Jan. 26, 2021

Professionals from Calgary’s business community share ethics lessons through the Integrity Network

A time when the need to discuss business ethics is more essential than ever
Professionals from Calgary’s business community share ethics lessons through the Integrity Network

On Dec 16, 2020 the Integrity Network meeting was held virtually for the first time.

Chaired by Canadian Centre for Advanced Leadership in Business (CCAL) fellow, Dr. David Dick, the Integrity Network is a Calgary-based working group of professionals in business ethics who come together to discuss and tackle ethical concerns. Veterans of the network have created a safe environment where complicated ethics and compliance questions can be shared, and members can benefit form the wisdom and experiences of others. The fast-changing environment that organizations have lived through over the past few months highlights the need for such mediums, even more than before.

The meetings have usually seen a good combination of academic, industrial and non-profit institutions in their ranks and this meeting was no different. Cindy Hamilton, Director of the Ethics Office at TELUS Risk Management and David Oberg, Manage of the Risk Assurance Services at PwC spoke at this meeting. They discussed how the transition to remote work and conditions caused by the pandemic have affected their procedures and other participants shared their views and experiences.

Cindy Hamilton who is one of the founders of the Integrity Network shares with us “I am the Director of the Ethics department at TELUS, my portfolio is the entire TELUS corporation, approximately 75K employees worldwide. I, along with members from the Nexen Ethics group, started sharing benchmarking information about 10 years ago and found that it was difficult to find Canadian information in the industry for us to benchmark with so we started this Integrity Network group. The goal was to share at a high level the ethical challenges we face and share best practices. This could be in terms of how our offices were staffed, how we conduct training, what is, or is not, reported to our Boards, what is shared from the Ethics office publicly, how we communicate our programs, ways to provide ethical awareness, etc. The topics have really varied over the years. We typically met on a quarterly basis and each time, new faces began to appear- which brings us to where we are today with approximately 170 members that have joined as a result of word of mouth. David is always our chair and a company typically hosts on a quarterly basis which always consists of a lunch and learn session hosted by a member (about 1.5 hrs in length). I have found these sessions very valuable as they do provide benchmarking in most cases and are educational in others. I am once again involved now with moving this to a virtual platform and happy there was interest as there are a lot of changes in this space right now and a good chance to see what others are experiencing.”

David Oberg explains his experience with the Integrity Network by saying “I have been involved with the Integrity Network for around six years and have hosted around one event per year. The Integrity Network has been incredibly valuable as a source of information, ideas and benchmarking within the local compliance community. I am always learning from other's experiences, challenges and perspectives on the topics we discuss.”

This Spring will be the 10-year anniversary of the Integrity Network. If you are interested to learn more about the Integrity Network you can email CCAL fellow and chair of the Integrity Network, Dr. David Dick, at dgdick@ucalgary.ca.