ACA International member Lauren Valenzuela, compliance counsel for Performant Recovery, discusses how she keeps up with a changing industry.
8/16/2019 12:30
ACA International offers multiple opportunities for you to earn professional development designations that can help enhance your career. Collector magazine Managing Editor Anne Rosso May spoke with Lauren Valenzuela, compliance counsel for Performant Recovery, about the process of earning ACA’s Credit and Collection Compliance Attorney (CCCA) designation and how she keeps up with a changing industry.
What does a typical day look like for you as a compliance counsel?
I’m responsible for overseeing all consumer litigation, contract review, reviewing our scripts, helping with policy development and providing counsel to compliance. It’s hard to say what a typical day looks like because the compliance landscape is not static. As compliance counsel, you’ve got to stay up to date with case law, developments in the industry, evolving risks, etc., and help your organization digest all that information in a way that is meaningful.
I suppose a typical day begins with me reviewing the industry alerts and newsletters I receive. When I spot a development that will impact my company in some form, I start the internal conversation by explaining that information to my colleagues; and then I keep the conversation going until we come up with a plan on how to respond to that issue.
One of the biggest challenges in my role is making sure things do not fall off our radar and continuously championing compliance initiatives. You’ve got to be a compliance cheerleader for the organization, and that takes a lot of energy!
Why did you want to earn the CCCA designation?
I was motivated to earn the designation because of the topics covered and the courses required. They were courses I would have wanted to take anyway, and the fact that they counted toward a designation made it a win-win. I’ve been in the industry for about seven years now, but it’s always good to freshen up your knowledge.
The CCCA designation provided a great opportunity to learn and calibrate with others in my field.
Read more of Valenzuela’s tips on how to fit professional development into your workday and what she learned from the CCCA designation process in the August issue of Collector magazine.
Would you like to share your career experiences with ACA? Contact the Communications Department at [email protected].