Integreon Reinforces Culture of Innovation with Appointment of New Vice President of Legal Technology Solutions
July 19, 2022 – LONDON, UK AND CHARLOTTE, NC – Integreon, a trusted global managed services and alternative legal services provider (ALSP), announced today that it has further enhanced its Contracts, Compliance, and Commercial Services business unit capabilities with the addition of Diane Homolak as the company’s new Vice President of Technology Solutions. Based in Cleveland, OH, Homolak has three decades of diverse legal experience which will support both clients and services teams in applying technology to challenges in today’s legal landscape. Homolak brings a wide array of expertise in legal technology to Integreon, spanning contract management, process automation, AI extraction, negotiation support, and reporting. “Integreon’s strength is in its proven ability to step into any legal technology environment and successfully provide services that optimize that space and employ the best market technology options for enhancing processes and delivery value,” said Homolak. “I look forward to helping our clients get the most out of their systems with enabling technology from the vendors and partners best positioned to serve them.” Prior to joining Integreon, Homolak was Vice President for Legal Technology at UnitedLex, where she worked with global clients to define and implement technology for managed services environments. Her past experience also includes roles as an in-house manager for Global Legal Innovation and Strategic solutions at Hewlett-Packard Enterprise and Managing Counsel for HP’s manufacturing industry vertical. Homolak was the first woman to chair the Board of Directors for the World Commerce and Contracting Association (previously IACCM), a position she served in for 6 years. She holds a JD from Cleveland State and an MBA and bachelor’s degree in Economics from Ohio University. Homolak also holds a certificate in Blockchain Strategy from the University of Oxford Saïd Business School along with PMP credentials from the Project Management Institute. On August 24, Homolak will be speaking at the Legal Innovators Network’s (LINK) virtual event: Contracting Analytics: Extracting Data from Your Contracts to Enable Business Decisions. “We are pleased to welcome Diane as the latest member of our team,” said Gabriel Buigas, Executive Vice President & leader of the Contracts, Compliance, and Commercial Services business unit at Integreon. “With her vast knowledge of legal technology and decades of impressive work in the industry, she will further strengthen our culture of innovation as well as aid clients in understanding the technological tools which can address their needs and drive key business outcomes.” About Integreon Integreon is the trusted, global provider of legal and business outsourced services to corporations and law firms seeking to expand their capabilities and transform their performance. The company’s 3,500+ professionals provide expert support across a range of managed services—from legal and regulatory to creative design, content delivery and administrative support. With global delivery centers on three continents, Integreon delivers round-the-clock service in 50+ languages and is deeply committed to client success, consistently delivering innovative, tech-enabled solutions that improve agility and efficiency to drive business performance. Integreon is owned by EagleTree Capital, a leading New York-based private equity firm that has invested approximately $2.7 billion of equity capital since inception. For more information about Integreon’s range of services, email [email protected], visit www.integreon.com and follow Integreon at LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.
Financial Services Marketing: Leveraging Outsourced Creative Services to Support Compliance
When it comes to creative services for financial institutions, people think of annual reports, industry reports heavy with charts and graphs or brochures showing happy retirees enjoying the fruits of their 401Ks. While these are certainly some of the types of materials produced by financial services companies, their marketing departments have a far more complex and technical role than just making things look engaging. Regardless of industry, marketing materials need design that is compelling, language that is grammatically correct, messaging that resonates with the reader, and branding that meets company guidelines. Because financial services is such a highly regulated industry, marketers in this arena also have the added burden of ensuring all communications and materials are compliant and have the required internal and regulatory body approvals. Compliance and Creative Services While financial marketers, content providers, and others involved in the creative and production process are not part of the Compliance Department, they often function as deputies. Content is always created with a particular audience in mind and the expectation is that marketing has a working knowledge of and will adhere to the requirements of a particular jurisdiction or government agency. There is a myriad of compliance requirements for deliverables just within the world of presentations alone that have impact on both language and design. For example, there is specific language and even font size requirements for regional cover pages and performance pages for different asset classes and types of funds. There is also a full-page investment performance disclosure that typically resides at the end of presentations. Documents filed with global government agencies that do not adhere to standards and requirements can be summarily rejected costing the filing organization money, time, and has the potential to damage their relationship with these governing entities. The same can be said for an audit, which is almost inevitable for any investment services organization. Even though marketing may not coordinate or file materials directly with FINRA or the SEC, there is an inherent expectation that materials include most requirements before they are reviewed by compliance and finalized. Most compliance teams are inundated, especially during a firm’s quarter-end update cycle. The more attention that is paid upfront, ensuring that the most commonly used language and disclosures are consistently represented, the greater confidence compliance will have in marketing and view the department as an ally and a partner. Working With an Outsourced Creative Team Financial marketing leaders typically have lean internal teams and budget constraints yet need to support a large constituent base with time sensitive and disparate needs. Many marketing departments address these challenges by supplementing their internal resources with a dedicated team of outsourced creative services professionals. An outsourcing model can cost-effectively bolster manpower during busy times of the year, as well as become a true extension of the internal team gaining experience and a working knowledge of company processes and brand and compliance standards. Some may see outsourcing as risky with the potential to degrade quality. To the contrary, an outsourcing provider can be extremely effective in developing and leveraging templates and style guides that document and support compliance, accuracy, and quality standards. This is in stark contrast to a model that relies on a cadre of temps and freelancers who come in and out of work and often must be trained and retrained on brand, quality, and compliance related requirements. No relationship is forged overnight. To get to that point of trust and true partnership, it is essential to take a similar approach and investment as with a new hire – providing comprehensive onboarding and training from the outset. In doing so, the outsourced team will have a better sense of the company, its corporate culture, standards, guidelines, and most importantly, feel like a part of the internal marketing team. When that trust is established, many organizations give their outsourced team secure access into their environment and even a company email addresses to increase transparency, communication, and sense of team. Granular Details Matter Template building, often thought to just control and maintain brand compliance, can play a significant role in taking a first step toward producing compliant marketing deliverables. There are different triggers and variables to adhere to as content production and execution begins. For example, when creating a cover page, approved templates can document and present the variations of different disclosures across fund types or domicile. The template can then be made available to users or even the entire organization so that anyone can access the appropriate slide as a starting point. A best practice in an outsourcing model is to designate an individual from the outsourced team to coordinate review and approvals with the Legal /Compliance Department including periodic reviews and updates of templates. This also serves to further ingrain knowledge among the outsourced group about compliance requirements, and in turn builds confidence with internal stakeholders that an outsourced managed services model is just as, if not more, effective in mitigation risk. Conclusion Putting in place a dedicated outsource creative services team may feel “risky”. But with the proper onboarding, communication, and well-document set of guidelines and templates, financial services firms can establish a powerful compliance and risk mitigation tool. Additionally, any outsourcing firm worth investing in should also be well versed in providing and developing reports and dashboards to help manage, monitor, and measure the work and its impact. With an outsourcing team in place, financial services marketers can confidently focus on far more strategic endeavors knowing that what is being produced is compliant.
Finding the Right Fit – Outsourcing Strategies for Financial Services Marketing Teams Infographic
For financial service organizations, outsourcing is not a one-size-fits-all proposition. One organization may outsource a single project, another may choose to outsource whole functional areas. Whether the organization focuses on asset management, investment banking, private banking or another type of finance, chances are that the firm’s marketing department will be periodically or sometimes, perpetually stretched to its limits. This, coupled with a financial companies likely decision to invest funds in client facing, income generating roles, creates an ideal use case for outsourcing.
Making the most of your document review team
Is it time to rethink the role of the document reviewer and are clients making the most of the knowledge and skills that reviewers have?
Legal & Business Outsourcing Leader Integreon Selects Iris Powered by Generali to Expand its Cyber Incident Response Services
WASHINGTON, DC – June 1, 2022 – Iris® Powered by Generali (“Iris”) today announced that Integreon has selected their OnWatch® platform to provide identity and credit monitoring to their legal and corporate client base. Partnering with Iris® expands Integreon’s capabilities and rounds out their competitive cyber incident response (CIR) solution. Paige Schaffer, CEO of Iris, commented on the news, “From the first meeting with Integreon, we knew this was a partnership with tight synergies between our teams. Integreon’s services dovetail nicely with the capabilities of our Iris OnWatch® platform. Companies, like Integreon, are looking for differentiating services like our ScamAssist® protection offering in addition to our best-in-class monitoring and resolution services to give their clients peace of mind – and Iris® does just that.” Integreon will be offering four levels of Iris services to their client base. The services vary from a basic package that has Iris’ leading Identity Theft Resolution and ScamAssist® services to a more comprehensive identity and credit monitoring offering. These four packages were crafted to give Integreon’s customers the flexibility to choose services tailored to the specific needs of their business and employees. Integreon’s extensive experience handling protected personal data has yielded a highly efficient cyber incident response-specific process that enables them to accurately estimate the cost and timeframe for completion—from data mining through to breach notification and now, ongoing credit monitoring. Their approach reflects thousands of successfully completed projects across an array of industries, including healthcare, technology, retail, finance, and telecom, to name a few. “Our team of experts and tech-enabled cyber incident response (CIR) process are second to none,” commented Jamie Berry, EVP and Business Head, Cyber and Litigation Services. “Putting this last piece of the CIR puzzle in place with a partner that also has a client-first culture and commitment to quality is game changing. We look forward to working with Iris and continuing to be the change agents in the market.” Ms. Schaffer concluded, “An often-unsaid part of what makes Iris® an ideal partner is our ability to offer flexible and customizable solutions that are uniquely aligned with the strategies and objectives of our clients. Our services can be incorporated into a new client’s ecosystem quickly and efficiently – allowing them to get ahead of fraudsters and scammers looking to steal their users’ identities. As an example, the custom gating solution we built for Integreon accommodated seven unique requests that helped them achieve their goals for enhancing their customer activation and client reporting processes.” About Iris® Powered by Generali Iris® is a B2B2C global identity and cyber protection company owned by the 190-year-old multinational insurance company, Generali, offering always-available identity resolution experts (real people available 24/7/365) and tech-forward solutions that uncomplicate the protection process. Today, understanding that victimization has no geographical boundaries, we’ve got a solution no matter your customers’ coordinates. To learn more about Iris’ offerings, please visit https://www.irisidentityprotection.com/. Connect with Iris on: Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook About Integreon Integreon is a trusted, global provider of award-winning legal, business, and research support solutions to leading law firms, legal departments, financial institutions, and professional services firms. The company applies a highly trained, experienced team of over 3,500 employees globally to a wide range of problems that require scale and expertise, enabling clients to become more operationally efficient by streamlining operations, maximizing investment, and improving the quality of work they provide their end clients. With delivery centers on three continents, Integreon offers multi-lingual, around-the-clock support, as well as onshore, offshore, and onsite delivery of services. Integreon is owned by EagleTree Capital, a leading New York-based private equity firm that has invested approximately $2.7 billion of equity capital since inception. For more information about Integreon’s extensive range of services, email [email protected], visit www.integreon.com and follow Integreon at LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.
The Right Process for the Right Task
The Need for a Cyber-Specific Approach for Effective Breach Notification The eDiscovery review processes, and its players, have long been documented, defined, and understood. Comparatively, the approach for Cyber Incident Response (CIR) is newer and quickly getting the definition and attention it deserves. Despite the growing clarity of differences, many still believe shoe-horning the eDiscovery Reference Model (EDRM) into the world of cyber breach response is sufficient. That is an incorrect, and potentially risky assumption. The major differentiating factors influencing a cyber specific approach are knowing the players, understanding the end goal, and ensuring the requirements of the output. When all three factors are thoroughly considered, the delineation between an eDiscovery and a cyber incident process is clear. 1. Knowing the Players It is vital to implement a strategic process It is vital to implement a strategic process that understands and takes into consideration all the players that touch, contribute, and support a breach response. This can include all or some of the following: breached individuals, end clients, counsel or breach coaches, insurance companies, forensics teams, platform providers, review teams, and notification and monitoring vendors. All participants must be on the same page to ensure clients and impacted parties are reassured, counsel is confident, and regulators are satisfied. For example, an experienced data mining team will know that jurisdictional requirements need to be discussed well before other partners’ processes can be finalized. An effective project management team can coordinate the parties, guide everyone through multistage workflows, and communicate effectively on topics from sample protocols to post notification vendors. An attentive review team can identify worker’s compensation claim data in a self-insured organization and quickly prioritize its elevation knowing a change from a PII/PHI focus to a HIPAA focus is necessary. It is to everyone’s advantage to work with an experienced cyber partner that can accommodate an expansive portion of the CIR process to lower risk, ensure accuracy, and achieve cost savings. 2. Understanding the End Goal The eDiscovery world is focused on, and rightfully built around, the formulation of concepts gleaned from context and connections within datasets. Everything from searching and population establishment, to deposition and trial preparation depend on an analytical, legal approach. Focused on options/answers applicable to a thematic need of litigation or regulatory response, the eDiscovery model uses data to DEFINE the end goal. In contrast, the CIR process focuses on content and is only tangentially impacted by the context of legal constructs. It is important to understand that the end goal already exists within the identified dataset. As a result, it is imperative that the approach is technologically sound and advanced enough to identify and then REFINE the raw elements into a clean notification list. Client data must be mined/reduced in a manner appropriate for CIR, not eDiscovery. To accomplish this,the review technology must allow for complex and ever expanding datapoints with varying levels of association. Following that, the Reviewers themselves must be trained, to spot the differences between a medical record number or social security number and further be able to mark it accordingly. Finally, the resulting Consolidated Entity List must be prepared for use by either an internal or an external notification team. 3. Ensuring the Right Output On occasion, an eDiscovery review team is required to remain behind and create a privilege log. Containing the reasoning and a brief description of the content and the privilege being asserted, a privilege log is tedious, exacting work requiring an additional organization of documents from a review population. Adding unpredictable time and expense at the end of the review process, it usually involves heavy legal consultation and direction. The form is dictated by the arguments of counsel and stated designs of the court. Outside of error or additional ruling and review, once completed it is rarely reformed. Conversely, the Consolidated Entity List (CEL) required at the end of every cyber review contains ALL the relevant data points from every entity and can run well into the millions of entries. All workflows should take this into consideration as the final CEL presents the most concise and accurate list for notification. Additionally, the CEL is often revised several times post release due to the supplementation or supplanting of data by the end client. A client may ask for employee numbers to be included. A client may have a listing of addresses for certain entities that needs to be incorporated into an updated consolidation. Breach counsel may have a list of social security numbers to separate employees from customers that must be notified. Finally, beyond any truly final version of a list, there remains the actual notification and similar support such as call centers and credit monitoring. In conclusion, any truly effective approach to cyber incident response is not merely as an exercise beyond eDiscovery, but one that should be considered wholly apart. For organizations like Integreon with a resume of over 16 million documents and almost a billion entities, it is apparent that having a unique process and approach to cyber is essential. A recommended CIR approach is one that has been vetted and honed by years of experienced cyber professionals, supports continuous improvement, and is flexible enough to allow a customizable output supporting accurate and timely notification.
Integreon Launches New Contracts Management Services with Focus On Strategic Solutions and Technology Partnerships
Expanded Portfolio Offers On-Demand Resourcing, LegalTech Integration and Process Innovation to Deliver Tangible Cost and Efficiency Benefits for Clients May 10, 2022 – LAS VEGAS, NV – Integreon, a trusted global managed services and alternative legal services provider (ALSP), announced today at the CLOC Global Institute expansion of its contracts management capabilities to include Legal Operations as a Service, Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) Platform Support, Contract Performance Management, and an upgraded data extraction, migration and abstraction center of expertise, all built to deliver measurable business value at compelling price points. Integreon is a sponsor at the annual CLOC Global Institute in Las Vegas and several of its subject matter experts including Gabriel Buigas, Sylvain Magdinier, Ian Connerty, and Patricia Callejon will be on site and available at Booth 236. Highlights from the new portfolio include: Legal Operations as a Service Corporate Legal Operations teams are straining to meet unprecedented demand for their support: helping in-house departments do more with less, project managing complex innovation and technology programs while delivering enhanced operational analytics to their leadership. Integreon combines legal operations resourcing and delivery expertise with UpLevel Ops’ consulting capabilities into a complete, cost-effective Legal Ops solution that covers strategic and advisory services, day-to-day operational support, financial, budget and vendor management. CLM Platform Management Organizations make a significant investment in contract lifecycle management (CLM) platforms, but many implementations fail to deliver the expected return on that investment due to insufficient post-rollout support. Integreon provides comprehensive CLM platform management designed to achieve expected ROI, offering system deployment support and monitoring, contract repository maintenance, reporting / analytics, as well as helpdesk services and training. Integreon’s team of Six Sigma black belts and change management experts analyze client operational processes and surface optimization opportunities to maximize efficiency. Contract Performance Management Expensive commercial disputes and contract value leakage all happen after the deal is signed. Many businesses lack the resourcing to fully manage contract risks post-execution, resulting in service defaults and financial under-performance. Contract renewals, extensions, change requests and in-life deal negotiations are all expertly supported by experienced Performance Management associates. Integreon also deploys AI technology to ringfence contract obligations data, and then tracks, monitors and reports these obligations to help clients ensure that their contracts deliver the expected business outcomes. Data Extraction and Migration A commercial contracts estate is hazy and unstructured until the contract data has been properly extracted and organized. Migrating the estate from one IT repository to another can be an operational nightmare for clients, when it could be an opportunity to master the information. Integreon has built a Center of Excellence uniquely focused on data extraction and migration, with a team of highly experienced contract and technology professionals assisting corporate clients with their contracts data transformation programs. With delivery centers on three continents, Integreon provides a global service supporting over 50 languages. “Integreon is excited to offer a targeted suite of offerings intended to enable the legal ops community to effectively execute on their key strategies and objectives, said Gabriel Buigas, Executive Vice President and head of Contracts, Compliance & Commercial Services (CCC). “As a former in-house legal executive, I understand the challenges being faced by legal operations leaders given the ever growing demands being placed on the legal function and we are proud to offer services that can help them be successful.” About Integreon Integreon is a trusted, global provider of award-winning legal, business, and research support solutions to leading law firms, legal departments, financial institutions, and professional services firms. The company applies a highly trained, experienced team of over 3,500 employees globally to a wide range of problems that require scale and expertise, enabling clients to become more operationally efficient by streamlining operations, maximizing investment, and improving the quality of work they provide their end clients. With delivery centers on three continents, Integreon offers multi-lingual, around-the-clock support, as well as onshore, offshore, and onsite delivery of services. Integreon is owned by EagleTree Capital, a leading New York-based private equity firm that has invested approximately $2.7 billion of equity capital since inception For more information about Integreon’s extensive range of services, email [email protected], visit www.integreon.com and follow Integreon at LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.
Integreon Partners with Wine To Water to Help Global Communities Gain Access to Clean Water
Efforts are underway to support Wine To Water’s largest emergency response effort delivering over 12,000 water filters to Ukraine April 25, 2022 – FARGO, ND AND LONDON, UK – Integreon, a trusted global managed services and alternative legal services provider (ALSP) today announced that they have partnered with Wine To Water (“W|W”), an international non-profit organization committed to supporting the life and dignity of all through the power of clean water. Integreon and its 3,500+ employees worldwide will build filters which will be provided to in-need communities with whom Integreon has deep, sustained relationships. Integreon will further work with W|W to educate community leaders and recipients on the importance of clean water, health, and hygiene, and how to use the filters. Working with W|W is an extension of Integreon’s long history supporting organizations with a focus on three key pillars: education, healthcare, and the environment. “Partnering with W|W, building filters and supporting their educational outreach allows us to touch all three components of Integreon’s Corporate Social Responsibility program,” said Noreen Kamka, Chief People Officer at Integreon. “We could not be more impressed by the work of W|W and know our team is eager to bring this partnership to life in a way that fundamentally changes communities’ quality of life through access to clean water.” In addition to community based clean water access programs, W|W has provided disaster response in many hard-hit countries including Sudan, Haiti, Syria, Philippines, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Mozambique, Bahamas, Nepal, and now Ukraine. The organization is currently working in Ukraine and neighboring countries to distribute water filters to families displaced and under attack in this crisis. Integreon, in support, has established a program to match employee donations in support of W|W’s largest response program, to date targeting delivery of over 12,000 water filters. Filters give people a way to prevent waterborne illnesses common in war and crises. The filters W|W implements are light, compact, and each one provides clean water for more than a decade; alleviating the need for tens of thousands of single-use plastic water bottles which add to the environmental disaster created by a global crisis. “Clean water is a basic resource to which everyone should have access. With a goal to provide sustainable water solutions in some of the communities in which Integreon offices are located, we are honored to partner with Integreon. It’s refreshing and inspiring to work with a company who understands the value of education, healthcare, and the environment, and how clean water access plays a critical role in the foundation and success of these respective initiatives. Integreon is uniquely involving every global office to ensure each employee can choose to be part of the global impact. Integreon’s partnership will have a life-changing impact for the agents of change receiving clean water and, hopefully, the employees that get involved,” said Courtney Mattar, Sr. Philanthropy Manager, W|W. About Integreon Integreon is a trusted, global provider of award-winning legal, business, and research support solutions to leading law firms, legal departments, financial institutions, and professional services firms. The company applies a highly trained, experienced team of over 3,500 employees globally to a wide range of problems that require scale and expertise, enabling clients to become more operationally efficient by streamlining operations, maximizing investment, and improving the quality of work they provide their end clients. With delivery centers on three continents, Integreon offers multi-lingual, around-the-clock support, as well as onshore, offshore, and onsite delivery of services. Integreon is owned by EagleTree Capital, a leading New York-based private equity firm that has invested approximately $2.7 billion of equity capital since inception. For more information about Integreon’s extensive range of services, email [email protected], visit www.integreon.com and follow Integreon at LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. About Wine to Water Wine To Water (W|W) is a global clean water organization committed to preserving life and dignity through the power of clean water, helping over 1.4 million people in 51 countries gain access to safe and clean water since 2007. W|W relentlessly seeks an end to the root cause of global poverty by providing sustainable water solutions in communities around the world. To accomplish our mission and vision, we develop WASH (water, sanitation, hygiene) solutions in direct partnership with local leaders through water access, water filtration, hygiene education, and sanitation. W|W is hyper-focused on strategic WASH programs in Nepal, the Dominican Republic, The Amazon (W|W office located in Colombia), and Tanzania, along with ongoing disaster response efforts in the United States and around the world. To learn more, visit winetowater.org.