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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Integrity Specialist

💰 $60,000 - $120,000

ComplianceRiskInvestigationsEthics

🎯 Role Definition

An Integrity Specialist is a compliance and investigations professional responsible for detecting, investigating, remediating, and preventing misconduct across an organization. This role leads case intake from whistleblower hotlines, conducts fact-finding interviews, performs data-driven reviews, coordinates cross-functional remediation, ensures regulatory reporting and documentation, and strengthens policies and controls to mitigate reputational and regulatory risk. The Integrity Specialist partners with Legal, HR, Security, Finance, and external counsel to deliver timely, defensible, and confidential resolutions to allegations of fraud, corruption, ethical breaches, conflicts of interest, sanctions violations, and other integrity-related issues.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Compliance Analyst or Compliance Coordinator
  • HR Investigator or Employee Relations Specialist
  • Internal Audit Associate or Fraud Analyst

Advancement To:

  • Senior Integrity Specialist / Senior Investigator
  • Compliance Manager / Investigations Manager
  • Director of Ethics & Compliance or Head of Integrity

Lateral Moves:

  • Financial Crime / AML Investigator
  • Risk Management Analyst
  • Corporate Security Investigator

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Manage end-to-end investigations stemming from anonymous tips, hotline reports, internal referrals, or audit findings—documenting intake, triage, investigation plans, evidentiary collection, interviews, analysis, findings and recommended remedial actions while maintaining strict confidentiality and chain-of-custody protocols.
  • Conduct discrete and credible allegations assessments and full fact-finding inquiries related to fraud, bribery, corruption, conflicts of interest, theft, data misuse, sanctions or export control violations, applying legal, regulatory, and internal policy frameworks (e.g., FCPA, UK Bribery Act, AML/CTF).
  • Lead complex cross-border investigations, coordinating with regional compliance leads, local HR/legal teams, and external counsel to ensure timely, culturally aware, compliant investigative processes and lawful evidence collection across jurisdictions.
  • Prepare detailed investigative reports and executive summaries for leadership, legal counsel, audit committees, and regulators that clearly articulate facts, analysis, credibility assessments, implicated policies, and recommended corrective and preventive actions.
  • Maintain and operate case management and whistleblower platforms (e.g., NAVEX, i-Sight, Convercent), ensuring accurate case tracking, evidence preservation, milestone logging, and report generation for trends, KPIs, and regulatory requests.
  • Develop and execute remediation plans in coordination with stakeholders—drafting discipline recommendations, contract terminations, restitution proposals, policy updates and control improvements; track closure and verify remediation effectiveness.
  • Perform enhanced due diligence on third parties, vendors, agents and joint venture partners including politically exposed persons (PEP) screening, sanctions checks, adverse media searches, and risk-tiering to identify and mitigate integrity risks before onboarding or renewal.
  • Conduct proactive risk assessments and continuous monitoring programs, leveraging data analytics, transactional reviews, policy gap analyses and control testing to identify emerging integrity risks and prioritize investigative resources.
  • Design and deliver role-based integrity and anti-corruption training workshops, awareness campaigns and coaching sessions for employees and leadership to foster an ethical culture and reduce policy violations.
  • Collaborate with HR to manage employee interviews, witness statements, disciplinary processes and appeals in a manner that upholds due process, confidentiality and consistent application of policies.
  • Coordinate evidence preservation and legal holds with IT and data teams—ensure collections, forensic imaging, metadata capture and chain-of-custody meet internal and external evidentiary standards.
  • Interface with external law enforcement or regulatory authorities when investigations require referral, taking direction from Legal and senior leadership to manage disclosures and regulatory filings.
  • Execute sanctions, export control and anti-money laundering screening workstreams, escalate potential matches, and document decision rationale consistent with internal policies and applicable laws.
  • Support merger and acquisition integrity due diligence by reviewing target company policies, prior investigations, sanctions exposure, and adverse media to quantify reputational and regulatory risk.
  • Use quantitative and qualitative data analysis (transactional sampling, e-discovery, email and document review, pattern analysis) to corroborate allegations and identify systemic control weaknesses.
  • Maintain up-to-date knowledge of global regulatory developments, enforcement trends, and industry best practices; proactively revise internal policies, playbooks and investigation protocols to reflect evolving standards.
  • Provide subject-matter expertise to Business Units on conflict-of-interest management, gifts and hospitality approvals, political contributions, lobbying disclosures and facilitation payment policies.
  • Escalate high-risk matters and timely notify senior leadership and Legal of incidents that may trigger public disclosure, regulatory reporting obligations, or material remediation requirements.
  • Drive continuous improvement of the integrity program by establishing KPIs (time-to-triage, time-to-close, remediation completion rate), preparing trend and root-cause analysis reports, and recommending technology or process enhancements.
  • Support cross-functional policy reviews and revisions, drafting clear, operationally-relevant integrity policies, procedures and investigation playbooks, and ensuring adoption through training and communications.
  • Mentor junior investigators and compliance analysts—provide coaching on investigation methodology, interview techniques, evidence handling, and professional judgement.
  • Ensure strict adherence to privacy laws, data protection requirements and internal confidentiality standards throughout investigative activities and reporting.
  • Participate in mock investigations, tabletop exercises, and red-team reviews to test response readiness and refine investigative workflows and escalation paths.
  • Assist in preparing and presenting investigative findings for internal disciplinary hearings, arbitration, insurance claims, or civil litigation as a subject-matter expert and potential witness.

Secondary Functions

  • Maintain and enhance integrity metrics dashboards and periodic management reports to highlight operational performance and emerging integrity risks.
  • Support compliance program integrations and post-merger harmonization activities that relate to investigative processes, whistleblower channels and policy alignment.
  • Provide ad-hoc analytical support to enterprise risk and internal audit teams for integrity-related reviews and control testing.
  • Liaise with privacy, IT, and records management teams to ensure secure storage, retention and destruction of investigative records in accordance with policy.
  • Participate in cross-functional projects to operationalize new regulatory requirements (e.g., sanctions expansions, supply chain transparency) that affect investigative posture.
  • Assist in vendor risk reviews and contract language updates to strengthen cooperation and audit rights for investigative and compliance matters.
  • Contribute to business continuity planning for the integrity function to guarantee hotline availability and investigative capacity during incidents.
  • Support periodic tabletop exercises to validate incident response, escalation, and investigative coordination across Legal, HR, Security, and Communications.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Investigations & Case Management: Proficient with case intake, triage, evidence collection, chain-of-custody and case management platforms (e.g., NAVEX, i-Sight, MyComplianceOffice).
  • Regulatory Knowledge: Practical familiarity with anti-corruption laws (FCPA, UK Bribery Act), sanctions regimes, AML/CTF frameworks, and data privacy regulations relevant to investigations.
  • Interviewing & Witness Management: Skilled in structured interview planning, cognitive interviewing, documentation of witness statements and assessing credibility.
  • Forensic Data Analysis: Ability to work with e-discovery tools, perform transactional reviews, review email and document repositories, and support forensic collections.
  • Enhanced Due Diligence: Experience conducting third-party due diligence, PEP screening, sanctions screening and adverse media research.
  • Reporting & Documentation: Strong report-writing skills to produce clear, defensible investigation reports and executive summaries for senior stakeholders.
  • Evidence Preservation & Legal Hold Coordination: Knowledge of legal holds, electronic evidence preservation, and collaboration with IT/forensic vendors.
  • Risk Assessment & Control Testing: Conduct integrity risk assessments, root cause analysis, and recommend control improvements.
  • Tools & Analytics: Comfortable using Excel (pivot tables, VLOOKUP), Power BI/Tableau for dashboards, and familiarity with basic SQL or data query concepts is advantageous.
  • Case Law & Policy Interpretation: Ability to interpret regulatory guidance, enforcement actions and translate them into practical internal policy updates.
  • Cross-Border Investigations: Experience navigating multi-jurisdictional legal and cultural considerations during international investigations.

Soft Skills

  • Discretion & Integrity: Demonstrates absolute confidentiality, ethical judgment and impartiality in sensitive investigations.
  • Communication: Clear, concise verbal and written communicator able to present complex findings to legal counsel, executives and non-technical stakeholders.
  • Critical Thinking & Analysis: Strong analytical reasoning, attention to detail and ability to synthesize disparate evidence into coherent findings.
  • Stakeholder Management: Ability to influence and collaborate across Legal, HR, Finance, Security, and regional business leaders.
  • Resilience & Emotional Intelligence: Maintains composure during difficult interviews and high-pressure, high-sensitivity matters.
  • Project Management: Manages multiple concurrent investigations with competing priorities and tight deadlines.
  • Cultural Sensitivity: Applies cultural awareness in international investigations and stakeholder interactions.
  • Decision-Making: Makes timely, well-documented decisions on escalation, referrals and closure based on facts and law.
  • Coaching & Mentorship: Trains and develops junior investigators and raises overall team capability.
  • Negotiation & Persuasion: Able to negotiate remedial outcomes and persuade stakeholders to implement recommended controls.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor's degree in Law, Criminal Justice, Finance, Accounting, Business, Risk Management or a related field.

Preferred Education:

  • Juris Doctor (JD), Master’s degree in Compliance, Forensics or Business Administration (MBA), or equivalent certifications (CFE, CAMS, CRMA).

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Law
  • Criminal Justice
  • Accounting / Finance
  • Business Administration
  • Risk & Compliance

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 3–7 years of progressively responsible experience in investigations, compliance, internal audit, law enforcement, or financial crimes.

Preferred:

  • 5+ years investigating allegations of fraud, corruption, sanctions or other integrity violations in a corporate, legal or government setting.
  • Demonstrated experience with cross-border investigations, whistleblower program administration, and vendor due diligence.
  • Certifications such as Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE), Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist (CAMS), or relevant compliance/investigations training are highly desirable.
  • Proven track record of preparing investigation reports for senior leadership, coordinating with external counsel and managing regulatory disclosures.
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