Author: ComplianceLIVE

In this episode of The Ethics Experts, Nick welcomes Gary Ballesteros.

Gary Ballesteros is Vice President of Law, Chief Compliance Officer and Ombudsman. He leads the team of compliance professionals who oversee Rockwell Automation, Inc.’s compliance with regulatory requirements around the globe. Under his leadership, Rockwell has been named one of the World’s Most Ethical Companies by Ethisphere Magazine.

As the Company’s Ombudsman, Gary serves a critical role in the Company’s culture of ethics and integrity. The Ombudsman has a direct reporting authority to the Board of Directors and is empowered to investigate any claims or allegations of misconduct within the Company. The Ombudsman maintains various hotline reporting mechanisms that can be accessed anonymously by any employee worldwide; he also manages a staff of investigative personnel and counsel who investigate any reported violations of our Code of Conduct.

In this episode of The Ethics Experts, Nick welcomes Curtis Oltmans.

Curtis Oltmans joined Fulcrum as General Counsel in November 2020 with over 25 years of experience in corporate law, including senior management positions in legal departments at several leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. He served as Vice President and Head of Litigation at DaVita Kidney Care, Inc., where he led a 30-person team and was responsible for all litigation, workers’ compensation, and employee safety matters. Before DaVita, Curtis was Executive Vice President, General Counsel, and Corporate Secretary at Array BioPharma Inc., overseeing all legal, corporate governance, patent, and compliance matters.

He has served on the Avenue Therapeutics Board of Directors since April 2021. Curtis received a BA in political science from the University of Nebraska and his JD from the University of Nebraska College of Law.

In this episode of The Ethics Experts, Nick welcomes Avril Ussery Sisk.

Avril Ussery Sisk, serves as Chair of the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) Capital Area Chapter Advisory Board and is on the Advisory Boards of MABLE Software and Athena Alliance. She recently served on the board of a privately held information technology company, where she supported strategic public-private partnerships and the government relations strategy to drive significant revenue and, ultimately, a transaction.

An attorney with more than 30 years of professional and community leadership, Avril has a strong record of innovation in large and midsize government, business, and nonprofit organizations and consulting experience in Japan and the United States.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/avril-ussery-sisk/

Nick welcomes Karin Hurt and David Dye in this episode of The Ethics Experts.

Karin inspires courage, confidence, and innovation. A former Verizon Wireless executive, she’s known for growing courageous leaders, building great cultures, and inspiring high-performance teams.

David helps leaders and teams achieve transformational results without sacrificing their humanity. As a former executive and elected official, he is known for practical leadership techniques that can be used immediately.

While they were reading and supporting one another’s work, they met online. After a while, they realized they were writing the same book, so they decided to collaborate. They wrote their first book, Winning Well: A Manager’s Guide to Getting Results Without Losing Your Soul, while David lived in Colorado and Karin was in Maryland.

Soon after the book was complete, they realized we had fallen in love somewhere along the way, and they got married and merged their businesses.

Now, they help human-centered leaders (like you) resolve workplace ambiguity and chaos so that you can drive innovation, productivity, and revenue without burning out employees. Let’s Grow Leaders’ leadership development programs and proven, researched-based techniques create sustained transformation. They equip leaders with practical tools to cultivate lasting habits and build strong, cohesive, courageous cultures.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/karin-hurt/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidmdye

In this episode of The Ethics Experts, Nick and Gio welcome Andrew McBride.

Andrew McBride is the CEO of Integrity Bridge LLC, a consulting practice that offers strategic and operational compliance support for companies.

Andrew has over 25 years of compliance experience at an international law firm and several multinational companies in the Americas, Europe, and Australasia. In his most recent role as Chief Risk & Compliance Officer at Albemarle Corporation, he built a new ethics and compliance program and recruited a new team against the backdrop of an FCPA investigation. The investigation was resolved through a Non-Prosecution Agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice and a Cease & Desist Order with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. As part of the resolution, Albemarle secured a 45% reduction in penalty due to its cooperation with the investigation and the compliance program built, the largest FCPA % penalty reduction to date. In recognition of these efforts, Albemarle was awarded Compliance Program of the Year by Compliance Week in May 2024.

In parallel to the FCPA investigation and business ethics efforts, Andrew played a key role in supporting Albemarle’s commitment to sustainability, including UN Global Compact membership, management of the company’s human rights framework, and support for the company’s successful efforts to achieve certification against the Initiative of Responsible Mining Assurance (IRMA)’s Mining Standard.

Prior to Albemarle, Andrew was Associate General Counsel Compliance at BHP, Senior Antitrust Counsel at BP, and Managing Associate at Linklaters. Andrew is admitted to practice law in England, Western Australia, and California. He is also a Certified Fraud Examiner.

In this episode of The Ethics Experts, Nick welcomes Christine Cunningham.

Christine Cunningham is a Pharmacy Compliance Coordinator and a recent graduate of Western Governors University, where she earned a bachelor’s in healthcare administration. She is a certified pharmacy technician with twenty years of experience and is studying to gain the CHC through HCCA. When Christine isn’t helping hospital caregivers follow the myriad of pharmacy rules and regulations, she can listen to the latest Ethicsverse podcast, play one of her ukuleles, or enjoy the view from her deck with a cat on her lap.

Connect with Christine on LinkedIn

In this episode of The Ethics Experts, Nick welcomes Kimberly Strong.

Kimberly Strong is Vice President & Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer for Con Edison, a regulated utility providing electric, gas, and steam service in New York.

Since joining the company in 2012, Ms. Strong has been responsible for all aspects of the company’s business ethics and compliance program. She uses her years of experience as a trial attorney and advice lawyer on employment and labor issues by working with corporate leadership and employees to meet the company’s commitment to integrity and accountability.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimberlystrong/

In this episode of The Ethics Experts, Nick welcomes Vera Cherepanova.

Vera is an award-winning ethics and compliance expert who writes and speaks about business ethics, workplace culture, behavioral compliance, risk, and governance. She is the Executive Director of Boards of the Future, a non-profit that works with corporate boards globally and advocates for more people with ethics and compliance backgrounds on boards. Vera is the author of Corporate Compliance Program, the first-ever book on compliance in the Russian language, and a co-author of The Transnationalization of Anti-Corruption Law, as well as hundreds of articles on all aspects of ethics, compliance, and governance.

www.veracherepanova.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/follow-vera-cherepanova/

In this episode of The Ethics Experts, Nick welcomes Laura Sauber.

Laura Sauber is the CEO of Sauber Consulting, a firm dedicated to helping healthcare organizations build cultures where ethics and compliance risks are proactively prevented, identified, and resolved—ensuring they do not impede the organization’s strategic objectives.

Laura is recognized not only as a strategic compliance leader but also for her strong business acumen, innovative approach, and collaborative leadership style. Passionate about driving organizational integrity and performance, Laura excels at advising leaders and cross-functional teams on effectively navigating the complex federal and state regulatory landscape and improving and sustaining organizational performance.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/laura-sauber

In this episode of The Ethics Experts, Nick welcomes Dr. Bettina Palazzo.

Bettina’s fascination with business ethics began in the early 90s, and once she realized how rich and exciting the field was, she never looked back. She suffered through the cumbersome but rewarding effort of getting her head around business ethics’ philosophical and economic foundations and won a prize for her PhD. Thesis and rode off into the sunset to join KPMG. There, she helped build their business ethics consulting services. Tough pioneer work at that time! In 2003, she started her own ethics advisory. Along the way, she’s learned that you can’t squeeze ethics into checklists and that unethical companies make for unhappy people.

Bettina received the “Compliance Influencer of the Year 2024” award from the International Compliance Association, recognizing her passion for turning ethics and compliance into something everyone wants to be a part of. Whether through her blog posts, LinkedIn, or online community—the Compliance Cappuccino Club—she brings fresh, relatable insights to the compliance community. Fun fact: she met her husband, Guido Palazzo, at a business ethics conference—proof that ethics is her love story!

http://www.bettinapalazzo.com/