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’s Jaclyn Jaeger.

From the Regulators

Masoudi

The Food and Drug Division of the department of Health and Human Services has appointed Gerald Masoudi associate general counsel. Since 2005, Masoudi has been deputy assistant attorney general in charge of international, policy and appellate matters in the antitrust division at the Department of Justice. In his new role, he will help oversee legal matters for the Food and Drug Administration.

Accounting Officers, Controllers

Industrial equipment maker Caterpillar has named Janie Copeland the company’s first-ever chief accounting officer. Copeland has worked at Peoria, Ill.-based Caterpillar for 20 years, and has been corporate financial reporting manager since 2002.

James Reilly has resigned as chief accounting officer of Pegasystems, a software company in Cambridge, Mass. The company says his departure is not related to any financial or accounting issues. He will be replaced by Pegasystems’ chief financial officer, Craig Dynes.

MobilePro Corp. has announced that its chief accounting officer, Richard Deily, has resigned for personal reasons. Don Paliwoda, chief financial officer of MobilePro’s Davel Communications subsidiary, will assume Deily’s title and duties.

Sharper Image has announced that Daniel Nelson will step down from his position as controller and chief accounting officer. Replacing him as chief accounting officer will be Rebecca Roedell, who is also the company’s executive vice president and chief financial officer.

DreamWorks Animation SKG has named Philip Cross as chief accounting officer. He will report to Lew Coleman, DreamWorks Animation’s president and chief financial officer. Cross most recently served as a consultant for the company.

General Counsels, Corporate Secretaries

Video-rental chain Blockbuster has hired Eric Peterson as corporate secretary and general counsel. Just 19 months earlier, the $5.5 billion company fired its previous general counsel, Edward Stead, to cut costs. Peterson comes to Blockbuster from TXU, where he served as general counsel.

Hewitt Associates, a human resources staffing company based in Lincolnshire, Ill., has appointed Steven Kyono as general counsel and corporate secretary, effective immediately. Kyono joins Hewitt from the BISYS Group, where he held similar roles.

Scott Levin is the new general counsel and corporate secretary of Chicago-based Morton’s Restaurant Group. Prior to joining Morton’s, Levin was general counsel and head of human resources for Torex Retail Americas, an IT consulting and software firm for the grocery industry.

Chief Compliance Officers, Risk Officers

$188.5 billion ConocoPhillips has announced the retirement of Steve Scheck as general auditor and chief ethics officer. He will be replaced by Glenda Schwarz, currently general manager of downstream finance and performance analysis.

On the Board

McDonald

New York-based CIT Group has named James McDonald to CIT’s board of directors, where he will serve on the audit committee. Since 2001, McDonald has served as president and CEO of Rockefeller & Co., a wealth management firm. He is also chairman of the audit committee for the New York Stock Exchange.

Cincinnati-based Procter & Gamble has appointed Rajat Gupta to its board and audit committee; he joins Charles Lee, Ralph Synderman, and John Smith. The consumer products giant has also dissolved its standing finance committee, distributing those duties among the board’s other committees.

Zedillo

IT consulting powerhouse EDS has named Ernesto Zedillo, the former president of Mexico, to its board of directors. Zedillo will serve on the governance committee of Plano, Texas-based EDS. Zedillo is also on the board of Procter & Gamble.

In Carrollton, Ga., Loy Howard has joined the board of WGNB Corp., holding company for the First National Bank of Georgia. He will serve on the audit committee. Howard is chief executive officer of Tanner Health System.

Zhongpin, a publicly traded company that processes food in China, has increased the size of its board from four to five, and named Min Chen to fill the new slot. He will serve on the audit committee. Chen has been an executive in the Asian operations of Teleflex for the last decade.

$612.4 million United America Indemnity has appointed Michael Marchio to its board of directors and audit committee. Marchio will succeed John Hendrickson, who is retiring. Marchio was an executive vice president at Chubb & Son until his retirement in 2006.

From the Vendors

OpenPages, a maker of corporate governance software, has released its latest product, OpenPages Audit. OpenPages Audit helps users conduct enterprise-wide risk assessments and manage audits, integrated onto a single Web-based platform.

In Rockville, Md., StarCompliance Software released three new products to help financial institutions prevent or detect potential employee conflicts of interest. The products are Star IA, for investment advisers and companies; Star BD, for broker-dealers; and Star IA/BD, which combines features of both.