Compliance Week regularly tracks various personnel moves, board appointments, product releases, customer wins and industry gossip in the corporate governance realm. Submit announcements to Compliance Week Managing Editor Matt Kelly.

Regulators & Standard Setters

The Securities and Exchange Commission has named New York securities lawyer John White as its next director of the Division of Corporate Finance. He replaces Alan Beller, who left the agency last month. White will join the staff of the Commission on March 20.

White, 58, is currently a partner at the law firm ofCravath, Swaine & Moore, where he has a practice representing public companies and their financial advisors. In January White joined the standing advisory group of thePublic Company Accounting Oversight Board; he will now resign that post, but continue collaborate with the PCAOB to improve auditing practices in the U.S. and around the world.

The SEC has also appointed Rose Romero as the district administrator of the Commission’s Fort Worth District Office (FWDO). She is expected to assume her position in early March. Romero succeeds Jim Clarkson, who will return to his post as director of Regional Office Operations in Washington, D.C. Romero currently is the executive assistant U. S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas.

XBRL International, the consortium leading the development and widespread use of XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language), has established XBRL Europe to support the fast-growing XBRL activities there. At the same time, XBRL International has asked Olivier Servais to coordinate the European organization as director. Servais had been coordinating the XBRL in Europe project as permanent secretary.

In The Executive Suite

Alix

Bear Stearns & Co. announced last week that Michael Alix has been named chief risk officer. Alix's primary responsibilities will include credit, market and operational risk management firm wide. In addition, Robert Neff, head of market risk, will serve as deputy chief risk officer. Neff will focus on the integration of the firm's risk management functions.

FNB Financial Services Corp., parent of FNB Southeast, has named Dwight Willoughby as chief accounting officer of the company and the bank. Prior to joining FNB, Willoughby was with Republic Mortgage Insurance Co.

Atlanta-based PRG Schultz International, a recovery audit firm, has hired Robert Lee as controller and principal accounting officer. Lee previously had been a corporate financial consultant at various public and private businesses.

The Advisory Board Co., a healthcare consultancy, has promoted Michael Kirshbaum, formerly senior director of finance, to chief financial officer; and Thomas Aprahamian, formerly controller, to chief accounting officer and treasurer.

Bruce Snyder, former chief accounting officer at Waste Management Inc., has been convicted in a Houston court of filing false regulatory documents and insider trading. WMI fired Snyder in 2003, after 11 years with the company. WMI is now under new management.

Chicago Bridge & Iron has agreed to give its chief accounting officer Tommy Rhodes a $1.83 million bonus for staying on the job until Chicago Bridge files its 2005 annual report and for dropping any allegations of wrongdoing against the company. CBI is embroiled in an accounting scandal, and fired both its chief executive Gerald Glenn and chief operating officer Robert Jordan. See CBI's 8-K filing regarding its bonus to Rhodes here.

In The Boardroom

Nicolaisen

Former SEC Chief Accountant Donald Nicolaisen has been nominated to the board of Morgan Stanley. Nicolaisen, 61, served as chief accountant at the SEC from September 2003 to November 2005. He currently serves on the board of Verizon Communications and has been nominated to serve on the board of Zurich Financial Services as well.

In addition to Nicolaisen, Morgan Stanley has nominated to its board Hutham Olayan, chief executive officer and director of the Olayan Group, a multibillion-dollar holding company with numerous interests in the Middle East and around the globe.

Sino-Forest Corp., a commercial forestry plantation operator in China, has appointed Judson Martin to its board of directors. Martin is expected to join the audit and compensation committees. Now retired, Martin most recently was chief financial officer of Alliance Atlantis Communications Inc. until June 2005.

FTD Group Inc., a provider of floral services and products, today announced the appointment of Thomas White to its board of directors and audit committee. White is chief financial officer and treasurer of Hub Group Inc.

Brennan

NASD elected four people to its board of directors at the organization’s annual meeting last week. John Brennan, chairman and chief executive of the Vanguard Group, was elected to a second term of three years. Newly elected were John Simmers, chief executive of ING Advisors Network; Brian Kovack, president of Kovack Securities Inc.; and Tyler Dedman, rear admiral (retired) of the U.S. Navy.

New Products & Customers

DolphinSearch, maker of content-searching software, has release its new Online eDiscovery Review Console for electronic discovery management. The DolphinSearch console provides new work-flow management, estimation tools, and management dashboards for e-discovery projects.

OpenPages has announced the availability of OpenPages ORM, the latest addition to its family of corporate-governance software products. OpenPages ORM enables organizations to identify, measure and manage operational risk on a company-wide basis.

LogicalApps, a provider of embedded governance software for enterprise applications, introduced its new ACTIVE Governance solution last week. ACTIVE Governance includes the Access Governor, Data Governor and Policy Governor modules for managing segregation of duties, user-access tracking, data change control, transaction monitoring and automation of key financial processes.

Electricity utility Southern Co. has selected software vendor Bwise to help manage Southern’s compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley and various energy and telecommunications regulations.

The Tennessee Valley Public Power Association has contracted with VisageSolutions to offer consulting and products to TVPPA members trying to complete SAS 70 audits. TVPPA members must conduct SAS 70 audits per orders of the Tennessee Valley Authority, which wants to achieve Sarbanes-Oxley compliance.