same dynamic is playing out with digital assets and private markets, where firms are making decisions today within a regulatory framework that is still taking shape.
Regulators are confronting many of the same questions as they consider how existing rules apply to new technologies and products—and what they expect from firms operating in these areas. That uncertainty makes it especially useful for legal, compliance, and risk professionals to compare approaches with peers on panels dedicated to AI, digital assets, and private markets.
Judgment Still Belongs to People
The hardest parts of these jobs can’t be done with checklists alone. Some calls arrive without a clear answer: a conflict no policy anticipated, a judgment about when a problem is big enough to escalate, a decision that has to be documented in a way that reads well years from now. Making those calls is only a part of the job—effective relationships and communication are necessary for senior management and boards to act together decisively.
On challenging issues, it helps to know where others landed. The CRL Conference offers plenty of opportunities to compare notes with colleagues across the industry, learn from their experiences, and build relationships across the profession. Those conversations are as much a part of the conference as what happens on stage. By bringing compliance, risk, and legal professionals together, the CRL Conference lets them hear from regulators, explore emerging technologies, sharpen professional judgment, and learn from peers. Those connections will help firms navigate change with confidence, strengthen practices industrywide, protect the reputation we all share, and to preserve what matters most: investor trust.