The Compliance Life details the journey to and in the role of a Chief Compliance Officer. How does one come to sit in the CCO chair? What are some of the skills a CCO needs to success navigate the compliance waters in any company? What are some of the top challenges CCOs have faced and how did they meet them? These questions and many others will be explored in this new podcast series. Over four episodes each month on The Compliance Life, I visit with one current or former CCO to explore their journey to the CCO chair. This month, my guest is Louis Sapirman, Vice President, Chief Ethics & Compliance Officer and Chief Compliance Counsel for Panasonic Corporation of North America, the principal North American subsidiary of Panasonic Corporation. He oversees the company’s regulatory and compliance function, maintaining a culture of ethics, and ensuring all employees are upholding Panasonic’s longstanding values in their work.
Louis previously served as Associate General Counsel & Chief Compliance Officer for the Dun & Bradstreet Corporation. During his tenure as CCO, the company was recognized as one of the World’s Most Ethical Companies by the Ethisphere Institute. Prior to moving in-house, Louis worked in private practice with several law firms including Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr and Buchanan Ingersoll. Throughout his career, Louis has been recognized for his work. In both 2015 and 2016, the Ethisphere Institute named him to their list of Attorneys Who Matter in Compliance and Ethics, and in 2010 he was named International Employment Lawyer of the Year by the Association of Corporate Counsel.
In this first episode, we consider Louis’ personal and professional journey into the field of compliance. We get to know Sapirman through his family and why he is so passionate about compliance, institutional justice and institutional fairness. We learn about two experiences growing up that helped informed his views on diversity and the wider world. He talks about his experience as a member of a service fraternity in college and then moves into his professional career. His legal work as a Generalist into Employment Attorney, moving to Employment and Litigation work at D&B and then revamping the investigations process at D&B.