JERA Americas

David Kirtland

In audit and compliance leadership, the effectiveness of a framework is inseparable from the effectiveness of the team delivering it. Strong programs are not sustained by policies alone, but by people who understand how to balance rigor with practicality, efficiency with integrity, and oversight with partnership.

Over the course of my career, I’ve found that the most impactful compliance organizations operate not as gatekeepers, but as business partners. At the same time, they hold themselves to the highest standards of behavior.

Experiences that shaped my approach

Several experiences have shaped how I approach building and sustaining effective compliance frameworks. First, I learned early that clarity and usability matter more than complexity. Policies and controls must translate into real decisions and workflows, not theoretical ideals. When expectations are clear and actionable, compliance becomes achievable rather than aspirational.

Second, effective frameworks are intentionally risk based. Organizations cannot treat all risks equally without diluting focus. Strong programs prioritize resources and controls around areas of greatest exposure—whether regulatory, financial, operational, or reputational—and recalibrate as business conditions change.

Finally, I’ve seen firsthand that culture determines outcomes. A framework can be technically sound and still fail if it is not reinforced by leadership behavior and everyday accountability. Compliance lives or dies by what is tolerated, reinforced, and modeled.

Building audit and compliance teams that lead by example

How audit and compliance teams show up matters. I am deliberate about building teams that operate with a customer service mindset while fully embracing their responsibility to uphold standards. Our role is not simply to identify gaps after the fact, but to help the organization succeed while modeling disciplined, consistent behavior.

That customer service orientation does not mean lowering standards. In fact, it requires the opposite. Audit and compliance professionals must demonstrate what balanced behavior looks like in practice: following policies, respecting controls, documenting decisions, and navigating approvals efficiently. In a profession like ours, credibility is fragile. Individual actions—cutting corners or bypassing internal requirements— can undermine the entire function.

If compliance professionals are perceived as ignoring the rules they enforce, stakeholders will inevitably ask why compliance expectations apply to them but not to us. Once that trust is lost, even well supported findings face resistance. For that reason, I emphasize that we set the example before we can expect others to change.

An experience earlier in my career reinforced this belief. I worked in an industrial operation with an exceptional safety culture where anyone, regardless of role, could challenge anyone else on a safety related matter. The philosophy was simple: ensuring every employee made it home safely mattered more than hierarchy.

“If compliance professionals are perceived as ignoring the rules they enforce, stakeholders will inevitably ask why compliance expectations apply to them but not to us.”

As that culture took hold, something unexpected happened. The operation became more efficient. We broke production records after realizing that perceived “shortcuts” were actually costing time through injuries, near misses, investigations, and work disruptions.

Compliance and controls often work the same way. When compliance is treated as an external constraint layered onto a process, it feels heavy and obstructive. But when a right sized compliance framework is embedded into the process, controls often make workflows smoother, more predictable, and more efficient. Clear expectations reduce rework, and defined escalation paths remove hesitation from decision making.

This reality frequently contradicts anecdotal perceptions that compliance slows organizations down. In practice, poorly designed compliance slows organizations down; well designed compliance accelerates them.

Balancing audit rigor with efficiency and growth

Audit rigor and business agility are often framed as tradeoffs, but good audits improve efficiency. When audits focus on process integrity, control design, and data quality—rather than individual fault—they help organizations reduce ambiguity, eliminate rework, and prevent downstream failures.

Risk environments also continue to evolve. Regulatory expectations are expanding and overlapping. Third party risk has grown as organizations rely more heavily on vendors and contractors. Cybersecurity and operational technology risks now intersect directly with compliance, extending impacts beyond financial loss to operational continuity. Workforce changes—remote work, talent mobility, and shifting expectations—also introduce challenges around supervision and consistency.

Balance is achieved by embedding controls into workflows, leveraging automation where appropriate, and using data to focus audit effort on higher risk areas. Clear thresholds and well defined decision rights reduce friction while strengthening oversight. Just as importantly, audit leaders must be willing to have pragmatic conversations about risk tolerance, clearly distinguishing between essential controls and areas where flexibility is appropriate.

Advice for aspiring audit and compliance leaders

For professionals pursuing leadership roles, my advice is straightforward. Learn the business deeply, because influence flows from understanding how value is created and where pressure points exist. Develop judgment, not just technical expertise, because leadership often operates in gray areas. Above all, remember that how you operate sets the standard.

When audit and compliance teams combine principled leadership, a customer service mindset, and personal accountability, they become catalysts— not constraints—for sustainable organizational success.