From loose-lipped CEOs sinking reputations and sanctions on terrorist financing coming back into vogue to a proliferation of neurodiversity employment tribunals and renewed charges of greenwashing, 2024 is shaping to be an ever more complex year for compliance. 

CEOs will learn to self-moderate — or else

The trend of the outspoken CEO has come and gone. One of the biggest lessons of last year was just how dangerous a senior officer with a loose tongue can be. From Sam Bankman-Fried’s conviction to yet another Elon Musk storm as advertisers abandon the haunted halls of the platform formally known as Twitter, loose lips can sink reputations. 

Nor is the contagion linked to tech bros. Dame Alison Rose, the former CEO of British mega-bank NatWest and parent company of the royal family’s chequebook, Coutts, lost her job and precipitated a political crisis over a poor choice of words. Rose let it be known that Coutts had closed the bank account of political malcontent and Brexit architect Nigel Farage because he didn’t have enough money. This erupted into a political storm, with British cabinet ministers questioning well-established AML procedures for politically exposed persons. Rose lost the prime minister’s confidence, resigned without her £7.6m golden goodbye and precipitated a GDPR investigation into NatWest.