In this week’s special episode of Great Women in Compliance, Hemma interviews Ellen Hunt, an ethics and compliance professional and recent recipient of the Compliance Week Lifetime Achievement in Compliance Award. Ellen shares her journey from law to compliance, emphasizing the importance of organizational justice, psychological safety, and ethical decision-making. Listeners will gain insights into Ellen’s approach to fostering a values-driven culture, her experiences and advice on ensuring transparency, the role of conflict in cultivating psychological safety, and her commitment to nurturing the compliance community.

Biography:

Ellen is a lawyer, ethics & compliance professional, audit executive, and chief privacy officer. Before joining Spark Compliance Consulting, A Diligent Brand, Ellen was the Vice President, Compliance Program Operations and Chief Privacy Officer for LifePoint Health, Senior Vice President ~Chief Ethics & Compliance Officer, and Chief Audit Executive for AARP.

Ellen was named “Mentor of the Year” by Compliance Week in 2021 and the 2019 Not-For-Profit Compliance Officer of the Year by Women In Compliance. She received the Trust Across America Top Thought Leaders Lifetime Achievement Award in 2019 and was named a Top Mind by Compliance Week in 2016. Most recently, in April 2025, she was awarded a Lifetime Award for Compliance by Compliance Week.

She taught at the Fordham University School of Law, Program for Corporate Ethics and Compliance. She is an adjunct professor at Loyola University Chicago School of Law, teaching Business Ethics in the 21st Century and co-teaching the Compliance and Culture courses. Ellen serves on the Advisory Boards for the Notre Dame Deloitte Center for Ethical Leadership, Compliance Week, and the Quorum Initiative. She is the co-founder of The Seven Elements Book Club, a book club devoted to ethics and compliance authors, and winner of the 2022 award for “Best New Idea” by the Great Women in Compliance podcast.