Sarah Hadden & Corporate Compliance Insights: “Failure was always a possibility. It just wasn't an option.”

One of the great things about having a publication is getting to talk with people you like and admire and then writing about it.  I have communicated with Sarah Hadden over the years and watched Corporate Compliance Insights (https://www.corporatecomplianceinsights.com/)  thrive during that time.  I knew her as an entrepreneur who had grown her publishing enterprise into an influential voice in the compliance and ethics field.  I have especially impressed by the books she published in recent years: Lisa Fine & Mary Shirley, “Sending the Elevator Back Down: What we’ve Learned from Great Women in Compliance;” Mary Shirley “Living Your Best Compliance Life: 65 Hacks and Cheat Codes to Level up Your Compliance Program;” Adam Balfour, “Ethics & Compliance for Humans: Building the E&C Program Your Employees Deserve” 

When I first approached her about turning the tables and instead of her being the publisher I would do a story about her, she was a bit reluctant.  But fortunately for our readers, she agreed to my conducting an interview and sharing her story.[i]  As you would expect, it is an inspiring tale for those who have thought of following her model and becoming an entrepreneur in our field.[ii]

Starting your own business.

Being there at the beginning of a new business can be an exhilarating experience.  You see something completely new come to life.  At the same time, you know that you also have the ability to ruin it.  You have to be able to make payroll and pay your bills.  You have to be able to work with and empower others who have joined with you and share your purpose and commitment to the task. You have to provide something in the marketplace that adds value.   

Sarah Hadden has established a distinct place for herself in the compliance and ethics world as an independent publisher.   She answers to no one else but her readers.

Sarah’s background. 

Before majoring in news-editorial journalism, she started as a political science major. I found this especially interesting because that was also my background.  I find generally in our profession that very few people think of the field in terms of power and the abuse of power.  That is the mark of a poli-sci background.

Sarah also has the background of a journalist, with 20+ years writing for various newspapers and magazines in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.  This is a definite plus.  The best journalists have a strong sense of ethics, a commitment to diligence in their work, and enormous curiosity.  This aligns perfectly with the compliance and ethics field. 

Being an entrepreneur.

I talked with Sarah about her motivation in pursuing this business.  Her response:

“I will say that I love being an entrepreneur. I fantasize sometimes about shrugging off the weight of responsibility  .  .  . but — and this is so important — I have the heart of a bootstrapper.  .  .  . a former client, Maurice Gilbert, had a saying — it was written on his whiteboard, and I now have had it on a Post-it note above my desk for 10 years. It says, “Discipline is Remembering What You Want.”  .  .  .  I place value on the privilege of being a voice in the GRC space and giving a platform to other people.”

She has also stepped up to the task of running a business with empowered people: “I value creating flexible jobs and meaningful work for other people. I have exactly what I want, and I’m grateful every day.”

Starting her business.

Sarah looked at the skills she had as a journalist.  She knew how to write, and had a background in art and graphic design, and considered what direction to take: 

“I looked for a way to transfer those skills into something that would be more lucrative (than newspaper reporting). But at the same time, I was determined not to enter into some kind of structure where I didn’t have freedom and control over my time. I think I was always more attracted to the idea of making my own way and being my own boss.”

Sarah could be described as a quiet risk taker.  As she told the story:  

“I decided to start a small agency. I called it Words & Pictures because we offered writing and graphic design — two things that I knew how to do. I could put those two things together and build websites. I could do search engine optimization, which at the time, 15 years ago, was still buzzy and new.  And I knew there was a particular kind of writing that could convert on a website. I felt like if I just learned it as fast as I could (and stayed one day ahead of my clients) I could figure out a way to make a living.

So I started this boutique agency and built it with a couple of talented subcontractors. And a business partner I was working with at the time had already begun to construct this Corporate Compliance Insights website as a way to attract leads for an executive recruiter who focused on compliance officers. Compliance and risk? I’ve always found it to be fascinating. It’s the intersection of business and politics. I was so excited about building and, later, rebuilding that website. I was constantly learning, constantly pivoting and growing. I loved the process of attracting an audience with high quality content and using SEO so that Google could find us. And, later, learning how to convert web traffic to build an audience that would, eventually, become a community.

It was new and it was thrilling. I got to use every part of my brain every day. But very soon I got into that situation where you have one big client and a lot of small ones. A little bit out of balance for a small business owner, but I was so passionate about that work that I was doing and so excited to be running all aspects of this fast-growing website. Then the day came that my client announced he was ready to retire and started making noises about pulling the plug and killing the website – and, obviously, my job.

I thought, no, no, no, no, no. We’ve got something here –  I knew that if you have web traffic [there is real value.] I knew I could reinvent the website and convert it into an independent, advertising-supported news-based outlet and continue down this path I had created. I wasn’t ready for it to end, and I knew that if I started selling advertising, I could spin it off and turn it into another business. . . So I took on some risk. I took out a loan and bought it.

“If you’re gonna bet on something, bet on yourself.”  So there it was.  She had taken a leap others may only take in their imaginations (or nightmares). 

“It was terrifying, but it was also exhilarating. And empowering. I signed the paperwork on my 50th birthday. I took out that loan hoping I could pay it off in five years. I paid it off in one year.” 

A moment of hesitation?  Followed by a moment of determination. 

“I can remember back when I first started that marketing agency, explaining my business plan to my mother. I was recently single at the time.  And I said to her, in a weak moment: ‘Mom, I hope I’ll have the self-discipline to actually do this.’ And she said, “You won’t have a choice.” And I’ve never forgotten that. Failure was always a possibility. It just wasn’t an option.”

Failure as a possibility?  How about a pandemic?  

“I bought CCI in December of 2018, so just a little more than one year later we had the pandemic. I was determined that my little boat wouldn’t be sunk, and determined not to lay anyone off. We thrived, actually. Quarantine worked to our advantage because vendors needed email access to compliance officers and that’s something I was sitting on.”

A business that thrives & continues to provide value in the C&E space.  A successful business needs to stay true to its mission yet know when to adapt.  As Sarah noted:

“we’ve made a big splash in Q1 this year with in-person events and webinars. We now offer a fully turn-key webinar production service in addition to on-site coordination of in-person events. These two offerings are logical extensions of the brand and, based on the tremendous success we’re already having with them, webinars are obviously something I should have rolled out a few years ago.”

A compliance guy asks an ethics person a logical question.

Even in a serious interview there is always an opportunity for humor. So I got to ask Sarah what for me was a logical question.  Her publication is “Corporate Compliance Insights.”  On the business’ site it talks about compliance and auditing.  My question was “what about ethics as part of the business?”   I certainly generated a surprised response:

“You asked about us not having a reference to “ethics” in our name and branding.  When you put that question on the sheet, I was like, oh my gosh. This is a perfect example of the cobbler’s children having no shoes, where my own LinkedIn profile and that of the site haven’t been updated since we launched in 2018, we really don’t prioritize coverage of internal audit anymore.

And ethics a hundred percent I put on par with compliance. Compliance and ethics hold hands and ethics is its own thing. And it’s certainly where we live in that world. So I literally, Joe, when I saw that on your list of questions, I put on my very long to-do list. I’ve got to change our tagline on LinkedIn.”

The publisher’s voice. 

Sarah made a point that I have thought about for a while.  Publications may tend to have a voice.  Our newsletter, Compliance and Ethics:  Ideas & Answers, is not a neutral forum.  We definitely have a viewpoint and perspective.  If you think compliance is a racket or a waste of time, we are not your forum.  We clearly believe in the mission of C&E professionals and are devoted to helping them – to do their jobs and be more effective.  We will reject articles that do not serve that purpose.  I believe publications in our field are generally like this. 

Sarah’s background as a true journalist comes through on this point.  Her’s is a forum for any practitioners in the field, even those with views that are not things she agrees with.  As she describes it: 

“I’m proud that CCI represents a brave and independent voice in the GRC space. Our content is free and ungated, we’re not PE-backed or owned by a corporate entity or an events company or a software vendor. We can do and say whatever we want; that makes us unique — and it sure keeps things interesting.” 

She shares with our publication the view that as a forum for those in our field, we want the ideas and materials to be freely available.  Thus, she explains:

“One thing that has always set CCI apart is if you submit an article you always retain the rights as an author to what you have published with us. Now with a book, it’s more complicated because there’s more that goes into producing a book for an author. But if you write an article for CCI, if you then want to put it on your own blog or make a reprint of it, it’s your material.”

Her kooky self. 

One remarkable area of expansion for Corporate Compliance Insights is publishing books.  Naturally I used one of these books to elicit some personal information from Sarah.  In Mary Shirley’s book that CCI published, “Living Your Best Compliance Life: 65 Hacks and Cheat Codes to Level up Your Compliance Program,” Mary advised us to share our “kooky selves” with others, so we are seen as being actual human beings.  Of course, with this as the back story, Sarah had to respond about herself: 

“I’m not sure I’m in a kooky season of life right now! I get a lot of joy from peaceful pursuits like . . . baking bread  .  .  .  . Spending all of your waking hours neck-deep in current events makes baking a loaf of sourdough bread sound pretty appealing, doesn’t it?” 

Lest you think she is completely relaxed in her personal activities she also added to this revelation:

“My husband and I are restoring a 1913 house in the historic district of Fort Worth.  Wielding power tools and scraping paint are wonderful stress relievers.”

(Just so our readers know, even people I respect in our field do things I do not like. You will not find me anywhere near a power tool.) 

Wisdom. I’ll end with a brief story that has always stayed with me.   

“At a party given by a billionaire on Shelter Island, Kurt Vonnegut informs his pal, Joseph Heller, that their host, a hedge fund manager, had made more money in a single day than Heller had earned from his wildly popular novel Catch-22 over its whole history. Heller responds, “Yes, but I have something he will never have … enough.”

My sense is that this wisdom could easily have come from Sarah. She has reason to be deeply satisfied with all that she has accomplished.