Leonid’s Jamie Browne sits down with Nicholas Bentley, Head of Global Legal Sanctions at Novartis, for a practical conversation about how trade compliance and sanctions have really changed over the last decade - and why the job has become harder than ever. Drawing on Nicholas’s experience working across multiple countries and complex global organisations, they talk through what’s driving today’s sanctions environment, where regulation is becoming more fragmented, and what that means for companies trying to operate at speed without getting it wrong.
The discussion covers how sanctions regimes are evolving faster and being enforced more aggressively across the US, EU, UK, Switzerland, Canada, and China, and why compliance teams are having to rethink how they work. From closer collaboration with legal, finance, and commercial teams to stronger governance and better judgment calls, the role is no longer just about knowing the rules. They also dig into the return of tariffs as a political and strategic tool, what recent enforcement actions are really telling us (including the growing focus on individuals, ownership structures, and advisors), and where strong trade compliance functions should be spending their time next.