Ellen Hunt remembers being an in-house counsel at a health carecompany in Illinois about 15 years ago when her organizationpleaded guilty to fraud and was required to create the new positionof compliance officer.

"So it was, 'Hey, Ellen, will you do it?'" she recalls, thenlaughs. "I suspect that's a pretty typical path for complianceofficers."

Today Hunt is chief ethics and compliance officer, and seniorvice president for audit, at AARP in Washington, D.C., where shehas worked for nine years. And she is one of a growing number ofwomen who, either by choice or by request, are carving outsuccessful careers in the compliance field.

In 2019 the International Women in Compliance group named Huntcompliance officer of the year in not-for-profit organizations.Ethisphere also listed AARP as one of the world's most ethicalcompanies last year.

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In some ways, Hunt's path mirrors that of hundreds of otherwomen in compliance—U.S. Labor Department statistics over the past20 years show that compliance is one of the fastest-growingprofessions for women.

Legal recruiter Mike Evers puts it this way: "Women areadvancing in compliance like wildfire." Of the people he has placedin compliance positions in the past two years, Evers says all havebeen women lawyers. He says he also watches placements made by hiscompetitors, and "there are some men, but by and large the vastamount of compliance professionals seems to be women."

So do companies prefer women compliance officers?

"I don't know if preference is the right word," he says, "butit's simply a fact that the supply of qualified complianceprofessionals in corporate America are predominantly women."

Appeal of the Job

Hunt says she has noticed the increasing number of women,especially at compliance conferences. She traces the trend back to1990, when the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines added a section givingcredit to a corporate defendant for an effective ethics andcompliance program. "Not to sound stereotypical," Hunt says, "butcompliance plays to a woman's strength—establishing a culture wherepeople are comfortable coming forward. … I think women have atendency to be better listeners and more approachable, better atconsensus building. I don't want to imply that men can't do that,but in general some requirements of the job appeal more towomen."

Ellen Hunt, Senior VicePresident, Audit, Ethics & Compliance Officer at the Office ofGeneral Counsel of the? AARP.

Evers thinks the growth is due more to supply and demand. "Thereis an appetite among law departments in general to hire women andminorities, and this is low-hanging fruit," he says. Some expertssay the current business environment also plays a role. Theincreasingly complicated, global regulatory landscape demandsincreased compliance. Also the cost of noncompliance—fines,penalties, business disruption and settlements—are estimated to bemore than 2.5 times more expensive than the costs of meetingcompliance requirements.

With more women in general graduating with degrees in law,business and accounting, it makes sense that a growing field likecompliance will draw them.

At the risk of sounding like stereotyping, Evers says he feelsthat compliance has become to law what the nursing profession is tomedicine.

That is not to say women compliance officers are content to playa support role to the corporate legal department. In fact, it maybe just the opposite.

"Compliance has provided an avenue for women to climb thecorporate ladder," Hunt says. "They can become a chief complianceofficer when it might have been harder to become the generalcounsel. It's provided a new path for them."

Taking the Path

Pat Harned, CEO of the nonprofit Ethics & ComplianceInitiative in Vienna, Virginia, agrees that the increase in thenumber of women in the profession is noticeable, especially overthe past 10 years.

Among other things, her organization brings together complianceprofessionals and academics from around the world to sharetechniques, research and practices. Some conferences, Harned says,run as high as 70% female.

"But it's still the case that if you have a meeting of justchief compliance officers, there are probably more men than women,"she adds. Harned also points out that she is the only female CEOamong the leading providers in the U.S. compliance industry.

She explains that many companies "look for a chief complianceofficer who has prosecutorial or law enforcement experience, andthere are historically more men there. But I expect more women inthose roles in the future."

So does Yvette Lingom, an associate director who organizes legaland compliance events for C5 Communications in London, includingthe Women in Compliance group.

Lingom says about six years ago her organization compiled adatabase on who was coming to its compliance conferences, and toher surprise discovered that 70% to 75% of attendees werewomen.

That's when they came up with an idea to celebrate women incompliance with an award at the next conference. The reaction wasso strong that many of the women said they wanted their ownconference where they could network with each other.

"So we studied the data again," Lingom says, "and found lessthan 10% of the women were in management roles, like a chiefcompliance officer. So we decided to build a conference for womenon professional development, and on the leadership and other skillsneeded to move beyond just being good at compliance."

At the 2019 Women in Compliance awards conference in London,Lingom says the women discussed such topics as how to become morethan a support function, to participate in board of directormeetings, and to find their leadership voices.

The conference sold out.

Sharing the Knowledge

Mary Shirley and Lisa Fine are compliance professionals who alsohave discovered women's growing desire for more knowledge in theprofession. Shirley is senior director of ethics and compliance atFresenius Medical Care in Waltham, Massachusetts. Fine is thedirector of compliance for the Americas for Pearson, an educationand learning services company based in London.

About a year ago, they created a podcast called "Great Women inCompliance" to spotlight women sharing their knowledge andexperience.

Pat Harned, CEO of the Ethics& Compliance Initiative (Photo: Courtesy Photo)

"Our goal was to speak with remarkable women about why theychose compliance, what challenges they have faced, how theymentored each other," Fine says. The audience is a small nichegroup—women in compliance who speak English—so they weren't surewhat to expect in response.

The podcast has grown to 1,500 listeners per episode, they say,adding they were "bowled over" by the size and the power of theresponse. Listeners write the pair about the impact of the adviceon their lives. "It makes them feel less alone," Shirley says.

Both women say they would recommend a career in compliance toothers, especially to women. "It has been an incredible career forme, taking me to four different continents," Shirley says. "I wouldrecommend it to other women wholeheartedly."

She says it does take certain skill to be strong at the job, but"it's a different skill than being a successful lawyer. It's forpeople strong on social skills, on the human relations side ofthings, and less on the black and white of the law."

"Compliance is a relatively new discipline," Shirley adds. "Soyou spend a lot more of your time working on interpersonal skills,aiming to get commitment and buy-in… in your day-to-day job becauseunlike legal, compliance oftentimes still has to explain theirraison d'etre. For legal, most folks now accept that the legaldepartment should be taken seriously and are less likely toquestion legal advice."

Fine says for her, compliance is an opportunity to "help peoplemake good decisions and do the right things. You get a chance tolearn about so many different things."

Sometimes, she says, the ethics and compliance officer can be alonely job. "The tradeoff is that you have a community of peers, ofcolleagues outside your company, who are willing to share theirbest practices with you."

Fine adds, "I haven't seen that kind of sharing in any otherprofession."

In one of their podcasts, the pair interviewed Lingom, thecompliance event organizer. "How do you define great women incompliance?" they asked her.

Lingom replied, "A great woman in compliance should be a subjectmatter expert in her specialty. But at some point, knowledge nolonger becomes a differentiator; it becomes a given, so she needsto be influential [and] to have a great personality: kind, tough,but fair. And lastly, she should be capable of demonstratingsolidarity: with women in compliance, with women in general, andwith the next generation."

Read more:

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