Tag: Baker Hughes

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The Compliance Life

Joya Willams-From Legal Secretary to Compliance

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, I take things in a different direction as I host my first non-CCO compliance professional, Joya Williams and detail her journey in compliance. In Episode 1, we take a look at Joya’s career leading to compliance.

Joya started her work life as a legal secretary, working in the Houston legal community for many years. She moved into the corporate world, taking a corporate paralegal position inhouse with the Baker Hughes compliance function. At Baker Hughes, entered Center for Advanced Legal Studies paralegal program and attended classes at night to obtain her Associates Degree in Paralegal Studies.  Afterwards, she obtained her paralegal certification. She found her passion and it was compliance.

Resources
Joya William LinkedIn Profile

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The Compliance Life

Ellen Smith – Sitting in the Chair and a Leading Trade Compliance Program

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 Ellen Smith, who has sat in the chair of a Director of Trade Compliance.

In late 2013, Ellen met Jay Martin, CCO at Baker Hughes who convinced her to move to Baker Hughes to help rationalize and rebuild/rebrand the Trade Compliance Department. While at Baker, Ellen had the opportunity to rebuild the trade program 3 or 4 times. The first, when she joined Baker. A second time, when Baker was considering a possible merger with Halliburton. A third time after a merger with GE Oil & Gas as we were a GE company. The fourth and final time came after post separation from GE. The biggest change in this job was that Jay Martin had established a culture of compliance throughout the organization.

Favorite adopted sayings
‘what you see is what you get’
‘Arm-in-arm’
Resources
Ellen Smith LinkedIn Profile
Amalie Trade Compliance Consulting

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The Compliance Life

Matt Silverman – Move to the Corporate World

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, we have our first Director of Trade Compliance, Matt Silverman, Director of Trade Compliance at VIAVI. We discuss Matt’s journey to the Director’s chair and look down the road at where trade compliance will be in 2025 and beyond.

Silverman Had to “start from the bottom” after my LLM; taking contract positions and non-attorney positions in trade compliance to get practical experience. From there he moved to his first in-house counsel role was at Baker Hughes in Houston as their international trade counsel.  At BH, he worked directly for the Director of Trade Compliance, gaining experience in sanctions work, customs issues and antiboycott law. He also got to study ‘at the feet’ of the Director of Trade Compliance and see how she ran the BH Trade Compliance program and interacted with the BH CCO and GC.