Titan, Rite Aid Appoint Compliance Officers

Three large public companies, including $1.7 billion Titan Corp., named compliance leaders last week, continuing a trend that has been noted in Compliance Week and elsewhere in recent months.

Danjczek

Titan, the defense contractor whose acquisition bid by Lockheed-Martin was disrupted amid a federal probe into bribery allegations, announced last Tuesday that David Danjczek had been named corporate vice president for compliance and ethics. Prior to joining San Diego-based Titan, Danjczek was secretary and vice president of administration at the Manufacturer’s Alliance/MAPI, where he also directed its Ethics & Compliance Council.

Also last week, $16.6 billion drug store chain Rite Aid appointed Anthony Bellezza as senior vice president of internal assurance and chief compliance officer.

Bellezza, most recently a regional business risk services practice leader at Ernst & Young, will oversee the company’s internal audit function and its compliance systems and procedures. Bellezza will report to the chairman of the audit committee.

Bellezza joins a company that also has had trouble in recent years. In 2002, the company's former CFO, Frank Bergonzi, was indicted for criminal conspiracy to defraud Rite Aid. In 2003, he pleaded guilty, and admitted to having deliberately falsified the company's financial statements.

Deeney

And lastly, Ametek—a $1 billion maker of monitoring equipment and electric motors—announced that its board elected Thomas Deeney to vice president of corporate compliance and auditing. His former role, which he has held since 2001, was director of corporate compliance.

Prior to joining the company, Deeney spent eight years on the corporate audit staff of RCA, and held accounting and compliance roles with GE Aerospace.

We've made available recent coverage on the roles and responsibilities of chief compliance officers in the box above, right, as well as a related job description. In addition, every month, Compliance Week hosts live Webcasts with CCOs. Click here to view the upcoming schedule of “Compliance Dialogues” Webcasts.