Sustaining a Culture of Ethics & Compliance

© Tigo El Salvador volunteers

© Tigo El Salvador volunteers

At Millicom, we are committed to the highest level of ethics and compliance. Our commitment to compliance begins with each and every one of our employees. It provides our business with a competitive advantage and allows Millicom to be a social good in all of our markets.  Just as infrastructure companies in prior generations built the roads and highways that connect the countries in which we operate and facilitated economic growth and development, Millicom builds digital highways. By connecting our markets through mobile services, broadband internet, and cable television, Millicom fosters economic growth and development. These digital highways create opportunities for people and communities to increase their economic stability and opportunity as well as the economic prosperity of the countries in which we operate.

At Millicom, we all are responsible for understanding the important legal and ethical issues that affect our business. All employees are expected to act with integrity at all times and make business happen the right way. Integrity means more than just complying with the law; it means acting in an ethical manner as described in the company’s Code of Conduct. 

The CEO and Executive Team are committed to our Sangre Tigo and are actively involved in fostering a culture of ethics and compliance from the top across all our lines of business.

As the Chairman of our Board, José Antonio Ríos García stated during 2019 “On behalf of the Board, I would like to reaffirm our commitment to a culture of doing the right things in the right way, encompassed by “Sangre Tigo”, which builds our strength and success. We are proud to be a leader in ethics and compliance in our markets. We look forward to engaging with you and thank you for being part of the Millicom journey.”

In order to assist our employees and the external parties we interact with, the Compliance function is organized around three pillars: Prevent, Detect, and Respond.

Prevent: Every employee has a responsibility to prevent corruption in our company. In order to assist employees in this mission, we foster a strong compliance tone from the top of our business, conduct annual training to increase our Compliance IQ, and conduct compliance due diligence on our third parties as part of the on-boarding process.

Detect: We know that corruption and non-compliance can exist despite the best prevention efforts. Therefore, we build systems to detect corruption within our company. To this end we have a strong Investigations function that works to detect and respond to issues, and advises the Company on addressing risk; an anonymous ethics line for employees and others to report concerns; regular internal audit of all functions including Compliance; and are engaging in a process to conduct compliance due diligence on all third parties currently working with us. 

Respond: Once corruption or non-compliance is detected, we move quickly to remove or remediate. Our Investigation function works efficiently to provide fair counsel and remedies that the Company can implement quickly. Internal Audit works with the business to develop action plans to address all of its findings, which they then implement. Third parties with significant findings in compliance due diligence are terminated or remediated. The performance of all of our senior management is measured by Compliance KPIs, requiring continual improvement to compliance-related issues.’

 

Global Compliance Officer

Salvador Escalon is the Chief Legal, Ethics and Compliance Officer. As the leader of Millicom’s Compliance function he is committed to maintaining a world-class compliance program. He reports to the CEO, and has direct reporting obligations to the Compliance and Business Conduct Committee of the Board of Directors. He leads a team of Compliance employees throughout the organization and in each of Millicom’s markets. He is responsible for Compliance, AML, and Strategic Response. Additional compliance support is provided by groups and individuals in areas such as Legal, Security, Internal Audit, Human Resources, Finance, Business Control, and Corporate Governance.