Published in Yahoo! Finance, Oct. 12, 2016
The Bernie Madoff scandal made headlines in 2008. The $65 billion crime went beyond monetary misfortune; it impacted families on a personal level. That’s when Wall Street veteran David Shulman decided there has to be a better way to deepen the trust and confidence that major financial institutions have with their customers and to avoid these financial scandals that rock the foundation of the industry.
“Veris Benchmarks was really inspired by the Madoff scandal,” said CEO and Founder David Shulman, who has spent more than 30 years in the institutional financial services industry. “After family members and friends were directly impacted by the corrupt scheme, I became consumed with trying to determine precisely what firms were doing to better understand those being hired to act in a fiduciary capacity.”
Veris Benchmarks and its pre-employment assessments tools are a culmination of five years of intensive study and analysis aimed to create a unique product to assess “moral fiber” during the hiring process. The service assists in the determination of whether a prospective hire might compromise a company’s reputation by engaging in fraud, deceit, or some other type of errant behavior.
“Executives now have the responsibility to take advantage of new methods to help protect their companies, their shareholders and, even more importantly, their customers,” Shulman said. “What are companies doing to better understand how their employee would respond when faced with situations of moral gray?”
During the course of its development, Veris sent its Chief Scientist, Dr. George Paajanen Ph.D., an internationally-recognized expert in the area of psychometrics, into the American prison system to build a test that identifies the character traits manifest in currently incarcerated white collar felons. By applying this test, a company can improve its hiring process in 15 minutes and help to protect its image and reputation.
Veris Benchmark’s flagship product, the Veris Professional™ is a comprehensive screening product that will help companies avoid hiring miscues. By using its proprietary database, Veris works closely with clients to develop their own benchmarks to help them carefully review prospective hires.
Fraud and theft are not isolated to the financial industry. It happens everywhere; from embezzlement at the dentist’s office, to the PTA, to the retail space and beyond, employee theft amounts to billions of dollars of losses annually.
“Issues of impropriety have burdened industry and business for centuries,” Shulman said. “What if companies could detect potential malice and the likelihood of theft before the key players were ever hired?”