Kurt Wachholz, IACCP

Kurt Wachholz is a Bates Compliance Managing Director with more than 30 years of financial industry experience serving in a range of financial service firms, both big and small. Based in Atlanta, Georgia, he works closely with firm officers to identify regulatory obligations, compliance risks, and program challenges. In those engagements, Mr. Wachholz conducts mock examinations, audits, and compliance program reviews. His areas of service include the latest developments in compliance regulation, annual reviews, risk assessments, code of ethics and personal trading, third-party due diligence, business continuity planning, and cybersecurity. He has experience with both SEC and FINRA examinations, branch audits, program administration, technology integration, and staff development.

Prior to joining Bates, Mr. Wachholz served as Executive Compliance Consultant at a national consulting firm supporting investment adviser, broker-dealer, and private fund compliance administration, including but not limited to mock exams, compliance training, policy and procedure review, and business model regulatory compliance. He also served as the Director of Education overseeing development and administration of the Investment Adviser Core Compliance certificate program and the Investment Adviser Certified Compliance Professional® (IACCP) designation, co-sponsored by the Investment Adviser Association. For nearly a decade before this, Mr. Wachholz was the owner and managing director of his own consulting firm, WellSpring Compliance, servicing clients that included broker-dealers, investment advisers, financial planners, insurance agencies, and private equity firms. Prior to this, he was the CCO for a holding company of financial service firms.  He has also served as an investment adviser representative, registered representative, OSJ, insurance agent, chief operating officer, chief technology officer, and business consultant in previous employments.

Mr. Wachholz is a member of the National Society of Compliance Professionals and the Investment Adviser Association, has formed local compliance professional roundtables, and frequently speaks at conferences, symposiums, and online seminars. He has developed and taught courses for the IACCP® designation program, and he developed and taught Ethics in Leadership, an MBA program module for the Goizueta Business School at Emory University and Regulatory Jeopardy, an elective course for the Securities Industry Institute® (in partnership with SIFMA and the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania). Mr. Wachholz is a contributing author and member of the editorial board for Modern Compliance: Best Practices in Securities and Finance (Wolters Kluwer) and an editorial board member for the Journal of Financial Compliance (Stewart Publishing).