Compliance Officers on the Move: Sept. 30

GRC gossip and jobs news for the week of Sept. 30: a new head of the SEC Whistleblower Office, new compliance chiefs at Citizens Financial and Jazz Pharmaceuticals, a few vendors getting acquired, and lots more.

I gather these bits of gossip from LinkedIn, news alerts, and friends emailing me something to include. If you have a tip or want to brag about your new job, promotion, career milestone, or whatever—just email me at mkelly@radicalcompliance.com or find me on LinkedIn.

New Jobs

The Securities and Exchange Commission has named Jane Norberg as the next director of the Office of the Whistleblower. Norberg had been first deputy at the office since 2012, and has been acting director since Sean McKessy left earlier this year.

Citizens Financial Group has promoted Scott Essex from deputy chief compliance officer to chief compliance officer. Essex joined Citizens in 2014 from TD Bank, where he was head of compliance for shared services and technology. He succeeds Bob Nelson, who had been chief compliance officer since 2013 and will retire on Oct. 31.

Joshua Axelrod has been promoted to corporate counsel for U.S. brands at Jazz Pharmaceuticals, where he will work primarily with Jazz’s oncology and pain product teams. Axelrod previously was compliance counsel at Jazz (you gotta love that name) since 2012.

Triloma Securities, a broker-dealer subsidiary of Triloma Financial Group down in Orlando, has promoted Sara Searle to chief compliance officer. She has been with the firm since 2015 and previously was director of compliance.

In Rio de Janeiro, Prudential do Brasil has promoted Luiz Fernando Bertoncello from vice president of legal and compliance to senior vice president and chief operating officer.

University of California-Riverside has named Albert Vasquez its first executive director for enterprise risk management. Vasquez most recently was vice chancellor for public safety and chief of police for UC Merced. In his new role, he will oversee all aspects of campus safety, from chemical spills to earthquake preparedness to air quality.

Nancy Haig, chief audit executive at Alvarez & Marsal, has been named to the Internal Audit Advisory Council at St. John’s University—a group with the mission of cultivating new internal auditors. Best of luck to her, we need all the good internal auditors we can churn out.

Jan Sprafke has been named compliance officer for thyssenkrupp Industrial Solutions in Germany. He previously was compliance officer at thyssenkrupp Elevator.

Vendor News

SAI Global announced this week that it will be acquired by Baring Asia, a private equity firm in Hong Kong. Baring will pay roughly $1.1 billion, and the deal is expected to close by the end of this year subject to shareholder approval. The entire SAI Global enterprise is considerably larger than the GRC business that most U.S. compliance officers encounter. SAI had said in July that its assurance division was up for sale; according to this week’s announcement, that idea is now over. What happens to the rest of SAI Global remains to be seen.

Promontory Financial Group, a who’s who of former regulators who now hang out together selling their wisdom as a consulting firm, has agreed to be acquired by IBM for an undisclosed price. IBM says it plans to combine their consulting expertise with its Watson artificial intelligence operations. Promontory was founded by Eugene Ludwig, a former comptroller of the currency, in 2001. Other notables on the roster include former SEC chairman Mary Schapiro and Ken Dubertsein, chief of staff in the Reagan Administration.

John Steiner, former chief compliance officer for Cancer Treatment Centers of America, has signed on as an adviser to youCompli, a startup that provides compliance software and services to highly regulated industries. Steiner has also held compliance-related jobs at the Cleveland Clinic and the University of Kentucky.

Milestones

First, congratulations to Dan Swanson, who won the Canada Institute of Internal Auditors’ 2016 “Contribution to the Profession” award. Swanson has been a devotee of all things internal audit and risk management for years. His email list-servs are mainstays among GRC enthusiasts (I am on three), and I am lucky to have known and worked with Swanson for 10 years now.

Likewise, another round of congratulations to Tom Fox, who received the Individual Achievement Award at the Society of Corporate Compliance & Ethics’ 2016 conference this week. Fox runs the FCPA Compliance Report and is one of the most prolific writers about anti-corruption compliance in the universe. Again, I am lucky to have known and worked with Fox for years.

Rita Attard is celebrating one year as due diligence coordinator at NetEnt, a digital gaming company based in Malta.

Keith Gandy has reached one year as director of ethics and compliance for programs and alliances at GSK.

Ketan Kulkarni has hit his one-year anniversary at Cipla, a pharmaceutical company based in India, where he is ethics and compliance lead.

Jack Lenzi is celebrating one year as vice president of corporate compliance at CHS, an agribusiness based in Minneapolis. Lenzi is one of the industry’s long-timers, with previous stints at Altria, ITT, and KPMPG.

Derek Poon had reached 10 years at Starlite Group, a paper products and packaging business based in Hong Kong. Poon started as controller there and is currently senior vice president of finance.

And bringing us home this week is Raphael Richmond, global director of compliance at Ford Motor Co., who is celebrating 20 years with Ford this month. Richmond started as a corporate attorney at Ford in 1996, and has been head of compliance since 2013. She is one of the most pleasant compliance professionals I know.

As I mentioned above, if you have any career moves you want the world to know, feel free to email me at mkelly@radicalcompliance.com or find me on LinkedIn. I’m always happy to give credit to the many hard-working people here in our corner of the business universe.