The 5th Copenhagen Compliance Conference on European and International Governance, Risk and Compliance(GRC) issues was conducted on the 16th and 17th November 2009 at The Confederation of Danish Industries.

The Main Theme of this conference was: Embracing a Common, Integrated Approach to Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) issues.

Once again the event was highly successful. It was well attended and the feedback was very positive. Most participants agreed that The Copenhagen Compliance Conference was a great European forum where the key issues around Governance, Risk and Compliance were discussed with global experts within a Nordic context. The wide range of topics ensured that all bases were covered.

Another participant expressed that the 5th Copenhagen Compliance Conference was ‘the best’ Seminar in GRC, with excellent key note speakers addressing interesting areas of GRC. Though some speakers stood out in performance and skills as simply outstanding, nevertheless everyone gave a performance way above average.

As a sum of all presentations and in general terms, the conference focused on the future oversight and Governance regulations that will take place with regards to Financial and Legal responsibility starting with the responsibilities of corporate board members to the technicalities related to prudent Risk Management. Compliance also means that CEOs and their Boards will become increasingly dependent upon those people who see how the details of compliance fit into the larger business picture and can communicate this intelligibly.

The way corporate leaders conduct negotiations will change considerably in terms of transparency, disclosures and reporting. The tendency has developed from golden handshakes to immunity. The current road to transparent accountability is apparently going to be forcibly paved by GRC legislation worldwide.

The Copenhagen Compliance Conference had a total of 21 presentations on most current and pertinent GRC issues with a total of 465 slides. The rich collection of speakers gave depth to the participants’ understanding of GRC as they each attacked the important issues from a wide variety of industries and unique perceptions.

The conference chair ,Director of Finance Mikael Frederiksen of Microsoft, opened the conference by summarizing the GRC proceedings at IT Factory and Roskilde Bank as ‘cases’ and responded to the general approach that Compliance is not only about one single system.

The opening Key Note speaker at the workshop, Professor Dr. Jesper Lau Hansen of the University of Copenhagen, set the tone by saying that: ‘It was not the will of God or natural disasters that triggered the Credit and Financial crisis. It was caused by irrational behavior of leaders and their lack of diligence. The vast majority of managers are just not well equipped with knowledge and information regarding the realities that they must deal with’.

The 19 other presentations at the 5th Copenhagen Compliance Conference on GRC, provided further evidence of the challenges organisations are facing in coming to terms with risk management in the light of the catastrophic events over the last 2 years or so.

All of the recent surveys and research point to the key issues being lack of data, lack of relevant experience and inadequate technology support in risk management- the first two points in particular perhaps blatantly obvious from the global fall out.

However, these 2 areas are fundamental to an effective risk management system, and the fact that they appear to be so lacking in many organizations, raises a more basic question for many organisations regarding the effectiveness of their existing, historic systems.

The key focus areas for many attendees at GRC conferences tend normally to be related to emerging trends, new techniques, etc, generally developing and enhancing risk management processes. Perhaps the time has come for many organisations to understand better the effectiveness of what they currently have and to seek better assurance that they are working to the standards needed and perhaps until now, expected but for many untested and unknown.

Some participants expressed that we move the GRC workshops to either before or after the conference dates in future. Please continue to send us your comments and suggestions for future topics and workshops.

In conclusion, we feel that the participants got strong and positive inputs. The corporate future of GRC implementations has to be more financially stable because legislation requires documentation and accountability for decision makers and the risks to be lower and more manageable. Experts in implementing compliance with all these requirements will be among the key responsible people to oversee the balance between Risk and Governance.

To get a complete set and link of all presentations please send an email to with your name, position, company and email.