As Vida Mascarenhas moved into more senior compliance roles in asset management, the questions in front of her became harder to answer by simply identifying the relevant rule. Decisions could involve investor protection, market integrity, regulatory expectations and legitimate business objectives at the same time. She wanted to understand how lawyers worked through those competing considerations, particularly when regulation left room for interpretation.
Vida enrolled in Osgoode’s Professional LLM in Securities Law with a BBA from Schulich, a CFA designation and years of experience in asset management, including more than a decade in compliance. She saw the degree as an opportunity to deepen the legal side of an established career.
“I wasn’t looking for another credential just for the sake of having one,” she says. “I wanted to make sure that there was a meaningful return for the time and the resources invested.”
Completing the LLM while working allowed her to connect classroom concepts to regulatory and business decisions almost immediately. She was particularly interested in how lawyers interpret legislation, analyze ambiguity and assess legal and regulatory risk. As a non-lawyer who regularly works with lawyers and regulators, she also wanted to better understand how they approach complex questions.
The LLM introduced Vida to looking beyond the wording of a requirement to consider the policy rationale behind it. Knowing what regulators and policymakers are trying to accomplish can be especially useful when evaluating a new product or business idea without an obvious regulatory answer.
“If you eliminate all risks, business isn’t happening,” she says. “What you have to find are the real risks.”
Case analysis gave her opportunities to practise making those distinctions. In her favourite course, Continuous Disclosure, taught by Michael Brown, students examined the facts and legal reasoning behind disclosure cases, then debated whether they agreed with the outcomes. Questions involving material disclosure and material change showed how much room can exist for interpretation and how important it is to support a position with clear reasoning.
“I learned to form my own judgment, and then if somebody’s going to analyze it, really make sure the rationale is airtight, to the extent that it can be,” she says. Her major research paper on the governance of digital assets offered another opportunity to develop and defend a position in an area where the appropriate regulatory approach remains contested.
Securities Litigation and Enforcement, taught by Professor Mary Condon and Karen Manarin, covered issues Vida has encountered less frequently in her career. Through case studies and guest speakers, she examined how regulators interpret obligations in practice, what conduct concerns them and what can happen when governance or compliance systems fail.
Her classmates brought perspectives from across the securities industry, including business, regulation and investor advocacy. Having spent her compliance career within asset management firms, Vida valued hearing how people in different roles approached the same issues.
“Securities regulation doesn’t operate in isolation, and compliance should definitely not happen in a vacuum.”
Now in executive compliance leadership, Vida regularly advises the business on decisions such as whether and how to launch a new fund. She considers regulation, industry practices and reputational risk, along with how a product will be distributed, marketed and serviced. Her role is to identify the significant concerns and help the organization determine how it can proceed responsibly.
Vida can bring both business and legal reasoning into those conversations, questioning assumptions and explaining the risks behind her advice rather than simply pointing to a rule.
“A good CCO needs to understand the law, understand the business and then be able to exercise judgment where the two intersect.”
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