Compliance Jobs Report: March 31

Disney fired its chief compliance officer this week as part of mass layoffs; Toyota made a compliance hire, and we have other news from Scania, Chevron, Cardinal Health, and elsewhere. Job leads this week are in manufacturing, oil services, and higher education; and lots more in the Compliance Jobs Report!

As always, thank you to all the compliance people sending me tips and links to keep this report going. We need your help to make the Report work, so send me some news! If you have a tip to pass along, email me at [email protected] or find me on LinkedIn.

Compliance Jobs News

This week we begin at Disney, which just sacked chief compliance officer Alicia Schwarz as part of a larger round of layoffs. Schwarz had been with Disney for nine years, and had been chief compliance officer since the start of 2021. Apparently Schwarz’s compliance duties will be taken over by general counsel Horacio Gutierrez, who joined Disney last year. 

I’m sure Schwarz will land on her feet somewhere since she has excellent credentials — but you gotta wonder about a company as large as Disney ($82.7 billion in revenue) treating compliance as a subsidiary of legal. One also wonders about the fate of other compliance professionals working at Disney; if you hear anything, drop me a tip at [email protected].  

Meanwhile, Valerie Charles has joined Toyota Motor Corp. as senior director of global compliance risk and governance. Charles, a delightful person, comes to Toyota after not quite three years as a partner at consulting firm StoneTurn. She’s the second person to jump from StoneTurn to Toyota recently; colleague Kristin Bone joined the auto giant earlier this month to run anti-bribery compliance. 

Indeed, we have another StoneTurn departure! Emilia Drozda has left the company’s London offices to join transportation giant Scania, where she is regional compliance officer for Northern Europe.

Therapy Brands, which provides back-end IT systems to therapy practice groups (“less swearing, more caring”), has hired Amber Thomas as chief compliance officer. Thomas joins the Alabama-based company from R1 RCM, a revenue-management firm, where she had been head of regulatory compliance. 

Kevin Gross has left Chevron after 15 years there, most recently as senior counsel for corporate compliance. To do what? To join medical equipment maker Penumbra, where he will be senior counsel for international issues. 

Emerson Commercial and Residential Solutions, an HVAC systems manufacturer based in St. Louis, has hired Wes Porter as associate general counsel for regulatory compliance. Porter previously worked at LetsGetChecked, a telehealth company, as senior VP for compliance and legal. (Nice to see compliance coming before legal in the title, as the Framers of the Constitution intended.)

Over in Nigeria, the Interswitch Group (digital payments company) has hired Matthias Togunde as head of technology and operations governance. Togunde comes to Interswitch from Sterling Bank, where he had been team lead for IT governance and compliance. 

SCPharmaceuticals, a small pharma company in suburban Boston, has hired Jen Camara as director of compliance and legal. Camara previously worked at Flexion Therapeutics as associate director of compliance. 

Elizabeth Richards has moved into a new role at Cardinal Health. Richards had been assistant general counsel; now she is director of ethics and compliance and compliance counsel. Richards has been with Cardinal in various roles since 2017.

IKEA, maker of furniture kits and assembly instructions modeled after cave art, has promoted Mirna Ootjers-Sivro from manager of compliance to group internal audit leader. Ootjers-Sivro has been with the company since 2017.

Virginia Tech has promoted Sharon Kurek, from executive director for audit, risk, and compliance to chief risk officer. Kurek has been with the university since 2008 in various internal audit roles. 

Devon Euring has joined Nordstroms as senior program manager for operational risk. Euring comes to the retailer from Fannie Mae, where he had been a senior associate for risk operations since 2020.

LGI Homes, a $1.8 billion home construction firm based in Texas, has hired Arlene Nelson as interim vice president for internal controls. Nelson previously worked at Primary Process Controls, a consulting firm in Texas; some of you might also remember her long stint at Huntsman Corp. as a senior internal controls executive.

Dick’s Sporting Goods has moved Chris Bereznay from vice president of global compliance to head of factory social compliance. Bereznay has been with the sporting retailer in various compliance roles since 2012.

In Israel, Shirit Keynan has left Teva Pharmaceuticals, where she had been director of compliance audit; to join Janssen Pharmaceutical Cos. as country compliance head. 

Arvest Wealth Management has hired Kendra Cain as chief compliance officer. Cain joins the asset management firm from First Horizon Advisors, where she had been chief compliance officer since 2021. She succeeds Tom Harps, who is retiring.

And industrial manufacturing giant Crane Co. has announced that its chief audit executive, Bianca Shardelow, will be controller and chief accounting officer of Crane NXT, a payments technology subsidiary that Crane is spinning off into its own business in April. 

Milestones

Melody Hsiou is celebrating one year at DaVita Kidney Care, where she is compliance director. 

Matthew Hansen is celebrating one year at Amazon Web Services as risk and compliance leader. 

Katrin Rausch is celebrating five years at Siemens Healthineers, where she is compliance officer. 

Wade Thornock is celebrating five years at Blue Cross of Idaho, where he is chief compliance officer. 

Vendors & Service Providers

Ethico (née ComplianceLine) has released its new integrated product suite, the ECOSystem. 

Navex has released its 2023 Global Incident Management Benchmark Report. We’ll have more on the findings of that report next week. 

Open Req Orders 

Cummins is looking for an ethics and compliance manager. Job is based in Nashville, Tenn.

KBR is seeking a SOX compliance manager. Job is based in either Houston or suburban London, take your pick. 

Washington University in St. Louis is looking for an executive director of compliance and audit. Recruitment firm AGB Search is handling the placement, and you need to go through those folks to apply. 

Compliance Meme of the Week

That’s all for this week’s report.

As always, if you have a tip or want to brag about your new job, promotion, career milestone, or anything else, email me at [email protected] 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.