LEADERSHIP

Our new head of Corporate Compliance discusses her career path and the benefits of internal mobility.

Sandi Tillotson is no stranger to Compliance and Risk Management. An attorney by trade, since joining New York Life in 2003, she has had roles in the Office of the General Counsel (OGC), Corporate Compliance (CCD), and Risk Management. We spoke with her to learn more about her vision as the new Chief Compliance Officer and the path that brought her to this point in her career.  

What does the role of Chief Compliance Officer entail?

I lead the Corporate Compliance Department and the compliance functions that support both the insurance and investments businesses. It’s a team of approximately 140 people with a range of different backgrounds and areas of expertise.

CCD’s mission is to uphold New York Life’s commitment to integrity and humanity by doing the right thing for our customers and to partner with our business areas to achieve the company’s strategic objectives and maintain its financial strength. In my first town hall I also laid out what I view as CCD’s strategic objectives:

• Ensure all programs are effective, aligned with relevant laws and regulations, and reviewed on an ongoing basis
• Partner with business leaders to advance business goals and priorities
• Provide business areas with timely guidance, data insights, and industry trends
• Strengthen our monitoring programs and use data more effectively and efficiently
• Remain focused on enhancing employee diversity, engagement, and development

We have a strong compliance program today. I want to continue to enhance the program and also look ahead to ensure that our program adapts to changes around us — both inside and outside New York Life. We need to be involved in projects early and we need to understand what the business priorities are and why so that we can be an integral part of finding the way forward. Another one of my goals is to think about how we can use data to help us do our job more effectively and efficiently.

Talk about your career path.

I didn’t always want to be an attorney. I was a history major in college. When I graduated, I found a job working for [former Secretary of State] Madeline Albright at the U.S. mission to the United Nations in the public relations area. This was an eye-opening experience for me. I had always been fascinated by international affairs, but I noticed there were a lot of legal aspects to working at the UN. I realized if I wanted to advance, I’d probably have to go to law school.

After graduating from law school, I worked for a firm as a litigator. Litigation appealed to me because I liked learning the facts of each matter and then building my arguments and articulating a story that was compelling and persuasive. I learned a great deal, but when I saw an opening at New York Life for a litigator, I thought it would be a great opportunity to use my skills in-house. I joined New York Life in 2003 and spent many years in the litigation section of OGC. In 2014, I moved to Compliance and spent two-and-a-half years there working with the sales compliance teams. Then it was back to OGC to manage litigation while performing my duties as Chief of Staff to Chief Legal Officer Sheila Davidson. In September 2018, I moved to a role heading the Corporate Risk Practice teams in the Risk Management Department. In January 2020, I returned to Compliance where I was responsible for the sales compliance functions for our insurance businesses. I just recently became the Chief Compliance Officer when Sara Badler retired at the end of 2022. 

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