So Tom Fox, tell me about your vision. My vision is twofold. One is I am a lawyer
by professional training and I struggled for many many years about how I could
use my law degree and be a lawyer really for good and I think all lawyers go to
law school wanting to do that. Well I struggled with that for a long time and
here's what I found. In the United Nations estimates that the world loses
three trillion dollars annually to bribery and corruption and that what I
found was that in the corporate world there is a way to fight that bribery and
corruption. Now there are laws of course that prevent it and you could put
programs in place to comply with those laws and that's certainly appropriate
but I realized that I could be a part of this fight against bribery and corruption
doing business in the corporate world and doing good and so I call myself the
compliance evangelist because I believe compliance well first of all evangelist
means the bringer of the good news in Greek ancient Greek and I believe
compliance makes businesses run better it makes them run more efficiently it
makes them run more profitably and it fights this global scourge of bribery
and corruption so I'm a huge advocate for compliance I call myself the
compliance evangelist I've written 33 books in this arena I have an entire
podcast network dedicated to it but at the end of the day I'm passionate
because I may push the ball forward an inch and to me that's progress and I
wake up every day and I'm thrilled to do what I do so that's really my primary
vision my other one comes from a personal experience which was I took off
a year to race bicycles and I did that had great fun until one day I got hit by
a Hummer that ended my cycling career and I was laid up for a few months and
when I finally got enough energy to get on my walker and toddle into my office
realizing I was gonna have to go back to work this was 2010 and at that point in
my life I knew nothing about social media so I started exploring Twitter
LinkedIn blogging etc and what I realized from that experience was I'd
always known when the universe closes one door it opens another but what I
didn't realize was you have to have the courage to walk through and that's what
I had after that accident because as many people who've had life-threatening
accents will tell you you know your give-a-flip attitude really changes and
you become a little more concerned about things like purpose and vision and so I
try to communicate to people that yes the universe will open a door but you
have to have the courage to walk through and I admit sometimes that takes courage
I was laid up with no work and new job so the courage was a little bit easier I
had to do something but that was an incredibly valuable lesson and it's a
vision I try to articulate to people as well thanks for sharing that so today
which vision would you like to talk about or would you want to talk about
both of them at the same time so the vision about walking through the door
I came to compliance because I I did walk through that door and that's when I had
the aha moment that you know I can make a difference literally in the corporate
world and I don't think many people think about can a corporation be a part
of your vision to actually do good in the world and I I believe that yes and
so I try to help people understand you know you may be entering something in a
excel spreadsheet but that's moving the ball forward an inch and for me that's
motivation and so that's what I want people to understand find out whatever
your passion is it doesn't matter to me but if you can engage in that in a
professional life you will have a much more fulfilling life thank you for
sharing that I'm excited to explore it more
so how did you get started in this vision of you walking through the door
so I literally was laid up like I said I had no work I had no clients I was gonna
have to do something I decided that the thing I had enjoyed in my last job was
building internal compliance programs inside of corporations in 2010 there
were very few lawyers who did that and so I took that mantle and I became the
nuts-and-bolts guy and that's when I began to learn about this international
scourge of bribery and corruption and realized that what I enjoyed doing I
could move from enjoyment to true passion and so it was it was that journey and I
don't know if I would have had the courage to walk through that door if I
hadn't been so badly injured but I don't have to answer that question because I
was and so my experience tells me that the universe is out there and the
universe will will be there for you whether you call that karma whether you
call that a higher power it doesn't matter to me yeah you're right when it
comes to the international corruption and your compliance how those two relate
sure so international anti-corruption is the payment of bribes generally to get
a contract to get access to work to get something and so what US businesses are
required to do is not pay a bribe to get a contract it's to level the playing
field and give everybody the ability to compete based upon the quality of their
product or their service and their pricing and I'm a big believer in that I
think that that's a system that works whether you call that capitalism or
business whatever you want to call it I think that's the way you should do
business so that people like you and me can compete with the exons of the world
should we choose to and by leveling that playing field you give businesses a
better opportunity to compete but there's a flip side to that which is and
this we learned from fortunately from 9-eleven whose anniversary we were
coming up on corruption leads to crime leads to terrorism and there's a direct
link to all of that and we've seen that multiple times throughout the last 20
years where people who live in truly corrupt societies they are frustrated
because they can't get ahead they can't compete on a level playing field like
you and I can and so they turn to crime and then they turn to blowing up things
and whether that's terrorism in the United States or whether it's terrorism
in their home country it's just as terror if it yeah you're absolutely
correct that is you don't know it's about me but originally I was born and
raised in India and even though it's a democratic country and even though it is
you can say there's the opportunities there but when it comes to opportunities
in the United States and India they do not even match up it's the amount of
freedom we have in the United States is is amazing and most people don't know it
and most people have never felt it and it's a sad world on the other side
then and there's worse places than that there's worse places like where people
don't even have any rights so I and it's all because of corruption and you're
absolutely correct it started or someone wanted more power they were more they
wanted to covet something they didn't have and so let me tell you my story
about what you just said my grandfather came to America in 1890 and when he was
70 I asked him why he came to America and he said exactly what you said there
was opportunity for me here and there wasn't in Italy so yep that was 150
years ago yeah and it's still true today than it was 150 years ago that's yet
America has created more wealth than any other country in the world and that's
that is something to say and there's a reason behind that and that's because of
freedom thank you for sharing all that but I'm still having the hard time
understanding how your compliance is and the corruption solve each other or use
okay sure that problem yeah all right I'm gonna stick with the energy industry
because that was the energy or the industry I worked in and of course we're
both Texans so we get to talk about oil so in energy energy is in places like
West Africa it's like Central Asia the Far East where there are there may be
democratically elected regimes but they're corrupt and their corruption is
they will sell to the highest bidder their minerals whether it's extractive
minerals like oil whether it's extractive minerals like coal whether
it's extractive minerals like tungsten or tin or manganese or some metal that
needs to be used for a conductor chip or a gold watch or an anything they will
sell the rights to that now the rights to those minerals are owned by the
people of those countries it's an asset of those countries but those dictators
those corrupt businessmen are literally taking billions and trillions annually
to sell those rights which should be and the poverty we see endemic poverty today
in many West African countries it's it's called the curse of oil and they are
oil rich countries yet they are some of the poorest countries in the world and
I don't want to pick on West Africa but it's the same is true in Central Asia
the same is true in the Far East that where there are minerals to be extracted
they are usually sold by corrupt government officials who don't own them
those are owned by the people of those countries so that's the corruption part
the compliance part for the energy industry is don't pay a bribe to get
that mineral you can certainly bid for it openly you can bid for it fairly you
can pay the highest price but you pay that money to the government of that
country for the benefit of the people of that country you don't pay that money to
an individual government official so Exxon may come in and pay ten times
what's anyone else pays and people claim oh Exxon's is paying a bribe no no no
Exxon is paying that money to the government of that country if Exxon
wants to pay ten times to get something they see a value and they're paying it
fairly openly and to the government that's fine but when you start paying
it to the president of the company or the daughter of the president of the
company country rather or oil ministers from that country that's bribery and
that's corruption and that's what energy companies can prevent and should prevent
and what I do is help them put a program in place to prevent that from happening
you have you train employees not to do it but you have controls in place both
internal financial controls and other controls so that money can't be used to
pay bribes to secure those extractive minerals that is awesome but let's go
to the next part of the situation but what if and I think that's comes to the
choice because the people that these companies probably are bribing and they
want to bribe are the people who want to be bribed because they want the extra
money so is there some compliance that helps in that aspect as well you have
to as a US company say no we are not paying a bribe we may pay your like Exxon
we may pay ten times to your country that's fine we may pay a premium that's
fine because the money is going to the government coffers and what they may do
with you know the government coffers that's a different question and we can't
control that but we can at least make sure the money is paid into the
government coffers and that's what I try to help companies do legally and when
you do that and when you have the reputation for saying no we're not going
to pay a bribe eventually they stop asking for it what if they go to someone
else and it's a same thing sure they always can go to someone else but here's
the thing who are the best companies in the world to extract your minerals they
are generally US or other Western companies or Australian who have been
doing it for a hundred or a hundred and fifty years and not only are they the
best they're gonna pay you near the top and they're gonna hire your local people
to do on-the-ground work and if you if you do a same deal with China for
instance they just bring in Chinese workers the country gets no benefit they
may get may or may not get a functioning railroad or a functioning bridge or a
functioning something but when it breaks those people are long gone and those
workers who know how to repair are long gone and if US company comes in and
builds infrastructure if a US company comes in and extracts minerals they're
gonna have to hire local people to help do the work and those local people are
gonna be trained and that's gonna be the next generation of literally workers
from that country that is such a broad perspective that I did not think about
thank you for sharing that Tom that was very insightful my next question for you
is you talked about little steps and next steps where are you going with your
vision well what I've tried to do is articulate my vision and a little to get
on the highest mountaintop and shout it out and I've done that in written format
blogging I've done that in book publishing I do that in the podcast
world I have a podcast network dedicated to compliance I do speeches and
interviews I'm gonna continue to do that I'm really invested in the podcast
world which is kind of how we got connected because I think this is a
format that really lends itself to this type of conversation you know we can
take it any way we want doesn't matter I mean we've got some time constraints but
we're gonna meander and wander just just as we have in this podcast and so I'm
really committed to the podcast format to try to move my vision along but I'm
gonna keep doing all of those other things as well as as long as I'm able to
do so thank you for being here today I'm really happy that you tuned in to
vision pros live I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes
continue to move for this is gonna get more and more fun we'll have more and
more engagement as well one by people to participate in the show and thank you
for giving us your time and attention have an excellent time building out your
vision and becoming a vision for yourself