The value of tapping specialized expertise should be tempered by an awareness of its limitations. We at GLG have worked with thousands of clients, companies and experts to develop the world’s most robust compliance framework for primary research. Compliance is a core commitment for our business and ingrained in our culture. Over the past decade, we have invested considerable financial resources and thousands of hours to create the most technologically advanced and comprehensive compliance system in the industry. Our systems and compliance protocols help experts manage conflicts and enable our clients to implement their own protocols. Our compliance framework is a key reason why clients overwhelmingly choose to work with GLG. Should you have any questions or want to learn more about our compliance framework, please email compliance@glgroup.com or call 512-651-3700.
In order to be eligible to consult, GLG requires Council Members to sign, and annually re-sign, our Terms and Conditions of Council Membership. By signing, they agree that they:
Have reviewed any agreements or policies to which they are subject and are permitted to join the GLG Councils;
Will decline to participate in any project that would violate those agreements or any obligations they may owe to third parties;
Will not provide confidential (including material non-public) information to clients;
Will keep client interests and information confidential; and
Will immediately terminate any consulting projects that move into subject matters they cannot discuss (in which case, if they notify us, we’ll pay them for the time they set aside).
View the current Terms and Conditions of Council Membership.
Council Members are also required to go through our interactive Tutorial each year. The Tutorial is sector-specific (i.e., healthcare experts receive different training than tech experts), and each module is available in 20 languages. The training branches depending on the expert’s specific background within their sector. The Tutorial explains what constitutes “confidential information,” sensitizes experts to any confidentiality obligations they may have, and emphasizes that our clients do not want – and will actually be harmed – if they receive confidential information.
Experts often have conflicts. At GLG, we actively solicit expert conflicts and use this information to disqualify experts from projects that aren’t suitable for them. Among other things, in connection with projects, we ask Profile Questions which help us determine whether experts have the requisite knowledge to provide insight to clients, and to understand the experts’ conflicts and limitations. GLG has stored millions of answers to these questions, giving us unparalleled information on expert abilities and conflicts.
We recognize that compliance-focused clients want to be able to monitor their primary research activity in real time and implement their own protocols for how users engage with experts. That’s why we have created our web-based Project Oversight tools for clients. Through our compliance ‘dashboard,’ client oversight personnel can view their firm’s primary research activity in real time. They can view any Council Member suggested for a consultation to any professional within their firm (e.g., their biography, responses to GLG profiling and their own oversight questions, and the experts’ historical usage with the firm). From the dashboard, oversight personnel can implement rules directed towards certain populations of Council Members. For instance, they can hardwire it so compliance is notified or has the opportunity to pre-approve consultations based on a number of criteria. Clients also have the ability to set up custom screening questions or attestations – which can be set to pass, fail, or hold an expert for compliance approval – which each expert must review and respond to prior to participating in a consultation with any client user. Clients can pose different questions based on the Council Members’ sector of expertise. Should you have any questions or want to learn more about our compliance framework, please email compliance@glgroup.com or call 512-651-3700.
At GLG, we recognize that employees of companies should be treated differently than independent consultants. Of course, employed experts are prohibited from participating in projects about their employer. Additionally, in order to engage in written, in-depth and ongoing projects, employed experts (other than those who effectively run their businesses) must be enrolled in our Member Programs’ tier, which requires written confirmation of employer consent. GLG proactively reaches out to companies (to date we’ve contacted 10,000+ of the world’s largest companies) and reviews thousands of publicly available corporate policies to find out if they have policies against outside consulting. We also created The Institutional Registry℠, a system by which organizations can register restrictions or guidelines concerning consulting activity by any of their professionals or employees. Through this process, GLG has developed a database of employer preferences and can immediately and comprehensively enforce organizations’ policies prohibiting or limiting outside consulting to any employees currently in the Councils, or who apply for entry in the future, and even employees of their subsidiaries. If you’re an employer and want to inform us of any policies you have regarding outside consulting, please feel free to do so via The Institutional Registry, by emailing us at compliance@glgroup.com or calling +1 (512) 651-3700.