Where is the love? Giving CCOs a much-needed voice in the boardroom
This article originally appeared in our July 31 edition of the Diligent Minute Newsletter. For more insights like these, delivered straight to your inbox, subscribe here.
Compliance lapses have big repercussions, like fines, reputational damage, compromised legal standing and missed business opportunities, to name a few.
So, it’s logical to assume that compliance is a top board priority today, with the chief compliance officer (CCO) front and center for important discussions — right?
Not so much, as we discovered in the findings of the 2025 What Directors Think report, an annual survey of more than 200 U.S. public company directors conducted in partnership with Corporate Board Member and FTI Consulting.
Regulatory compliance ranked relatively low on both the list of company priorities for 2025 and on topics directors wanted to discuss at upcoming board meetings. What we’ve heard anecdotally from CCOs themselves affirms these findings. They sometimes feel neglected by their boards.
And here’s the key takeaway: CCOs may not perceive themselves as wanted — but their perspectives and input are sorely needed right now, as the following example illustrates.
Authorities in France and Switzerland, as well as state authorities in the U.S., are amping up their enforcement of anti-bribery laws. But only 65% of the directors we surveyed reported ethics policies and employee training to mitigate bribery and corruption risk in their supply chains. Only 60% implemented regular audits and inspections in this area, and a full 22% answered “not applicable/don’t know” about their risk-mitigation activities.
How can boards and CCOs close this dangerous gap?
In a recent Corporate Director podcast, we received sage advice from a compliance expert and former CCO: Kristy Grant-Hart, now Vice President and Head of Advisory Services for Spark Compliance, a Diligent Brand.
1. Recognize the urgency of the situation
Especially when the board agenda is dominated by changes in trade, technology and the geopolitical landscape, it’s tempting to move compliance to the back burner. This is especially true in industries where regulations have remained static for years.
But boards who deprioritize compliance today — and a strong, transparent board/CCO relationship — do so at their own peril, Kristy cautioned.“ Compliance doesn’t seem important until it’s the only thing, and you’re responding to big problems.”
She pointed out the importance of “more global” compliance areas like conflict-of-interest management and investigations, which “can actually be very, very problematic if you’re not paying attention to them because of what they tell you about the culture and how your company is going.”
Culture is a “hard ask” to oversee, she noted, a mix of subjective and objective data like exit interviews, focus groups and whistleblower surveys. But it’s a rising area of regulatory scrutiny and a major driver of business profitability, so overseeing it in tandem with the CCO, along with the rest of the compliance landscape, needs to be a board priority.
“I would remind directors of their personal responsibility under many laws, as well as the reputational issues that come if they face compliance meltdowns under their watch,” she said.
2. Commit to training
While 60% of organizations conducting regular anti-bribery audits and inspections was a higher-than-anticipated statistic, Kristy noted that only 65% of organizations implementing anti-bribery training was an area in need of improvement.
“Training is pretty much ground zero,” she declared. And it’s an investment that pays ongoing dividends. As boards become more aware of external pressures, like local AI regulations and growing human trafficking regulations, and internal compliance progress, their oversight becomes more robust and adaptable over time.
3. Proactively elevate the CCO role
Now is the time for directors to proactively invite closer collaboration and information-sharing, recognizing the invaluable role the CCO can play in illuminating trends, anticipating challenges and navigating uncertain times. And CCOs can elevate their own standing through purposeful storytelling: monitoring important data points, synthesizing them and distilling them all into a compelling, contextual narrative, based on what boards care about.
“There is a tendency in our industry to report on what you are doing, your activities,” Kristy noted. “Directors don’t want a litany of what you’ve been up to. They want to understand forward-looking risk, not just backwards-looking risk.”
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