Gwendolyn Hassan to speak at PrivSec & GRC Connect Chicago

Taking place April 16 and 17 at Crowne Plaza Chicago West Loop, PrivSec & GRC Connect Chicago provides a platform for organizations to address the cumulative nature of risk.

PrivSec & GRC Connect Chicago’s comprehensive agenda is led by subject matter experts, business chiefs and industry leaders, giving attendees a deep-dive into challenges and solutions on the rapidly evolving GRC landscape. 

Event speaker, Gwendolyn Hassan is Deputy Chief Compliance Officer at Unisys. She is the founder and host of “Hidden Traffic”, a podcast designed to keep corporate compliance professionals updated about new developments in human trafficking and forced labour prevention and regulation. 

Gwendolyn Hassan will be attending PrivSec & GRC Connect Chicago to moderate a panel discussion on the ethical challenges of integrating new AI systems.

Learn more about Gwendolyn Hassan and her session themes below:

Could you briefly outline your career so far?

My career so far has been, to blatantly steal an analogy my friend Melanie likes to use, a giant plinko board! Remember those boards from carnival games you might have played at some point, where you drop a ball from the top of a board and it bounces its way, seemingly randomly, down and through a series of pegs, sometimes moving across, sometimes moving down, until it reaches the prize at the bottom?

So too, my career has bounced around, often seeming to be close to random, but always leading to what’s “next” for me. I will also say my career has been a series of “hand raises” – situations where I raised my hand and volunteered to try something new, to study something new, or to take on a new project which ultimately led me to something else.

I started as a new lawyer in a tiny law department for a luxury clothing manufacturer doing everything that no one else wanted to do which led to my next role where I raised my hand to handle FCPA and drafted my first policy.

This led to my working for a third-party logistics company where I learned how to lead a department, handle investigations, and automate contract management. This then led to working for a truck manufacturer and learning trade compliance and creating an automated sanctions screening program and working in government contracts compliance.

This led to my building and leading my first global compliance function for an industrial equipment company which, in turn, led to the role I have now with tech firm, Unisys. It’s been an adventure!

What are the main areas / themes that AI developers need to address in order to enhance trust in AI?

There are many, but for me I think the biggest theme is transparency. Being open and transparent about when and how AI is used in your business, your products and your service offerings is crucial.

When and how will you use AI; how and who will provide oversight of AI in your organization; how will you check for potential bias, and who will carry that out?

Being open and transparent about your organization’s use of AI and the governance processes and structures you have put in place to monitor and provide oversight of AI use will, in my view, greatly impact the ability to trust output generated by AI.

What strategies can organisations using AI implement to help nurture trustworthy practices and systems?

The key here is good governance. Do you have a policy in place or guidelines about use of AI? Is there a “gating” system in your organization where potential use-cases are reviewed and approved prior to work starting? How are you keeping records of where and when AI is used in your operations? Who is responsible for making sure use is transparent and auditable? How will your organization determine when not to use AI and how will you keep records related to those “no go” decisions?

All of these questions are keys to having good governance practices, and good governance increases reliability, auditability and trust.