Compliance officer: Marcha Wentworth

Patricia Coetzee
  • 2 Months Ago - 2024-08-27 00:00:00
A compliance officer is someone who ensures that a company or organisation is operating in compliance with all relevant regulations. There is a proactive element to being a compliance officer, which is understanding all regulations that are applicable to the company you work for and making sure that there are procedures in place to ensure compliance with said regulations.
According to compliance officer Marcha Wentworth, the reactive part of her job is that if an identified non-compliance has taken place, you have to take the necessary steps to report and prevent similar non-compliances from happening.
She added that most commonly, compliance officers either have a financial (accounting) or legal qualification. But it is a very dynamic profession, therefore gaining relevant experience is most vital to be a successful compliance officer.
Wentworth started her career as a trainee accountant at an audit firm in Windhoek, but during her articles, she made the decision to move to the advisory department in which she performed fraud and corruption investigations and internal audits. After performing multiple investigations across Africa, she decided it would be good for her career to get experience working abroad and moved to the Netherlands.
“My career in the Netherlands started at an audit firm, where I was introduced to financial crime projects. When I left the audit firm, I moved to a compliance officer position,” she said.
According to Wentworth, some of the skills a compliance officer requires to make a success of their career include integrity, good communication, analytical skills, attention to detail, problem-solving and a hunger to understand the unknown.
She added that there is definitely a market for young people in Namibia to pursue a career as a compliance officer because of the international interest that is being shown in the country.
Wentworth added that a stereotype associated with her job is that compliance officers "put the bad guys in prison", while this is not the case.