Mark Taylor, partner and co-founder of Ibex Compliance, has worked in the areas of financial crime compliance, money laundering, anti-bribery and business integrity for over 35 years in top global financial institutions including Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse. His expertise ranges from analysis and surveillance of financial crime matters to developing effective and efficient working processes for on-boarding, monitoring and reporting.
Mark has been a registered MLRO (money laundering reporting officer) and SMF17 for 10 years as well as being a registered SMF16 Compliance Officer. He has dealt with multiple regulators and handled complex investigations and regulatory reviews.
Tell us about yourself and how you came to reach this stage in your career?
I was very lucky to get a job in 1986 in the Surveillance Division of the Stock Exchange. Within a few years that Division had become the TSA (The Securities Association), then SFA (Securities and Futures Authority), and eventually FCA. At that time, nobody had thought that every financial services firm would have a compliance officer, let alone a whole division of them. Forty years later and with a whole career spent in compliance it’s amazing to think how much has been accomplished, and of course to ponder on whether it’s gone too far!
I have always wanted to run my own business, and I wanted to continue to work a while longer, setting up a compliance consulting firm felt like the obvious choice, and so here we are at the end of our first year building a small business and helping our clients navigate the increasingly complex plethora of regulations.
What advice would you give to your younger self?
The job you will end up doing probably won’t have been invented, so don’t worry too much about where you start out.
At that time [in 1986], nobody had thought that every financial services firm would have a compliance officer, let alone a whole division of them.
What has been the proudest moment of your career?
Making MD (managing director) at Goldman Sachs in 2007. Starting a new business at the age of 60 and winning our first clients.
Tell us a “compliance Christmas cracker” joke
I have a copy of this Alex cartoon in my downstairs loo which was bought for me by a friend. It starts with “So you work for that Swiss bank that’s just been taken over by its major rival”… can you guess the punch line?
The job you will end up doing probably won’t have been invented, so don’t worry too much about where you start out.
What’s your New Year’s wish?
I hope that some of the exciting conversations with prospective clients develop into fruitful long-term partnerships.
Can you recommend a good book?
I love autobiographical books by musicians and one of my favourites is A Bit of a Blur by Alex James
