In this episode of The Connector Podcast, host Koen Vanderhoydonk interviews Mark Tielemans, CEO of RealCGR (Real Compliance Governance and Risk Management). The conversation begins with a concise definition of ESG, emphasizing that environmental, social, and governance elements are equally important and must be integrated into corporate strategy. Mark explains how ESG intertwines with organizational resilience, noting that crisis management now requires accountability for environmental impacts, data privacy, and governance compliance, and that regulators may impose fines for failures. He highlights the strategic financial stakes: firms that neglect ESG risk exclusion from financing, higher borrowing costs, and loss of business opportunities. The discussion then shifts to RealCGR’s RegTech offering, which automates ESG‑related resilience processes, reduces resource consumption, and enables rapid, evidence‑based crisis response ("three clicks away"). Mark notes the lack of a single ESG‑resilience standard but points to emerging guidelines, checklists, and forthcoming EU publications. He also describes how RealCGR supports companies during an actual crisis by providing an app‑based workflow for immediate action and communication. The episode concludes with practical contact details (realcgr.com, info@reachgr.com) and a call for listeners to engage with RealCGR for ESG preparedness.
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Welcome to the Connector Podcast, an ongoing conversation connecting fintechs, banks, and regulators worldwide. Join CEO and founder Koen Vanderhoydonk as you learn more about the latest available trends and solutions in the markets.
A warm welcome to everyone, and today we have a special guest, Mark. Mark, Can you explain a little bit who you are, what you do?
Hello, Koen, and first of all, thank you for having me on your podcast. It's a real pleasure. My name is Mark Tielemans. I'm CEO of RealCGR. RealCGR stands for Real Compliance Governance and Risk Management.
Interesting.
We focus on resilience part, crisis readiness, and data protection with our RegTech.
Excellent. And we'll surely talk a bit more about your company later on, but today we agreed to have a conversation conversation about the most prominent thing at this moment in the markets. It's ESG. So, Mark, for you, what does ESG stand for? And don't tell me environmental social governance, right?
This is then already said, Koen. Indeed, it's important to know what is it exactly. So it's a general new and enforceable context and concept in the business world. And in fact, the needs to be integrated in organizational strategy because it's very important. We come to that in one second. But important to my opinion is first of all to know and see that the 3 come together, ESG. It's not only the environmental part, which is of course very important, but— and they are all equal. So, the environment, it's not only about having, you know, glass cups instead of plastic cups in your company, it's about the very important carbon footprint things. And so these things have been decided by UN and EU, and it's dropping down on the companies. The carbon footprint reduction is huge. And as you know, Europe even wants to go to a neutral situation there.
So it's the famous net zero.
Yes, indeed.
Green Deal.
Yeah, the Green Deal. It's just no escape from that. I mean, it's a good thing. The social relates, but I'll come back about the environmental thing when it comes to crisis management. That's an important part there.
Okay, interesting.
The social part in a general way is how a company behaves ethically. I could say it like that. Of course, there's many things in there too. It's of course about working conditions of your employees, your social behavior in general, like human respect. your diversity, inclusion in your company of people, etc. That's also very obvious. But there are also more technical things in it, like how you run business relationships, which partners you choose in your supply chain, etc. And it goes even to domains like your liability, product quality, your safety, privacy. It's all there because if you don't manage that well, it's not very ethical, right? And the governance is how you make this all happen. So, and it's going to be controlled and looked at by, you know, regulators and supervising authorities in the future. I'll come back to that.
Mm-hmm.
But it's how you do it. And it also, it has, it's very broad. Like you have board composition. How is it with that? How do you manage your cybersecurity practices? What is your structure? How do you prevent bribery, etc., etc.? It's all there, the governance.
Yeah, so I guess this is an introduction of what it is. It's a— I think it's a wide definition. It's also a wide impact to the market. But for you, why is it then important and why should we address it?
Yeah, so indeed, Koen, you're right. As a takeaway on what is ESG, we must say it's a very huge thing. It's not just one thing, it's very huge and there are many aspects to address there. And why is it important? Because look, There are several points, but when you look to a company, to an organization, it matters to be relevant to your environment. So, an environment, I don't mean only the nature, the full environment. No company stands alone. You work in an ecosystem with partners, suppliers, your employees, their families, the government, and so on. It's like an ecosystem. So you need to be relevant in that. And addressing ESG, in fact, brings value not only to you as a company, but to all of them. But generally speaking, ESG is important because, in my opinion, it's only a personal thing, but it's about a sustainable future for us all and the fact that you cannot just do whatever you want and not caring about social or environmental. It's doing good things for us all. And so, it's being relevant.
Well, looking at sustainability, I think considering current conditions in the world, some may say that focus is not as much on it. And at the same time, I think industry has been challenged over the last couple of years, especially in terms of resilience. So how would you then connect ESG with resilience?
Yeah, well, to say it very clearly, if you look at the resilience in a very narrow definition, if I can say traditional definition, you will prevent a crisis. But when a crisis occurs to your company, you will see to manage the crisis. And that managing is a It's about getting your company on the road again within set recovery times, objectives, and so on. So it's getting business processes back on. And of course, you will see for impact domains like humans, your operations, your ICT, your company reputations, and so on. But this is in the future not enough. You will also not be caring, if I can say it between brackets, not only care about yourself in the crisis, but care So, in my opinion, there will be— a company, when handling a crisis, will be accountable for the ESG part, for the environmental. So, if you lose 1 ton of whatever dangerous smoke or product in a river or in the air somewhere, yeah, you will be accountable for that. And if you don't care enough about the people or the data privacy part or the security part during a crisis and you lose a lot of data, you cause risk to people, your own employees or other people, like it's already written in the GDPR, by the way, you will be accountable for that. And also the governance part. Were you prepared? Yes or no? Were you prepared well? Yes or no?
Bonus patrias familiars.
Yes, indeed. That will be audited and you will get possibly fines for that. And it's not a game. It's those fines, in fact, already exist. Why should you also address— I mean, that's the resilience part, right? But there is something really broader.
And which is the broader part then?
Well, I heard— I was on another conference recently and it was a really financial conference. And there you see that access to business deals internationally or access to finance The VC money, right? Etc., by the way, or even just regular bank money. You will pay more or you can even be excluded in the future when you don't do the ESG part very well. So, you see that there's a hugely strategic aspect about addressing ESG because you can really, you know, like wipe yourself out as an organization if you don't address it.
If you don't do it.
Yeah. So, and our part in that is As I said in the beginning, it's a huge part. It's very broad. But we certainly care about the resilience aspect and the data protection aspect in ESG preparedness, readiness.
Yeah, it is maybe a nice bridge to tell a little bit more about your company, RealCGR. Where does the company step in? What solutions are you providing in this aspect?
Well, we are not going to claim that we are, you know, the full-scale, full-spectrum ESG provider. But as said, we care about the resilience part. And, you know, regtech, regulatory technology, is really about, in my opinion, it's making things efficient, right? So if you are efficient, you save on resources. That can be human time, that can be management time, that can be, you know, yeah, ICT resources and so on. So there is a direct relation. If you save on those resources, that's good for the E, the environmental part. It's also good for the S because you make the people's life, the ones who have to do it, more easy. And the governance part is also very clear because, you know, you switch from— you make yourself more relevant using regtech. Traditionally, again, you know, you have governance programs like business continuity and so, and you maybe the tendency is to avoid fines or to be scoring good when there is a certification or an audit. And so that's what we call the keeping the lights on approach. Okay. But in the future, this will not be enough anymore.
Sustainable?
Yes. You know why? Because the regulators also change and they also have technology. So what's happening is there is a real shift in the In the aspect of you know the regulatory compliance and and how supervising authorities control the the markets, so it will not be enough to keep the lights on. The you will be asked to show your accountability and your framework of accountability on a constant basis, just just like that, because a crisis can happen just like that. So so and this is why it's this is where we help. So we make it efficient and. Using Direct Tech, it's all much more efficient. You can show your accountability right away. And of course, you can use it independently from your own ICT because it's an important aspect when you have a crisis. This is where we do— in fact, we relieve, we unburden the client of that aspect.
Yeah. And everything is obviously proof-driven. So that's what the regulator wants. Mark, does that also mean that we already have standards in the markets in terms of this subject, resilience?
There's not really a standard, but there are, of course, many very valuable content on the market depending on the view, how you approach it. So if you talk about environment, there are, of course, items that can manage carbon footprints, etc., etc. But it's It's not really about having something really, really new. It's about doing things a different way. Like, for example, again, resilience, switch from, you know, the manual way, paper and Excel sheets, to a regtech that is fully leveraging the ESG part. And I know there is, yeah, of course, publications will come, I believe, in a quite near future from the European institutions about that. And there are also checklists lists on the internet that you can download and use. Yeah.
Well, does real CGR also assist when shit hits the fan? So you talk about the more perpetual thing, the strategic part, to be ready when it happens. But how do you support then the business when the real crisis is happening?
Well, finally, and I put my answer in the context of ESG, you have to address that ESG when you have a crisis. So it means like, for example, you need to be really able to perform actions and communications and care for security and data protection when you have a crisis. So if a crisis hits you, right, and you have to start finding your stuff and papers at that moment of a crisis, it's that precise moment, that lapse of time between the crisis occurring The moment you become aware of it and that you want— and that you start to react, this is hugely damaging your company because reputation—
Time is very important and it can really rely on a couple of hours that your reputation is gone or not.
And honestly, with using this kind of RegTech or RegTech, I mean, you just go to the app, you start by pushing the button and you start your cry. It's 3 clicks away from the crisis management.
You almost make it sound sexy, Mark. Well, when is the next crisis coming?
It is passionate stuff, Koen. I can tell for people who are passionate about managing risk, the ESG is like, yeah, it's something very, very, very interesting because it has put the matter on the agenda of boards, And we all know the awareness issue is enormously important. You know, like, if I may allow myself to tell it, we do audits, we go to boards, and then we are assured that business continuity and resilience is under control. But when you audit it, you see, okay, it's paper-based, it's manual. So you have— and no, I don't judge that. It can be write the right things in there, but how you will really use it at the moment of a crisis, that's the challenge. And of course, now board members will say, okay, that the paperwork, the manual way is maybe not enough. And also anyway, the regulator will tell you.
It feels like as if resilience as a service is evolving, it's maturing on its own right. And that's something that you also see with other regulations and other best practices, like in KYC. You now have perpetual KYC rather than a one-off KYC.
Yes, and I think it's really beneficial to the entire ecosystem of a company. And also, it's interesting to mention that companies start to do it themselves. So I know, and then I'm not putting names here, but I can tell you I heard a big insurance company saying, look, we will exclude everything what's not ESG from our portfolio. There you go. And that will be happening in the near future.
Cool.
So you see that the tendencies, if you don't address it, you face exclusions. And if you're not ready to manage the crisis, Anyway, the hammer of a control, regulatory control may come.
For me, one thing became clear that if I want to be prepared, I'll need to contact you and RealCGR. Just on the practical side, Marc, where can they contact you? How can they find you?
Yeah, that's great, Koen. Thank you. You just— the easiest way is, of course, the website. That's realcgr.com. Okay, very easy, very convenient. or info@reachgr.com. And I'm sure anyone wanting to connect you, the connector, can ask to reach CGR.
Of course, with pleasure.
Yeah, yeah. And we react, of course, very quickly on market questions.
Thank you very much, Mark. Thank you also for all your insights around ESG.
Well, it was very nice, Koen, I must say, doing this podcast. And thank you for your trust. in us by asking us on your podcast. And I hope—
It's a pleasure.
Yeah, I hope we gave good takeaways to your audience here.
I'm sure you did. I will see it by the comments of the audience. So with this, I would also like to thank the audience and please stay tuned with the next podcast of The Connector. We'll come back to you soon.
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