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 DeAnna Nwankwo who served as Corporate Compliance Officer for Core Laboratories from 2003 May 2020. In that capacity, she led Core Laboratories ethics and compliance activities.
As CCO, DeAnna reported to the general counsel and secretary and to the audit committee of the board of directors. She was responsible for formulating and implementing Core Lab’s ethics policies and procedures, including its Code of Ethics and Corporate Responsibility and making sure they were communicated and trained upon across the company. DeAnna managed the company’s employee Helpline resources and served as a final internal resource which concerned parties could communicate after other formal channels and resources were exhausted. As Corporate Compliance Officer, she was authorized to implement all necessary actions to ensure achievement of the objectives of an effective compliance program. In her role, she collaborated with other functional departments (Internal Audit, Human Resources, Information Security, etc.) to receive and direct compliance issues to appropriate resources for investigation and resolution.
In this first episode, we consider Deanna’s journey to the CCO role, which she described as “no different than anyone else’s because it was so different. She began her professional career in QA/QC at NASA. She later moved to Core Laboratories. From there she transitioned into a compliance position and then the CCO.