Great Women in Compliance

Wired Differently, Valued Equally? How inclusive are our Ethics & Compliance Programs really? With an estimated 15 to 20% of the workforce neurodivergent, reaching these employees in ways that matter to them is key to an effective Ethics & Compliance Program. Hosts Lisa Fine and Ellen M. Hunt welcome Nicole Di Schino and Megan Zwiebel to a roundtable discussion on how we should think about Ethics & Compliance Programs for our neurodivergent workforce. They explored how organizations can make compliance training, speak-up channels, and investigations more accessible to neurodivergent employees. They also talked about how these workers may be more vulnerable to being labeled a performance problem and subject to bullying when what might really be going on is that they just work differently than others. Discover practical ways to reduce barriers, recognize subtle workplace bullying, improve investigative fairness, and build a more effective Ethics & Compliance Program that works for everyone—not just those who think, learn, and communicate the same way.

They told her compliance was a dead-end career. They told her she’d never make it in the United States, that landing an internship with a U.S. government agency was impossible, and that passing the New York bar exam was a long shot. Cláudia Massaia proved them wrong—every single time. In this inspiring episode of Great Women in Compliance, host Sarah Hadden sits down with the Brazilian-born attorney and compliance professional whose remarkable journey is a master class in persistence, self-belief, and the power of simply refusing to take no for an answer. From launching her career amid Brazil’s historic Operation Car Wash corruption scandal to earning dual master’s degrees, securing permanent U.S. residency, and becoming a New York-licensed attorney, Cláudia shares the setbacks, sacrifices, and occasional spectacular failures that shaped her success. Along the way, Sarah and Cláudia explore the evolution of corporate compliance, why being a trusted business partner beats being the “department of no,” and what American executives misunderstand about doing business in Brazil. But the biggest takeaway is personal: Bet on yourself. Invest in your future. And don’t let someone else’s definition of what’s possible become your own. As Cláudia reminds us, discipline and consistency will take you further than intensity ever could. A joyful, candid, and energizing conversation for anyone who’s ever been told, “You can’t do that.” Connect with Cláudia on LinkedIn and subscribe to Great Women in Compliance wherever you listen to podcasts.

Is your organization designed to hear the truth—or to explain it away? Corporations have Enterprise Risk Management, established Ethics & Compliance Programs, Internal & External audits, risk assessments, multiple risk and compliance heat maps and dashboards, and boards charged with oversight. So why do major corporate scandals keep happening? What if the problem isn’t a lack of controls but the organizational structures that prevent those controls from making a difference? In this episode of Great Women in Compliance, we speak with Astrid Yee-Sobraques, Risk Sherpa and author of The Structural Capture of Corporate Conscience, about the uncomfortable relationship between ethics, commercial pressure, corporate governance, and power. We explored whether the Ethics & Compliance functions can identify risks but cannot meaningfully influence how the risk will be mitigated, and whether the Ethics & Compliance Program is effective—or simply a system for documenting concerns. We asked: Can a company with ethical people still be structurally designed to produce unethical outcomes? When does legitimate business risk acceptance become a way to rationalize unacceptable conduct? If Ethics & Compliance can identify the risk but cannot change the outcome, is that independence—or an illusion of it? How can boards uncover the risks that management’s reporting and assumptions may obscure? For Ethics & Compliance professionals, the discussion raises difficult questions about independence, professional responsibility, escalation, and the pressure to protect revenue-producing relationships. For directors and board members, it challenges the assumption that more reporting and better dashboards do not necessarily translate into better oversight and decisions.

In this episode, Lisa, Hemma, and Ellen are taking us back to last week at the 25th Annual SCCE Compliance & Ethics Institute.  They took the opportunity to speak with other attendees to share their experiences–whether as a first–time attendee, a first-time speaker, someone coming back after a long time, someone traveling from Europe to attend, or one of the long-time leaders in the field. We discussed what they’re learning, what’s changing in the profession, and—perhaps most importantly—why community matters.  Thank you to Doel Kar, Emily Frank, Lizette Arias, Maria Lancri, Carrie Penman, Terri Stringer, and Amarilys Gott for taking the time to speak with us about the evolution of ethics and compliance, AI, neurodiversity, leadership, and, of course, the amazing community of dedicated Ethics & Compliance professionals We hope you enjoy this episode half as much as we enjoyed connecting with these fabulous Great Women in Compliance.

In this episode of Great Women in Compliance, co-host Dr. Hemma R. Lomax sits down with Rebecca Taylor, HR leader, entrepreneur, community builder, and host of the HR Voices podcast, to talk about employee voice, trust, culture, leadership, and the future of employee relations. Rebecca shares what more than a decade in HR has taught her about difficult workplace decisions, the signals hidden beneath complaints, and why what happens after someone speaks matters just as much as creating the space for them to speak in the first place. Highlights include: Why employees are the culture and voice is one of its most important signals. Why difficult workplace situations often contain multiple truths at once. How leaders can build trust by explaining the reasoning behind decisions. Why complaints and hotline reports should be treated as useful data, not noise. How HR and compliance professionals can influence leaders by meeting them where they are. How AI can bring richer context to employee relations by connecting fragmented workplace data. Hemma promised to share a link to Rebecca’s integrity anthem: Starálfur” by Sigur Rós, from the album Ágætis byrjun. Check it out here. Starálfur, or Ágætis byrjun—Sigur Rós official site here: https://sigurros.com/music/agaetis-byrjun/ About Rebecca Taylor Rebecca Taylor is a people and workplace leader with more than a decade of experience across HR, employee relations, leadership, coaching, and workplace technology. She is the former co-founder and COO of SkillCycle, a coaching platform built for the AI era, and today leads community and content at AllVoices, an AI-native employee relations platform. She also hosts the HR Voices podcast, where she speaks with practitioners working through the realities of modern HR and employee relations. Rebecca is passionate about employee voice, workplace culture, community, and helping organizations understand the human context behind the signals their people provide. A lifelong writer and former college DJ, she has built a career around listening closely, asking what sits beneath the surface, and connecting people and ideas across the workplace.