In our Spotlight on Success series, Ali Glickstein, Vice President of Business Operations & Strategy at Berkadia, shares their approach to implementing and coordinating an ESG program that addresses critical risks and focuses on key objectives by:
- Collecting input and data from multiple experts in a collaborative and synchronized manner.
- Aligning across the organization and presenting a holistic view of the ESG program to the audit committee.
- Leveraging AuditBoard’s capabilities to support the published ESG report and demonstrate Berkadia’s commitment to the environment, social impact, and ethical governance.
This update builds on our earlier 2023 Spotlight on Success interview with Bill Cancel and Bridget Keller (see below for the original story) in which they shared more about how cross-functional collaboration at Berkadia is key to increasing visibility and operating with a connected risk mindset.
Original 2023 Story
In our Spotlight on Success series, Bridget Keller (VP of Internal Audit) and Bill Cancel (Vice President of Information Security) share how Berkadia leveraged AuditBoard’s connected risk platform to correlate, automate, and streamline their processes. Berkadia, a company based out of New York City that sells, finances, and services commercial real estate, has powered their success with long-term investments in people and technology.
Hear how this team broke down information silos and developed a culture of transparency by switching from manual tools to AuditBoard, including:
- Leveraging AuditBoard’s CrossComply solution to correlate, automate, and streamline internal audit and cyber risk processes
- Breaking down information silos between teams to automate communication in a single-pane-of-glass platform
- Developing a culture of transparency and early stakeholder involvement
- Utilizing AuditBoard to craft a mature qualitative and quantitative risk program
- Conducting internal education on awareness of enterprise risk management, internal audit, cybersecurity, and risk
Tell us a little about Berkadia and how you discovered AuditBoard.
“Berkadia is a very interesting organization. It encompasses multiple facets, including commercial real estate and the servicing department, which services loans and portfolios and works together with investment sales and mortgage banking.
AuditBoard was brought to my attention early through an internal audit. Our risk controls and compliance group brought up AuditBoard as a tool they wanted to use. We found that AuditBoard could be very useful in a cyber risk function as well. Many of the methods that we used prior to AuditBoard were manual, such as spreadsheets and presentations. Having the ability to correlate, automate, and — more importantly — streamline these processes was an important objective for us.
We’ve always wanted to find solutions that are easy to integrate and incorporate into how we operate. And as we started looking at AuditBoard through the lens of our security frameworks and policies, being able to automate and track our annual assessments was a game changer for us.” – Bill Cancel, Vice President of Information Security at Berkadia
How has AuditBoard enhanced your work processes?
“The enhancements AuditBoard has provided to our team means that I really think of it as an automated communication tool. When internal audit tests a control – whether it passes or fails – no matter what, we’re linking it to a risk. CrossComply alerts the enterprise risk management team if there’s been perhaps a weak control that’s now ineffective. It allows all of these different teams to see this data in real time. As soon as my team or I indicate that this control is ineffective, the entire team will see it.” – Bridget Keller, VP of Internal Audit at Berkadia
“The use of AuditBoard gives us the ability to involve the stakeholders often and early. They know what’s going to be coming up in the future. They can prepare for it. So that automatically speeds up the process. It gives people a little bit of a heads-up notice. It also keeps people accountable. For instance, instead of having to send out emails and remind people, the system is automatically doing that. So as we continue to grow with AuditBoard, that really helps with how we want to do things.” – Bill Cancel, Vice President of Information Security at Berkadia
How has AuditBoard helped scale Berkadia’s brand?
“AuditBoard has opened up a great learning experience by helping us understand and spread awareness of enterprise risk management, internal audit, cybersecurity, risk, and so forth. AuditBoard has really helped us as a communication tool, as a training tool, as an awareness tool to help build our brand.” –Bridget Keller, VP of Internal Audit at Berkadia
“I think that one of the important factors here is that if you look at programs that don’t use a tool like AuditBoard to develop a mature qualitative and quantitative risk program, the cost of a breach to them is often double. The return on investment in AuditBoard is being able to identify and address the risks within your environment so much faster. You can measure risks from a historical and a future standpoint. While being able to justify your budget to address risk is often unquantifiable, having the tools to identify these things quickly is where your value comes from. And I think our leadership team recognizes that.” – Bill Cancel, Vice President of Information Security at Berkadia
Berkadia is a leader in the commercial real estate industry, offering a robust suite of services to our multifamily and commercial property clients. Powered by deep relationships and industry-changing technology, our people sell, finance, and service commercial real estate, providing support for the entire life cycle of our clients’ assets. Our unique ownership structure allows us to put our clients’ interests first and create a marketplace that delivers a superior experience. To learn more, visit https://berkadia.com/.
