Welcome to April's episode of ProctoCast, where we're digging into a very pertinent topic right now. No, not inflation (that's a whole other episode right there, haha) but the increasing importance of having a proactive third party risk management strategy. Especially understanding who is behind a company's ownership structure in an era of sanctions and complex company ownership / shareholding structures. Proactively Managing Third Party Risk in an era of Geopolitical Volatility and Sanctions ProctoCast is sponsored by third party risk management and supplier insight software startup Contingent. Contingent, based in London, recently secured $8.2 million in funding to grow their platform. It's exciting to have their CEO, Tai Alegbe, as our guest on the show this month to talk about how their product can help to provide insights into some of Procurement's key challenges in today's environment. At its heart, the platform seeks to provide proactive visibility of risks and the opportunities to develop relationships with suppliers to pre-empt any supply chain disruptions or potentially brand-damaging scandals. Data and market intelligence is key to facilitating this. Internal data (and its quality) is a foundation for success, but there is also a huge amount of external intelligence to be tapped into that can augment and bolster a third party risk strategy. With sanctions on Russia as a result of the invasion of Ukraine, as well as supply chain disruptions resulting from impact of the war on Ukrainian manufacturing businesses, buyers need to know whether their supply chains are impacted. The tricky part of this is often identifying real ownership and control of certain companies. Specifically: Who the individuals are who control the business and wield the most influence, and whether they have political ties.A view of where companies are exposed based on their relationship to sanctioned entities Tai walks us through Contingent's "Insights" tool and how it differentiates itself from other products on the market. We then dig into how Procurement can support the relief efforts in Ukraine and help companies who are positively responding to the crisis. Moving on from this, we touch on near-shoring and whether or not it's an effective strategy to combat rising logistics costs, strict lockdowns in China and wider geopolitical instability. How can Procurement proactively prepare for risks that may be around the corner? While we can't predict everything, having a strong risk management framework is key to be able to establish how resilient your supply chain is. Stay in touch!Protcocast is a part of the Proctopus network. Join our Proctopus LinkedIn Group here! Sign up for the Proctopus Community Networking App here Connect with Tai here Connect with James here Visit Contingent's website here We're on a mission to make the procurement community more engaged and our profession better understood. Our events and content are way more exciting and fun than the traditional conferences hosted by established industry bodies. No jargon. No acronyms!