Director, Global Corporate Compliance Operations

Waters Corporation (NYSE: WAT) is offering an exciting opportunity for the Director, Global Corporate Compliance Operations. This full-time role reports to the Vice President, Chief Compliance Officer and is responsible for designing, implementing, and continuously improving the global operational infrastructure that enables a scalable, business-anchored, and forward-looking corporate compliance program across Waters.

This role translates global compliance strategy into practical processes, systems, governance, training, reporting, and operational capabilities that can be consistently deployed across regions while accommodating applicable local requirements and business needs.

Lead the operational execution of the global Corporate Compliance program, translating compliance strategy into scalable global processes, systems, tools, and governance structures.
• Develop and maintain a global compliance operating model that establishes enterprise business-anchored standards while allowing appropriate flexibility for regional and local requirements.
• Establish standardized workflows, roles, responsibilities, decision rights, and governance frameworks for key compliance activities.
• Enable the timely collection and reporting of transfers of value to health care professionals and health care organizations globally, where required.
• Partner with global and regional Corporate Compliance leaders to identify requirements, harmonize processes, and support consistent execution across geographies.
• Develop and drive pull through of annual and multi-year compliance operational plans, priorities, milestones, and performance measures.
• Coordinate complex cross-functional and cross-regional compliance initiatives, including data analytics, and process improvement.
• Establish mechanisms for tracking compliance commitments, remediation activities, program enhancements, and strategic initiatives globally.
• Identify opportunities to simplify, standardize, automate, and improve compliance processes while maintaining appropriate controls.
• Support executive leadership, Compliance Committee, Audit Committee, and other governance reporting.

Global Compliance Learning & Communications

• Lead the operational strategy and administration of the global compliance learning program.
• Establish a global compliance learning framework that defines enterprise-required training while supporting appropriate regional and country-specific content.
• Oversee the Corporate Compliance learning curriculum, including Code of Conduct, anti-bribery and anti-corruption, conflicts of interest, privacy, competition, healthcare compliance, and other required topics.
• Establish role-based and risk-based learning approaches aligned with employee responsibilities, geography, and risk exposure.
• Partner with global and regional subject matter experts to develop, procure, update, localize, and deploy compliance learning content.
• Oversee learning management system processes, assignment rules, completion monitoring, escalation, reporting, and training records.
• Manage external learning-content providers and related vendor relationships.
• Establish metrics to evaluate training completion, effectiveness, learner engagement, and program impact across regions.
• Coordinate global compliance communications and awareness initiatives.

Global Policy & Procedure Governance

• Lead the operational framework for developing, reviewing, approving, publishing, maintaining, and retiring Corporate Compliance policies and procedures.
• Establish policy governance standards, templates, ownership requirements, review cycles, version control, and approval processes.
• Develop an approach for managing global policies alongside necessary regional or country-specific requirements.
• Coordinate periodic policy reviews with global and regional subject matter experts.
• Maintain centralized visibility into policy ownership, status, review dates, employee acknowledgement requirements, localization needs, and associated training.
• Identify opportunities to simplify and harmonize compliance policies across functions and geographies.

Compliance Systems & Technology

• Serve as a strategic business owner or key stakeholder for global technology supporting Corporate Compliance, including but not limited to transparency reporting platforms, review and approval processes, risk assessment, and monitoring.
• Develop and maintain a global compliance technology roadmap aligned with program strategy and organizational priorities.
• Lead requirements gathering across regions and functions to establish scalable enterprise solutions.
• Lead or oversee process design, vendor evaluation, implementation, configuration, testing, deployment, change management, and ongoing optimization of compliance solutions.
• Partner with IT, Information Security, Privacy, Procurement, business leaders, and vendors to ensure solutions meet business, regulatory, security, privacy, and data-governance requirements.
• Evaluate opportunities for workflow automation, system integration, analytics, artificial intelligence, and other technologies that improve compliance effectiveness and employee experience.
• Establish appropriate system ownership, access controls, data standards, support models, and change governance.

Global Compliance Analytics & Reporting

• Develop an integrated global compliance metrics and reporting framework providing meaningful visibility into program performance and risk.
• Establish standardized KPIs, KRIs, operational metrics, and reporting definitions across regions.
• Develop global dashboards and executive reporting for Compliance leadership and governance committees.
• Integrate information across business activities, training, investigations, policies, disclosures, monitoring, risk assessments, and other compliance activities to identify enterprise and regional trends.
• Develop mechanisms for comparing program performance and identifying emerging compliance risks across geographies and business units.
• Partner with Corporate Compliance leaders to translate data into actionable insights and program improvements.
• Support documentation and evidence demonstrating the effectiveness of the global Corporate Compliance Program.

Risk Assessment & Monitoring Operations

• Lead or support execution and administration of global and regional compliance risk-assessment processes.
• Partner with Corporate Compliance teams and other stakeholders to develop and deploy risk-based monitoring plans.
• Establish consistent tools and methodologies for collecting, documenting, evaluating, aggregating, and reporting compliance risks.
• Coordinate tracking of global and regional risk mitigation and remediation plans.
• Establish mechanisms for connecting findings from investigations, monitoring, audits, risk assessments, training, and other sources to broader program improvements.

Compliance Processes & Enterprise Integration

• Provide global operational leadership for compliance processes such as conflicts-of-interest disclosures, compliance certifications, third-party due diligence, and internal investigation case management.
• Establish efficient and consistent intake, review, escalation, documentation, and reporting processes.
• Partner with global and regional business and functional owners to clarify accountability and reduce duplication across compliance-related workflows.
• Establish global standards while identifying circumstances requiring regional or local process variations.
• Support automation and integration between compliance processes and enterprise systems.

Operational Excellence & Global Change Management

• Apply process-improvement methodologies to simplify and strengthen global compliance operations.
• Lead current-state assessments across regions, gap analyses, future-state process design, requirements development, and implementation planning.
• Develop global deployment strategies that establish common enterprise standards while appropriately sequencing regional implementation.
• Lead change-management and adoption strategies for new compliance processes, technologies, and policies.
• Establish mechanisms for gathering regional stakeholder and end-user feedback and incorporating lessons learned into continuous improvement.
• Promote a user-centered approach that makes compliant behavior practical and accessible across the organization.

• Bachelor’s degree in business, compliance, legal studies, healthcare, life sciences, operations, or a related field.
• 10+ years of progressive experience in compliance, ethics, legal operations, healthcare/life sciences operations, program management, or a related discipline.
• Demonstrated ability to simplify complexity, manage competing priorities, prioritize actions based on impact, and pull through meeting deadlines.
• Strong communication skills with the ability to distil information and translate complex concepts into practical examples and persuasive arguments.
• Ability to lead without authority, inspire colleagues, and drive execution with a high degree of urgency to address the most impactful enterprise issues and needs.
• Strong commitment to and demonstration of competence, compassion, and courage.
• Experience operating within a complex, global, regulated organization; medical device, diagnostics, pharmaceutical, biotechnology, or healthcare experience strongly preferred.
• Demonstrated experience designing and implementing enterprise or global processes, systems, or compliance programs.
• Experience with multiple compliance operations capabilities such as learning, investigations/case management, policy management, compliance technology, analytics, risk assessment, or program governance.
• Demonstrated ability to lead complex, cross-functional and cross-regional initiatives.
• Strong project and program management capabilities, including requirements gathering, process mapping, implementation, change management, and stakeholder engagement.
• Demonstrated ability to establish global standards while effectively navigating regional and local requirements.
• Experience developing executive-level metrics, dashboards, and presentations.
• Unquestioned integrity, transparency, judgement, and humility.
• Ability to work cooperatively with others and to function well within teams.
• Well-organized with high attention to detail without loosing sight to the bigger picture.
• Highly self-motivated, with the ability to gain trust and credibility.
• A people leader with a demonstrated ability to develop talents.

Preferred

• Experience partnering with stakeholders across global markets.
• Knowledge of healthcare compliance requirements and industry codes applicable to medical technology companies across multiple jurisdictions.
• Experience implementing and executing transparency reporting requirements in pharmaceutical or medical devices companies.
• Experience implementing or administering enterprise compliance technology platforms, learning management systems, case-management systems, policy-management solutions, disclosure systems, or analytics platforms.
• Experience leading global system implementations and vendor selections, including RFPs, requirements development, configuration, UAT, deployment, and post-implementation optimization.
• Experience with data visualization and reporting tools such as Power BI or similar platforms.
• Experience with process-improvement methodologies such as Lean or Six Sigma.
• Relevant compliance, project management, or process-improvement certification preferred.

Waters Corporation (NYSE:WAT) is a global leader in life sciences and diagnostics, dedicated to accelerating the benefits of pioneering science through analytical technologies, informatics, and service. With a focus on regulated, high-volume testing environments, our innovative portfolio harnesses deep scientific expertise across chemistry, physics, and biology. We collaborate with customers around the world to advance the release of effective, high-quality medicines, ensure the safety of food and water, and drive better patient outcomes by detecting diseases earlier, managing routine infections, and combating antibiotic resistance. Through a shared culture of relentless innovation, our passionate team of ~16,000 colleagues turn scientific challenges into breakthroughs that improve lives worldwide.

Diversity and inclusion are fundamental to our core values at Waters Corporation. It benefits our employees, our products, our customers and our community. Waters complies with all applicable federal, state, and local laws. Qualified applicants are considered without regard to sex, race, color, ancestry, national origin, citizenship status, religion, age, marital status (including civil unions), military service, veteran status, pregnancy (including childbirth and related medical conditions), genetic information, sexual orientation, gender identity, legally recognized disability, domestic violence victim status, or any other characteristic protected by law. Waters is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. All hiring decisions are based solely on qualifications, merit, and business needs at the time.