Compliance can be Fun
This blog post is written by our Assistant Compliance Manager, Max Lam. Prior to being a compliance professional, Max worked in the ICAC — his background may sound intimidating, but when you meet Max, you will be surprised at how fun Max is. In this article, he will share about how he lives a balanced life in Bowtie.
From a conventional perspective, it is seemingly contradictory for one to be working in a role related to governance and control under a highly regulated environment but at the same time he/she likes to explore one’s physical limits from x-games and embrace creativity and aesthetics of arts, language and architecture.
Just from my personal perspective, I will say it is like setting a stage in various aspects of one’s life to strive for excellence and perfection, where the audience of those stages may be different depending on the contexts. Striving for a “balance in life”, which is how I introduced myself to my fellow colleagues on my very first “All Hands Friday” session (the weekly morning company-wide business update and communication platform), is all along with my goals and living passion and make what I am now. I am Max, Assistant Compliance Manager of Bowtie, who is the person leading a “contradictory” lifestyle as described above. I do wakeboarding, snowboarding and learning Japanese with an ambition to master it as my third language!
Compliance is given a Bad Name
For many of you who may think compliance might be a function that always sticks to the rules and regulations, nit-picking in a company or even a bit distant, secretive and unfriendly, traditionally it could be a yes as the first impression popped up from your mind, particularly valid for big insurers to
start with, and the financial industry in general.
Still, compliance has its implied impartiality when acting as a gatekeeper in a company, especially in the heavily regulated ambit of insurance. Of course, I am feeling the same with respect to my law enforcement background and worked in a traditional insurer before Bowtie, but I am also seeing the possibility of fostering balance and flexibility into the compliance realm as I got myself more familiar with hard-and-fast rules and regulations, and I see this in Bowtie, as a challenger insurer against the big players in the game —
I don’t see compliance as merely a role of providing advice to a company to follow rules and regulations, rather it should help to provide a holistic insight for different business functions to explore their full potential within the framework, whose boundaries are defined by existing rules, until those lines to take might be broken by disruptive models and ideas. As such throughout my semi-virtual recruitment experience (face-to-face coupled with Google Meet) with Bowtie, to a great extent, I am in line with Bowtie’s core values (sent from Sara, the person-in-charge for Talent Acquisition!) before I joined the company.
Core Values of Bowtie
Live Your Purpose
Own it
Unbreakable and
Be kind
Yes, those are the values to which I had been introduced even before my first day at Bowtie. (Editor’s note — you can see more about our core values here.)
I believe as the first virtual insurer in Hong Kong with its bold pink ads showing the “self-protection era” slogan already caught the eyeballs of the public, particularly the talents since its inception in 2018. While I am not surprised that Bowtie managed to attract an interesting mix of talents from traditional financial high-calibers to big brains from creative agencies, I do appreciate Bowtie’s philosophy of culture-matching rather than merely based on knowledge and capabilities, which could much readily be reflected from resumes and certificates/titles earned along one’s career path.
Primarily, it is the transparent and lean structure and culture that enables lively communications across even the most seemingly distant departments, i.e. no department is an island, and within this silo-less environment, it is quite an “enjoyable” routine for me to hold meetings with colleagues from risk management, marketing, actuary, engineering, etc., clearing issues and hurdles all in synergy, contributing regulatory advices when brainstorming new product ideas or chitchatting with the Co-CEOs on social media trends regarding health insurance, literally allowing a continuous stream of idea flow basically shaping the very creative backbone of Bowtie, at the same time reinstating the abovesaid core values basically embedded within my everyday work principle.
It is of course another serious topic when it comes to bridging the worlds of creativity and rule adherence, especially approaching one end of the spectrum to interact with the regulator, the Insurance Authority, but I am glad to see the industry itself is also transitioning to a tech-driven state, where
rules, regulations, competitors and the ecosystem as a whole are no longer static as before and now compliance means quick adaptation and thinking out-of-the-box. For the teams, the difference simply lies in the Compliance team including myself are providing solutions from a regulatory standpoint whilst others from unique functional perspectives, be it risks, finance, product, and business development, seamlessly and hand-in-hand heading one and only one direction, to make insurance good again.
Work-Fun Balance
Fun is an element not going to be missed in Bowtie, tech-driven as it seems, it is the human touch that makes it work, where co-workers can be nice buddies out of the “work” contexts, so you see why I don’t mind sharing my interests with other Bowtiers.
There are numbers of chat groups within Bowtie about personal interests about food, sports, songs, places to relax, and the long list simply goes on! Obviously, I am in the “wakeboarding” group where fellow Bowtiers will gather to have some x-game moments!
I won’t hesitate to say “work-fun” balance is applicable to all my colleagues here, we work hard and uphold our professionalism in our respective functions, yet not at the expense of the fun element in life, in turn, those values transformed into an affinity for people of like minds, as you will see Bowtiers form their own groups to visit local cultural delights, hang out in basketball courts or stretching in yoga classes.
Personally, I do think this is what a health insurer should look like!
Bridging the Two Worlds
Although compliance, to a certain extent meaning abiding by the rules/laws and regulations could be achieved by automated program algorithms, I believe there is also human elements as to the awareness of the ongoing evolution of ordinances and business/industry norms, and knowledge of
flexibilities when it comes to implementation of rules and regulations, which is the purpose of the compliance team to the company. Rules are not set to bound creativity, we embrace the rules but do leave room for infinite imagination, and that I believe regulators will also welcome ideas for
excellence and greatness, albeit the time it might take, while I see compliance could somehow bridge the two worlds.
