NEWS COVERAGE
Gender Challenges & Opportunities in Leadership
Compliance as the hottest career to advance female leadership? Only if
these women are doing the steering
By Shanti Atkins
Quartz.com
March 28, 2014
Compliance officer: It’s one of the hottest careers today. The guardian of an organization’s good
corporate citizenship, the job ranges from creating and enforcing guidelines and policies that
ensure a company’s integrity, to promoting ethical standards and values that form strong workplace
cultures. Compliance officers are the ones who meet government investigators at the door when they
knock.
The position has become vital to corporate America, and there are strong indications that it is tilting
toward becoming female-dominated. It’s encouraging from a workplace diversity perspective that
women are in compliance roles, given the authority that comes with the profession. But it’s equally
important that these female compliance professionals be in true leadership positions where they can
actually move the dial on corporate ethics. It’s essential that these are positions of influence that go
right to the top, representing actual advancement. Otherwise, a golden opportunity will be lost to truly
enhance women leadership, and to best utilize these professionals to re-build the battered reputation of
corporate ethics that is the result of a sorry decade of scandal, damage, and a complete erosion of trust.
Women in numbers
We’re not entirely sure why the number of women is edging out that of men; nearly 60% of the Society
for Corporate Compliance and Ethics’ (SCCE) members are now women, and some industries may have
even higher concentrations. A 2008 survey by the Health Care Compliance Association (HCCA) found
72% of respondent organizations in that sector have a female compliance officer. When SCCE and
HCCA surveyed 626 of their members last month on the growth of the profession, they found 69% of
their respondents were women. That survey also found that the C-suite is listening more to compliance
officers. Among publicly traded companies, however, only 33% of compliance officers reported directly
to the CEO.
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A pool of untapped talent
Organizations need to realize that high-performing individuals in a compliance role are low-hanging fruit
for the C-suite and the board, and represent a new and untapped talent pool. Drawing leaders from
compliance professionals will ensure greater diversity along with leveraging a unique set of skills and
perspectives around organizational culture, reputational value and risk mitigation. This can only be good
for business because, simply put, the larger the pool of talent, the better the quality you can draw, as
addressed in a classic McKinsey & Company study, among many others.
Lessons from the women in HR
It would be truly unfortunate if the compliance profession becomes mired in the same predicament of
the female-dominated human resources profession, where women and men develop a sophisticated
understanding of the company culture, work hard to improve it, yet have little say at the most senior
levels, and are rarely called upon to fill top roles.
According to the US Department of Labor, 72.7% of HR managers were women in 2012. That statistic
becomes worrying when qualified by data from Catalyst—an advocacy group working to promote
gender diversity in the workplace—which reveals that women currently hold only 4.6% of Fortune 500
CEO positions, and16.9% of Fortune 500 board seats. General Motors’ Mary Barra not only joins a small
circle of female CEOs, she also joins a small circle of CEOs that spent time as HR leaders. It has been
a topic of debate, whether HR has become a place to park high-achieving women off the CEO track—as
highlighted in Human Resource Executive’s coverage of the issue in 2012–and more broadly by Carole
Kleiman’s 2006 column looking at female-dominated professions. Will we soon find ourselves asking the
same questions of the compliance profession?
The hunger for compliant talent
There is urgency to figuring out this dynamic as the compliance profession expands rapidly. Driven by
new post economic crisis regulations and the expansion of corruption prosecutions abroad, companies
are hiring more compliance officers than ever before. As reported by The Wall Street Journal, US
Department of Labor statistics show the unemployment rate for compliance officers in last year’s third
quarter was 5.7%, compared to an overall jobless rate of 7.2%. JP Morgan is reportedly spending $4
billion more than initially planned for risk and compliance for this fiscal year—hiring 3,000 employees
for the function, as well as reassigning 2,000 more into it. Demand like JP Morgan’s is outstripping
supply.
Starting compliance salaries are growing more than 3.5% a year, with large companies paying chief
compliance officers between $162,000 and $232,000, according to human resources consultancy Robert
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Half. There have been reports of salaries for hedge fund compliance officers reaching $800,000, and the
percentage of women in this industry is climbing. According to a study completed by the Rothstein Kass
Institute, women hold 34% of the C-level hedge fund compliance positions, with the highest percentage
of women in C-level jobs within the operational space at 35 percent. This is followed closely by C-level
compliance and financial positions at 34 percent and 32 percent, respectively. However, the percentage
of women CEOs and CIOs averaged less than 20 percent within the firms polled.
Measuring real female leadership
All of this compliance leadership could be good, however, if women hired into these positions have true
impact and influence, with access to the channels that lead to the top of an organization. A recent
study by the University of British Columbia’s Sauder School of Business shows the cost of a successful
acquisition is reduced by 15.4% with each female director on a corporate board. There is other evidence
that women in leadership bring significant advantages, such as Catalyst’s Bottom Line research series.
It’s arguably not the female presence per se, but rather the fact that having unrepresented groups in a
company’s leadership position is emblematic of an organization drawing talent from a wider pool.
That diversity at the C-suite and board level has positive, tangible results—from better corporate
culture, to better stakeholder engagement, to better financial results—has not gone unnoticed by savvy
organizations. The companies that recognize tapping diverse talent isn’t just good for their bottom lines
but also adds to their reputational currency—from clients to shareholders to employees—stand to reap
the rewards across every facet of the business. Filling key leadership positions with “token” women
won’t benefit anyone.
___
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Women may dominate the compliance officer field, but it should lead to
other corporate opportunities
Compliance officer positions should not be a dead end for women in their path to career advancement
By Ed Silverstein
InsideCounsel
March 31, 2014
Some fields in corporate America seem to be more open to women than others. One such field is
compliance. Some 60 percent of the members of the Society for Corporate Compliance and Ethics (SCCE)
are women.
That is great news for women interested in the field, which no doubt include many with legal
backgrounds, but there are also some reasons for concern, according to a recent article from
Quartz.com.
Women who are compliance offers, need to “be in true leadership positions where they can actually
move the dial on corporate ethics,” according to the article’s author, Shanti Atkins, president of NAVEX
Global, an ethics and compliance company.
“It’s essential that these are positions of influence that go right to the top, representing actual
advancement,” she adds. “Otherwise, a golden opportunity will be lost to truly enhance women
leadership, and to best utilize these professionals to re-build the battered reputation of corporate ethics
that is the result of a sorry decade of scandal, damage, and a complete erosion of trust.”
But it was not encouraging to find that only 33 percent of compliance officers report directly to the CEO
in publicly-traded companies, Atkins said.
The role is important. Compliance officers are responsible for creating and enforcing regulations relating
to an organization’s integrity, ethics and values. Salaries are impressive. Large companies pay chief
compliance officers between $162,000 and $232,000, according to Robert Half data. Salaries for hedge
fund compliance officers are as high as $800,000, Atkins said.
Given their talent and responsibilities, compliance officers could be a source of senior level executives
for the C-suite, as well.
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“Drawing leaders from compliance professionals will ensure greater diversity along with leveraging a
unique set of skills and perspectives around organizational culture, reputational value and risk
mitigation,” Atkins said. “This can only be good for business because, simply put, the larger the pool of
talent, the better the quality you can draw.”
Another area where women tend to concentrate is human resources. As of 2012, 72.7 percent of U.S.
HR managers were women.
But in HR, “women and men develop a sophisticated understanding of the company culture, work hard
to improve it, yet have little say at the most senior levels, and are rarely called upon to fill top roles,”
Atkins said, adding this is a warning to what may happen with compliance officers.
After all, recent data show women make up only 4.6 percent of CEO positions at Fortune 500
companies. They hold only 16.9 percent of board of directors’ seats at Fortune 500 companies. Women
represented nearly 18 percent of the total of senior Fortune 500 executives in 2011, as well, according
to Inside Counsel.
More opportunities need to open for women in corporations – at all levels, including the CEO’s office.
The company and the individual employee will benefit. After all, the ideal for those who enter the
compliance officer field, as well as other corporate fields, is to not just to be successful “in their own
careers, but also in carrying out their organization’s business mission,” InsideCounsel reported.
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Is Being Chief Compliance Officer Women's Work?
Marlisse Silver Sweeney
Corporate Counsel
April 01, 2014
Is the rise of women in compliance officer positions a welcome development? In a recent article in
Quartz, Shanti Atkins explores whether the fact that 60 percent of compliance officers are women may
actually be a bad thing for female leadership.
Though Atkins notes it’s a hot career and a vital one at that, she stresses it’s imperative “these female
compliance professionals be in true leadership positions where they can actually move the dial on
corporate ethics. It’s essential that these are positions of influence that go right to the top, representing
actual advancement.” She’s worried by the statistics. Only 33 percent of compliance officers report
directly to the CEO at publicly traded companies.
“It would be truly unfortunate if the compliance profession becomes mired in the same predicament of
the female-dominated human resources professions,” says Atkins, explaining that after developing a
sophisticated understanding of the company and working hard, HR professionals generally “have little
say at the most senior levels, and are rarely called upon to fill top rolls.”
To make the compliance positions, and the fact they’re filled predominantly by women, really count,
Atkins suggests organizations recognize “individuals in a compliance role are low-hanging fruit for the Csuite and the board, and represent a new and untapped talent pool.”
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