Who are we - ECMC

Who are we?

The CEO of ECMC is Geert Vermeulen. His goals are to help organizations conduct business in an ethical and compliant way and make the world a slightly better place.

Geert is a seasoned compliance professional, with almost 15 years of compliance experience in various industries like insurance, logistics, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, consumer products, wholesalers, marine & energy and public sector companies. He is experienced in establishing and improving international ethics and compliance programs in general and anti-corruption and trade sanctions programs in specific. Other specialties include corporate governance, compliance risk assessments, whistleblowing systems and procedures and US legislation and prosecution practices.

On January 1 2016 Geert started his own company, Ethics & Compliance Management & Consulting (ECMC). Through ECMC he provides interim compliance management services, ethics and compliance consulting and compliance education and training.

Before starting ECMC Geert worked as a Director of the Netherlands Compliance Institute (NCI). This institute is specialized in providing compliance education, training and compliance consultancy services. As compliance officers now became his clients, Geert stepped down as the president of the Dutch Compliance Officer Association.

Geert obtained most of his experience in-house. As Global Head of Compliance for Damco, the freight forwarding arm of the AP Möller-Maersk Group, he was responsible for the compliance activities in 90 countries, focusing mainly on anti-bribery and corruption and trade restrictions, with a team of 10 compliance officers. As Chief Compliance Officer Aon EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) he coordinated compliance efforts in some 60 countries with a team of 30 people.

Following inquiries from regulators Aon started its anti-corruption program in 2007. Geert coordinated this program in the EMEA region from the start. According to the US and UK authorities Aon developed a best practice model other firms may wish to adopt. Geert has been a frequent speaker at international compliance events ever since.

What does ECMC do?

1. Interim Ethics & Compliance Management

ECMC is available to manage compliance projects or fulfil temporary compliance roles.

Do you need somebody to temporarily replace your Chief Compliance Officer? ECMC is available to provide an interim solution.
Is new legislation coming up which needs to be implemented in your organization? Are you looking for a project manager to take care of that? ECMC is experienced in managing implementation projects.
Do you want to have a discussion with other companies in your industry in order to identify best practices in respect of ethics and compliance and/or start a collective action initiative? ECMC is available to act as an independent, neutral coordinator and facilitator, to ensure that you don’t violate competition law.
Have you received difficult questions in respect of ethics and compliance from your clients or the authorities? Or is a compliance audit coming up? ECMC is available to prepare the organization or to provide advice.

2. Ethics & Compliance Consulting

ECMC assists organizations to establish and/or improve their ethics and compliance program.

ECMC can review the set-up, framework or governance of your compliance program and draft a Compliance Charter.
ECMC can check your compliance requirements, make an inventory of your biggest compliance risks and advice you how to address these risks. Or organize a compliance risk assessment and analysis.
ECMC can help you draft policies and procedures, select compliance software providers, implement compliance requirements into your processes and train your employees.
ECMC is specialized in establishing and improving anti-corruption programs, especially third party due diligence systems and procedures. See: link.
Another specialization of ECMC is trade restrictions and export controls.
ECMC can also help you put a whistleblowing procedure in place. New Dutch legislation requires Dutch companies with more than 50 employees to have a whistleblowing procedure. See: link. ECMC has almost 10 years of experience rolling out and coordinating international whistleblowing systems.

3. Compliance Education and Training

Geert Vermeulen, the CEO of ECMC, frequently acts as teacher and trainer. He is one of the regular teachers in the education course for compliance officers in the financial services industry of the Netherlands Compliance Institute. He also acts as trainer for the Castille Institute in Malta. Besides that, ECMC also delivers in-company training. Geert has delivered in-company in-person training at all continents of the world. ECMC also has vast experience in rolling out online compliance education courses.

4. Speaking engagements

Geert Vermeulen speaks (and writes) on a regular basis about ethics and compliance. Do you want to know how ethics & compliance officers save lives and make people happy? Invite Geert to speak at your event. In the past Geert spoke at compliance events in London, Paris, Frankfurt and various places in The Netherlands. He also chairs compliance events. In addition to that, he can speak at the internal compliance officer or sales meeting of your company.

Holland Amerika Lijn

The old building in the middle used to be the head office of the Holland-Amerika Lijn (HAL) in Rotterdam and is close to the office of ECMC. In the past many ships of the HAL filled with European migrants left here on their way to New York in the United States, amongst which many Dutch people. Nowadays it houses a popular hotel and restaurant called Hotel New York. We like the symbolism of this place. In the past many Dutchmen left here to build a new life in the United States. Nowadays an increasing number of Dutch and European companies face the rule of US law. If you have a US client, if you buy US (origin) products, if you are noted on a US stock exchange, if you work for the US government directly or indirectly or if you make payments in US dollars or through a US bank, there is a fair chance that US legislation applies to you. And that means that the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), the Export Administration Regulations (EAR), the International Traffic In Arms Regulations (ITAR), False Claims Act (FCA), Federal Acquisitions Regulation (FAR), etcetera may apply to you. If you break these laws, you may have to pay huge fines, you may be blacklisted or possibly be extradited to the US to go to jail. Are you familiar with these laws? Are you sure that you comply with them? Ask ECMC for advice. With its knowledge and expertise ECMC represents a new type of Holland-America Line.