The Importance of Explaining Your Vendor Management Team’s Qualifications

You’ve probably updated your organization chart for your bank or credit union's compliance and third party risk management teams. You’ve likely had to explain it to Human Resources or go to senior management for approval. But, wait, you’re not done yet – you need to have some additional information ready to prove your team's qualifications. 

Two items to have on hand

Biography:

At a minimum, you want a brief biographical statement or resume on each of the members of the management team on the organization chart. This is important to show that your team members have adequate experience to perform the functions. 

Now – we all know no one grew up saying “I want to do third party risk management” and everyone needs to start somewhere in learning the skills required to do third party risk well, so look for people with:

• Due diligence background
• Financial analysts or paralegals
• Compliance or vendor management education and certification

Now that third party risk has been around for several years, you’d be surprised how many professionals there are with third party risk on their resume.

Certifications:

Track everyone on your team in terms of their certifications as well as their combined hours of ongoing education and specific training.

It’s all helpful to demonstrate that you have a well qualified team able to adequately assess and manage your third parties.