A conversation with Jack Galton and Guillem Casoliva which draws insights from discussions with multinational organisations headquartered in EMEA. These insights reveal a consistent set of compliance challenges across the region, regardless of industry or jurisdiction.
Few organisations expect regulatory pressure to ease anytime soon. If anything, ongoing geopolitical uncertainty, rapid advances in AI and digitalisation, and heightened expectations from regulators, investors, and employees are reshaping what “good” compliance looks like across regions.
To explore what these developments mean in practice, Jack Galton, LRN’s Director of Client Success for EMEA, sat down with Guillem Casoliva, LRN’s newly appointed Senior Ethics and Compliance Advisor for EMEA and APAC. Drawing on insights from a year of close collaboration with clients across industries, their conversation highlights three trends that are increasingly shaping how ethics and compliance (E&C) programmes are designed, measured, and governed in 2025.
Guillem brings a distinctive perspective to the discussion. Alongside more than a decade of experience leading compliance in fast-moving digital industries, he holds a PhD focused on integrity management. This combination of academic depth and practical leadership offers a valuable lens on what is genuinely changing, what remains stubbornly difficult, and where compliance leaders should focus their energy next.
Trend 1: Data visibility as a catalyst for better Board conversations
JG: “In 2025, our EMEA Client Success team saw a 64% increase in the uptake of LRN’s data and benchmarking capabilities. What’s behind that is simple: we’re having far more conversations about how compliance teams can clearly demonstrate programme effectiveness to the board. With regulatory scrutiny increasing, compliance leaders are being invited into board-level discussions more often, but they’re also being asked tougher questions.”
GC: That aligns closely with what we’re seeing globally. Data visibility is no longer about being “best in class” for its own sake. Boards are asking a much more fundamental question: can we demonstrate, with evidence, that our ethics and compliance programme actually works?
LRN’s research has consistently shown a gap between activity and impact. For example, findings from LRN’s Ethics & Compliance Programme Effectiveness Report highlight that while most organisations track outputs (training completion rates, policy acknowledgements), far fewer can confidently assess behavioural outcomes or cultural risk indicators.
GC (continued): Regulators, investors, and employees increasingly expect organisations to move beyond activity-based reporting and toward outcome-based insight. That means understanding behavioural trends, identifying risk hotspots, and being able to explain how specific interventions influence real-world decision-making.
When compliance leaders have access to consolidated, reliable data across training, disclosures, helplines, and culture metrics, it changes the quality of board conversations. Discussions move away from defensive explanations and toward strategic risk management. Data becomes an enabler of credibility, confidence, and influence.
Trend 2: Reducing training seat time without reducing rigor
JG: “Reducing seat time isn’t new, but in 2025 we saw a clear shift in how clients are approaching it. More organisations are adopting pre-assessments at the start of courses to test learner knowledge before requiring full training. This is particularly valuable for long-tenured employees who’ve completed the same annual training for years.”
From a practical perspective, this approach delivers two benefits: learners avoid unnecessary repetition, and compliance teams can demonstrate a tangible return on investment by reclaiming thousands of employee hours without increasing risk.
GC: What’s interesting is that this trend reflects a deeper change in how organisations define effective compliance training. Of course, efficiency matters but regulators are far less interested in how long someone sat in a course than in whether they actually understand their obligations and can apply them under pressure.
LRN’s Global Study on E&C Programme Maturity identified that higher-performing programmes are more likely to personalise learning based on risk exposure and existing knowledge, rather than applying uniform training across the workforce.
GC (continued): Pre-assessments (sometimes referred to as opt-outs) can raise concerns if they’re treated as shortcuts. But when they’re well designed, aligned to key risk areas, and focused on testing applied knowledge rather than surface familiarity, they can stand up to regulatory scrutiny.
In that sense, reducing seat time isn’t about doing less training. It’s about being more intentional. It shifts the focus from content delivery to knowledge assurance through ensuring the right people receive the right depth of training at the right time.
Trend 3: Centralised compliance programmes for coherence and control
JG: “Given the current economic climate, many EMEA clients are reassessing how fragmented their compliance ecosystems have become. Centralising programmes with a single vendor across training, disclosures, culture measurement, or phishing simulations is increasingly seen as a way to improve efficiency, simplify vendor management, and create a single, enterprise-wide view of risk.”
From a client perspective, consolidation also reduces operational friction. Fewer vendors mean fewer integrations, clearer ownership, and more consistent reporting.
GC: I’d add that the driver here goes beyond cost or administrative simplicity. Centralisation is fundamentally about coherence. When compliance activities are spread across multiple platforms, organisations often lose the ability to see how culture, behaviour, and risk interact across the enterprise.
LRN’s culture research has repeatedly shown that ethical risk rarely sits in silos. Issues flagged through disclosures, helplines, or training assessments often correlate, but those patterns only become visible when data is connected.
GC (continued): Of course, consolidation alone isn’t a guarantee of effectiveness. Regulators will still expect depth, independence, and robustness across each programme element. The real value of a single-platform approach lies in whether it strengthens governance, improves insight, and supports consistent decision-making. Not simply whether it reduces cost.
When done well, centralisation enables compliance leaders to move from reactive issue management to proactive risk oversight, grounded in a holistic view of the organisation.
Looking ahead
Across all three trends — data visibility, smarter training design, and programme centralisation — a common theme emerges: compliance leaders are being asked to do more than demonstrate effort. They are being asked to demonstrate impact.
As Jack and Guillem’s conversation highlights, organisations that invest in clearer data, more targeted learning, and integrated programme design are better positioned to meet rising expectations from boards and regulators alike; all while building cultures where ethical decision-making is genuinely embedded in day-to-day work.
To explore how these trends are shaping effective ethics and compliance programmes in practice, book time with one of LRN’s ethics and compliance experts.
