Compliance & Regulatory · CCO Executive Search
Compliance Recruitment & CCO Executive Search
Retained compliance recruitment for regulated companies and for law-firm compliance practices. A Chief Compliance Officer mandate is a CCO executive search.
A hire the regulator is, in effect, also making.
When you appoint a Chief Compliance Officer, you are not just filling a seat on the org chart. You are naming the person who will speak for your business to the people who can fine it, restrict it, or shut it down.
That is a different kind of search. The compliance leaders worth hiring are rarely on the market — they are quietly employed, trusted by a board, and reached only through a direct approach. They cannot be found by reposting a job to a list. They have to be mapped, understood, and persuaded.
And the bar is external. The U.S. Department of Justice Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs (updated 2024) sets out what a credible programme looks like — a CCO with real authority, independence, resources and a direct line to the board — and the 2015 Yates Memo put individual accountability at the center of corporate enforcement. We read that regime, not just the résumé, because in this market the wrong hire carries regulatory, reputational and personal-liability risk.
Sartori & Partners has completed 36 compliance and regulatory leadership placements since 2017, inside 400+ placements (230+ in-house). The CCO clock is 21 days to a shortlist and 10 weeks median to an accepted offer. The officer mandate is a Chief Compliance Officer search.
CCO executive search is the officer mandate. This page is the wider desk.
Compliance recruitment here covers regulated companies and law-firm compliance practices. A Chief Compliance Officer mandate is briefed on its own page.
CCO recruiters on this desk place Chief Compliance Officers, MLROs, sanctions and AML leads, regulatory counsel, privacy officers, and partners in law-firm compliance practices. When the seat is the Chief Compliance Officer, the search is a Chief Compliance Officer search: audit-committee reporting line, examinations named in the dossier, and the U.S. Department of Justice Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs (updated 2024) as the test for design, good-faith application, and whether the programme works in practice.
Sartori & Partners has completed 36 compliance and regulatory leadership placements since 2017, inside 400+ placements (230+ in-house). The CCO clock is 21 days to a shortlist and 10 weeks median to an accepted offer. A NYSE-listed payments company in New York hired its Chief Compliance Officer: shortlist in week 3, accepted offer in week 10. The reporting line ran to the audit committee. The file is one of those 36 compliance and regulatory leadership placements. Read the New York payments case study.
The New York payments compliance field on that file was a field in the tens. Dual-regulated financial services companies typically run 15 to 40 lawyers plus a compliance function. The CCO on that file was not asked to also be general counsel.
Across corporate mandates, 96 percent of offers taken to a signed letter are accepted. 97 percent of placed in-house leaders remain at 12 months. The fee is 25-30 percent of total first-year compensation. A retainer of 30 percent of the fee is paid at engagement. The replacement term on a retained CCO search is 12 months. Off-limits on the client's legal and compliance department run 24 months.
Fee, replacement window and off-limits were in the letter before they called anyone. That is the only way I will sign a search firm. The hire accepted on the first offer.
CFO, London-headquartered private-credit manager
ACC's 2025 Chief Legal Officer Survey names risk, compliance, data privacy and regulatory change as the issues chief legal officers rank first (Association of Corporate Counsel, 2025). The buyer guide beside the officer search is hiring a chief compliance officer.
Sibling searches: sanctions and AML recruitment, Chief Privacy Officer search, data protection officer search, AI governance counsel. The map behind the work is the Sartori research programme: close to 1.5 million lawyer profiles. Firm background is on about Sartori & Partners, founded in 2017.
What the placement record and the 2024 ECCP say about the person you appoint.
The modern compliance function was built by Sarbanes-Oxley (2002) and Dodd-Frank (2010), and is now judged against the U.S. Department of Justice Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs, updated 2024. The figures below are the CCO clock on Sartori & Partners searches since 2017.
- 36
- Compliance and regulatory leadership placements since 2017, inside 400+ placements (230+ in-house). The set is CCO, MLRO, Head of Sanctions, and DPO/CPO.
- Sartori & Partners corporate track record, 2017-2026
- 21 days
- CCO time to a shortlist. The CCO clock is 21 days to a shortlist and 10 weeks median to an accepted offer.
- Sartori & Partners corporate track record, 2017-2026
- 10 weeks
- Median from brief to an accepted offer on a CCO search, across those 36 compliance and regulatory leadership placements.
- Sartori & Partners corporate track record, 2017-2026
- 12 months
- Replacement term on a retained CCO search. The fee is 25-30 percent of total first-year compensation. A retainer of 30 percent of the fee is paid at engagement.
- Sartori & Partners engagement terms
Placement figures: Sartori & Partners corporate track record, 2017-2026, as published in the New York payments case study and the other corporate case studies. Standard: U.S. Department of Justice, Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs (updated 2024), and the 2015 Yates Memorandum. Statutes named above: Sarbanes-Oxley (2002) and Dodd-Frank (2010).
The compliance and regulatory leadership map.
From the Chief Compliance Officer who owns the programme to the financial-crime and privacy leaders beneath them, we recruit across the full regulatory function.
Chief Compliance Officer (CCO)
The compliance leader who owns the programme, answers to the board or the audit committee, and stands in front of a regulator. The officer mandate is a CCO executive search.
CCO executive searchRegulatory & Government Affairs Counsel
Lawyers who read the rulebook before it is written — handling examinations, enforcement, rulemaking and the regulators themselves across sector-specific regimes.
Financial Crime, AML & Sanctions
BSA/AML officers, sanctions and OFAC leads, KYC and transaction-monitoring heads, and financial-crime counsel for banks, fintechs and payments businesses.
Sanctions and AML searchRisk & Internal Audit Leadership
Chief Risk Officers, heads of operational and conduct risk, and internal-audit leaders who pair quantitative judgment with a working knowledge of the law.
Data Privacy & Information Governance
Chief Privacy Officers, Data Protection Officers and privacy counsel fluent in GDPR, CCPA/CPRA and the widening patchwork of state and cross-border data law. Officer searches for these seats are briefed on their own pages.
Chief Privacy Officer searchEthics, Conduct & ESG
Heads of ethics and business conduct, and the compliance leaders now asked to own ESG disclosure, anti-bribery and supply-chain regulatory obligations.
Named seats:
chief compliance officer search
and
chief privacy officer search.
01 The compliance leader who owns the programme, answers to the board or the audit committee, and stands in front of a regulator. The officer mandate is a CCO executive search.Chief Compliance Officer (CCO)
Regulatory & Government Affairs Counsel
Lawyers who read the rulebook before it is written — handling examinations, enforcement, rulemaking and the regulators themselves across sector-specific regimes.
Financial Crime, AML & Sanctions
BSA/AML officers, sanctions and OFAC leads, KYC and transaction-monitoring heads, and financial-crime counsel for banks, fintechs and payments businesses.
Sanctions and AML searchRisk & Internal Audit Leadership
Chief Risk Officers, heads of operational and conduct risk, and internal-audit leaders who pair quantitative judgment with a working knowledge of the law.
Data Privacy & Information Governance
Chief Privacy Officers, Data Protection Officers and privacy counsel fluent in GDPR, CCPA/CPRA and the widening patchwork of state and cross-border data law. Officer searches for these seats are briefed on their own pages.
Chief Privacy Officer searchEthics, Conduct & ESG
Heads of ethics and business conduct, and the compliance leaders now asked to own ESG disclosure, anti-bribery and supply-chain regulatory obligations.
The officer mandate is a Chief Compliance Officer search. Hiring across the wider legal department too? See in-house & general counsel recruiting and legal operations recruitment, or start from the legal talent acquisition hub for companies. A conducting-officer or bank compliance hire in Luxembourg is scoped on in-house counsel recruiting in Luxembourg.
Where compliance is a board-level concern.
The regulatory regime — not the job title — defines the brief. We scope every search around the specific regulators and rules the role must answer to.
Banking & Capital Markets
BSA/AML, sanctions, conduct, and SEC/FINRA-facing compliance for banks, broker-dealers, asset managers and market infrastructure — the function Sarbanes-Oxley and Dodd-Frank rebuilt. Dual-regulated financial services companies typically run 15 to 40 lawyers plus a compliance function.
Fintech, Payments & Crypto
Money-transmission licensing, consumer-finance, and the crypto-and-payments compliance leaders who build a programme while the rules are still moving.
Healthcare & Life Sciences
HIPAA, anti-kickback, Sunshine Act, FDA and pharmacovigilance compliance for providers, payers, device and biopharma companies.
Energy & Industrials
FERC, environmental, trade and anti-corruption compliance for energy, utilities, manufacturing and critical-infrastructure businesses.
Technology & Data
Privacy, content, AI-governance and cross-border data-transfer leadership for platforms, SaaS and data-intensive businesses.
Law Firm Compliance Practices
The regulatory, white-collar and investigations partners and senior associates who advise the regulated companies above.
When the seat is model governance, the search is AI governance counsel search. Payments and financial-crime seats also sit on sanctions and AML recruitment.
We test for regulatory credibility, not exposure.
Many compliance CVs describe proximity to a regulator. We establish ownership — what the candidate actually led, decided, and was accountable for — and benchmark it against the DOJ Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs, updated 2024, on authority, resources and independence.
Anyone senior enough for this work has the right words. The difference between a good and a costly hire is whether the experience behind those words is real, whether it matches the programme you actually have, and whether the role you are offering gives a compliance leader the standing the Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs (updated 2024) expects. Four questions decide it.
- 01
Regulatory credibility, not just a CV
We test whether a candidate has genuinely owned a regulatory relationship — led an examination, responded to an enforcement action, sat across the table from the FCA, SEC, OCC or DOJ — rather than supported from a distance.
- 02
Programme-build vs. programme-run
A leader who stood up a compliance function from nothing is a different hire from one who optimized a mature one. We match the candidate's proven mode to where your programme actually is — and to what the DOJ's Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs, updated 2024, expects a programme to demonstrate.
- 03
Authority, resources and independence
The Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs, updated 2024, asks prosecutors to test whether compliance has real authority, adequate resources and a seat with the seniority the role demands. We assess the candidate against the same standard — and tell you where your structure would undercut them before you hire.
- 04
The reporting line and the board relationship
Where the role reports — to the GC, the CEO, or directly to the board and audit committee — changes the brief and the candidate. The 2015 Yates Memo put individual accountability at the center of corporate enforcement. The leaders who have sat an examination ask about that line first; we pressure-test the structure with you before we approach the market.
A small market, scrutinised, with no room for a wrong hire.
Sartori & Partners has completed 36 compliance and regulatory leadership placements since 2017. The work is compliance recruitment for companies and for law-firm compliance practices, and a CCO executive search when the seat is the officer.
A generalist sees a title. We read the regime.
Compliance titles travel badly. A “Head of Compliance” at a payments startup and at a global bank are not interchangeable, and a sanctions specialist is not automatically a privacy one. We know which AML lead can also carry sanctions, which regulatory counsel has owned a board relationship, and which CCO is ready to step up rather than across.
The people worth hiring rarely see the advert.
The compliance leaders worth hiring are trusted, busy and quietly employed. They are reached through a mapped, direct approach — not a job board. The Sartori research programme maps close to 1.5 million lawyer profiles. Judgment on the shortlist is set out in our methodology.
One sector, both sides of the table.
We work only in the legal and compliance market, for the companies that hire and the leaders who move — including compliance officers and CCOs considering a move, for whom the hiring company pays our fee. That dual view is how we read whether a hire is portable, and whether a candidate is ready.
Planning the function before the hire? Read our guide to compliance & regulatory talent acquisition and hiring a chief compliance officer. Sydney companies hiring a compliance officer start at compliance recruitment in Sydney.
Common questions about compliance recruitment
What is a CCO executive search?
A CCO executive search is a retained search for a Chief Compliance Officer. Sartori & Partners has completed 36 compliance and regulatory leadership placements since 2017, inside 400+ placements (230+ in-house). The CCO clock is 21 days to a shortlist and 10 weeks median to an accepted offer. A NYSE-listed payments company in New York hired its Chief Compliance Officer: shortlist in week 3, accepted offer in week 10. The officer page is Chief Compliance Officer search. The file is the New York payments case study.
What compliance roles do you recruit for?
We focus on senior compliance, regulatory and risk leadership: Chief Compliance Officers, deputy and divisional CCOs, regulatory and government-affairs counsel, BSA/AML and sanctions officers, Chief Risk and internal-audit leaders, Chief Privacy Officers and Data Protection Officers, and heads of ethics, conduct and ESG. We place these roles both inside regulated companies and within the compliance, regulatory and white-collar practices of law firms. Officer mandates go to Chief Compliance Officer search, sanctions and AML search, Chief Privacy Officer search and data protection officer search.
Which sectors do you cover?
Regulated industries where compliance is a board-level concern: banking and capital markets, fintech, payments and crypto, healthcare and life sciences, energy and industrials, and technology and data. Dual-regulated financial services companies typically run 15 to 40 lawyers plus a compliance function. The regulatory regime — BSA/AML, SEC/FINRA, HIPAA, FERC, GDPR/CCPA — shapes the brief far more than the job title, which is why we scope every search around the specific regulators and rules the role must answer to.
Do you place a first Chief Compliance Officer for a scaling company?
Yes. Standing up a compliance function for the first time — often because a license, an investor, a regulator or an enforcement action demands it — is a distinct kind of hire. The candidate must be comfortable building a programme from a blank page rather than inheriting one, and able to demonstrate the authority, resources and independence the U.S. Department of Justice Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs (updated 2024) expects a credible function to have. The CCO clock is 21 days to a shortlist and 10 weeks median to an accepted offer. The officer brief is a Chief Compliance Officer search.
How do you assess regulatory credibility?
We test for ownership, not exposure. The questions are whether the candidate has personally led an examination, managed a consent order or remediation, responded to an enforcement matter, and built a working relationship with the relevant regulator — rather than supporting those events at a distance. We benchmark the brief against the U.S. Department of Justice Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs (updated 2024) on authority, resources and reporting line. On the New York payments file, dossiers named examinations sat, issues found, and resources the candidate had won from a board. Read the New York payments case study.
How are compliance leaders compensated, and how is the fee set?
Cash for a CCO is set on the brief: sector, company size and the examinations the seat will sit. The fee is 25-30 percent of total first-year compensation. A retainer of 30 percent of the fee is paid at engagement. ACC's 2025 Chief Legal Officer Survey names risk, compliance, data privacy and regulatory change as the issues chief legal officers rank first (Association of Corporate Counsel, 2025). That survey is a demand signal, and the fee terms above are the commercial terms of the search.
Why use a specialist rather than a generalist executive search firm?
The Sartori research programme maps close to 1.5 million lawyer profiles. Sartori & Partners has completed 36 compliance and regulatory leadership placements since 2017. A generalist reads a title. We read the regime: which AML lead can also carry sanctions, which privacy counsel has carried a global programme, and which CCO is ready for the audit committee. CCO recruiters on this desk run the officer mandate as a Chief Compliance Officer search.
Do you work on retained or contingency terms?
Retained only. The fee is 25-30 percent of total first-year compensation. A retainer of 30 percent of the fee is paid at engagement. The replacement term on a retained CCO search is 12 months. Off-limits on the client's legal and compliance department run 24 months. We do not run contingency searches.
Can you run a confidential compliance search?
Yes. A regulated business rarely wants the market to know its compliance leadership is changing, and the people worth hiring are employed elsewhere. On a NYSE-listed payments search in New York, the compliance field was a field in the tens. We approached that field directly and kept both sides confidential until each was ready to proceed. The file closed on the same clock: shortlist in week 3, accepted offer in week 10.
Where we run this search.
One page per market: the local bench, the employers hiring, the pay and how the process actually goes.
Compliance & regulatory43 pages
Amsterdam
Atlanta
Austin
Baltimore
Boston
Brussels
Charlotte
Chicago
Dallas
Denver
Dubai
Dublin
Frankfurt
Hong Kong
Houston
Kansas City
Las Vegas
London
Los Angeles
Madrid
Miami
Milan
Minneapolis
Munich
New Orleans
New York
Newark
Paris
Philadelphia
Phoenix
Pittsburgh
Sacramento
San Diego
San Francisco
Seattle
Singapore
St. Louis
Sydney
Tampa
Tokyo
Toronto
Washington
Zurich
Build your compliance function
The right compliance leader begins with a conversation.
Whether you are hiring a first Chief Compliance Officer, replacing one quietly, or strengthening a regulatory and risk team, the CCO clock is 21 days to a shortlist and 10 weeks median to an accepted offer.