Blog Post
Q&A: Clara Kaplan Bolsters Fraud and Investigations Expertise for Technology Team in Brazil
Director,
FTI Consulting
Clara Kaplan recently joined the growing Technology team in Latin America, as a Director in Brazil. With roughly two decades of experience in consulting and investigations, Clara’s addition to the team expands upon FTI Technology’s existing digital forensics and e-discovery capabilities in the region. In this Q&A, Clara discusses her background and her outlook for investigations trends on the horizon.
Clara, you’ve worked on some of the largest investigations in Latin America. Can you share a bit about your background in this field?
Yes, I’ve been in various consulting roles for approximately 20 years. I started out as a chemical engineer and eventually shifted to working as a risk consultant, focused on e-discovery and investigations. I’ve become very interested in the effects of technology on complex investigations.
Your experience is very complementary to that of the existing FTI Technology team in Brazil. What’s unique about your approach?
I take a broad view of the investigations lifecycle across collection, processing, hosting and analysis. Investigations are dynamic, and therefore the workflows have to be flexible and agile. Many clients in this region still take a traditional, linear approach to discovery, but that’s no longer reasonable given how much the data footprint has exploded. I believe it’s critical to accelerate the discovery process to find key information more quickly and reduce the time and cost needed to conduct review.
My philosophy fits well with FTI Technology’s capabilities and offerings, particularly around our Find Facts Fast approach and the deep expertise we bring in advanced analytics and emerging data sources. We’re very focused on helping educate clients about the new challenges that have arisen with conducting investigations across collaboration platforms and cloud applications and how they can be solved with dynamic workflows and analytics.
In your view, how does FTI Technology stand out against other providers?
Digital forensics and e-discovery are often seen as commodities in this region. But expertise is essential to conducting an accurate, thorough and efficient investigation. That’s what’s especially unique about FTI Technology — our people are very experienced and truly experts in technology, as well as critical areas of digital risk. We’re focused on problem solving efficiently using technology, without sacrificing quality.
What is the current attitude in Brazil regarding the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning for e-discovery and investigations? What’s your outlook for how adoption of advanced tools will grow?
It’s still mixed. Clients are becoming more open to using advanced tools, but we still see quite a bit of resistance among opposing parties. Many people still have a tendency to worry about the downsides and question whether it can be trusted. We’re continuing to try to break through those barriers by educating clients about how it works and demonstrating the benefits.
Another related area is the need to establish a single source where data from many sources, including structured and unstructured data, can be viewed together, in context. The data is where we find answers. When we leverage technology to view information from email, chats, mobile devices, social media, etc., all together in one view, the insights are quite powerful. I really believe that focusing on the data and using it to accelerate insights and discovery is the key to solving emerging challenges in complex investigations.
The views expressed herein are those of the author(s) and not necessarily the views of FTI Consulting, its management, its subsidiaries, its affiliates, or its other professionals.