Hui Chen
Senior Advisor
Hui Chen is an internationally renowned expert in business ethics and compliance, with more than three decades of experience as a consultant, lawyer, academic and thought leader. She serves as a senior advisor and strategic consultant within R&G Insights Lab, the legal industry’s first—and only— analytics and behavioral science consulting group. In this role, she advises clients on the design, implementation, and assessment of ethics and compliance programs, drawing on her deep experience in both the public and private sectors.
Hui’s previous experience includes having served as the first in-house Compliance Counsel Expert at the U.S. Department of Justice, where she advised federal prosecutors in their evaluation of corporate compliance programs; worked alongside prosecutors and independent monitors after resolution to evaluate whether the company’s implementation of new compliance measures were effective; and provided trainings to U.S. and international prosecutors and investigators. Hui was also the architect of the DOJ’s Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs document, viewed by many as the “go-to” guide to compliance for practitioners across industries and geographies.
In the private sector, Hui has held high-profile, in-house compliance positions at Microsoft, Pfizer and Standard Chartered Bank. She is also a recognized thought leader who collaborates with leading academic researchers and publishes regularly in business and academic journals. She has been a long-time advocate of data-driven compliance and the use of multidisciplinary teams to tackle ethics and compliance challenges.
Hui’s influence sits at the intersection of ethics, compliance, ESG, enforcement, and investigations. She has experience in and has advised clients on a range of legal and compliance topics, including anti-bribery and corruption; discrimination and harassment; antitrust and competition compliance; sanctions and money laundering; privacy and data governance; environmental compliance; and intellectual property.
Early in her career, Hui was an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of New York, where she represented the government in federal criminal cases involving narcotics, terrorism and fraud. She began her career as a trial attorney under the Attorney General’s Honors Program at the DOJ.
Publications
- Quoted, “DOJ Crackdown Prompts Compliance Scramble on WhatsApp, Signal,” Bloomberg Law (March 14, 2023)
- Author, “How Compliance Can Do More with Less in Volatile Economy,” Law360 (January 18, 2023)
- Quoted, “A Former DOJ Compliance Expert’s Take on the Monaco Memo,” Gartner (October 12, 2022)
- Featured, “Hui Chen on the State of Corporate Compliance,” Corporate Crime Reporter (August 30, 2022)
- Author, “To Certify or Not to Certify, That Is the Question,” Bloomberg Law (July 20, 2022)
- Profiled, “R&G Insights Lab Grows Team,” Anti-Corruption Report (June 22, 2022)
- Noted, “People News,” Global Investigations Review (June 17, 2022)
- Profiled, “Ropes & Gray Hired Ex-DOJ Compliance Pro to Analytics Unit,” Law360 (June 8, 2022)
- Profiled, “Ropes & Gray adds Hui Chen as senior adviser for Insights Lab,” Compliance Week (June 8, 2022)
- Profiled, “Ropes & Gray Group Hires Former DOJ Compliance Expert,” The Wall Street Journal (June 7, 2022)
- Author, “The Use and Measurement of Compliance Programs in the Legal and Regulatory Domains” in Measuring Compliance: Assessing Corporate Crime and Misconduct Prevention, Cambridge University Press (publication scheduled for 2022)
- Author, “Small Businesses and Their Compliance Burdens,” Bloomberg Law (November 8, 2019)
- Author, “Six Questions for Your Compliance Training,” Bloomberg Law (September 26, 2019)
- Co-Author, “Driving Transparency in Corporate Compliance: A Suggested Approach for Using Technology to Influence Behavior for the New Decade,” International In-House Counsel Journal (July 2019)
- Author, “INSIGHT: Next Generation Compliance,” Bloomberg Law (June 28, 2019)
- Author, “INSIGHT: Don’t Obsess Over Updated DOJ Compliance Guidance,” Bloomberg Law (May 21, 2019)
- Author, “INSIGHT: Don’t Let Your Compliance Program Fail Because You’re Afraid of Data,” Bloomberg Law (February 12, 2019)
- Co-Author, “INSIGHT: Measuring Culture & Training: Factorial Surveys,” Bloomberg Law (November 9, 2018)
- Co-Author, “Why Compliance Programs Fail – and How to Fix Them,” Harvard Business Review (March-April 2018)
- Author, “Seven Signs of Ineffective Compliance Programs,” Bloomberg Law (March 22, 2018)
- Author, “Measuring and Reinventing Sexual Harassment Training,” Bloomberg Law (January 29, 2018)
Presentations
- Keynote, “Compliance Challenges for Small and Medium Size Businesses.” Colombian Compliance Association, Medellin, Colombia (November 5, 2021)
- Panelist, “Measuring Program Effectiveness,” Defense Industry Initiative Best Practices Forum (October 6, 2021)
- Keynote, “We Can’t Keep Doing the Same Things!” Converge 2020, Convercent (October, 2020)
- Keynote, "The Effectiveness of Integrity Programs and Their Impact on Creating a Culture of Integrity in Organizations," 1st International Conference on Integrity Promotion, Brazilian Office of the Comptroller General, Brasilia, Brazil (December 12, 2019)
- Webinar, “How to Impress or Underwhelm Federal Prosecutors,” Ethics & Compliance Virtual Conference, Navex Global (October 24, 2019)
- Keynote, “Can a compliance officer set the moral compass of a firm? How?” Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Conference 2019, New Zealand Police, Wellington, New Zealand (October 8, 2019)
- Keynote, “Next Generation Compliance,” Compliance Week Annual Conference, Washington D.C. (May 20, 2019)
- Webinar, “Decoding the DOJ’s Guidelines,” Navex Master Class, Navex Global (May 15, 2019)
- Keynote, “Measuring Compliance Effectiveness,” Chief Compliance Officer Roundtable, Pharmaceutical Compliance Forum, Pharma Compliance Congress XIX, Washington D.C. (November 7, 2018)
- Panelist, “Compensation and Corporate Governance,” Roundtable on Corporate Compliance and Compensation Incentives, Harvard Law School, Cambridge, Massachusetts (May 18, 2018)
Education
- JD, University of California, Los Angeles School of Law, 1991; Assistant Editor, Pacific Basin Law Journal
- BA, University of California, Berkeley, 1988; Editor-in-Chief, California Legal Studies Journal
Admissions / Qualifications
Qualifications
- District of Columbia, 2001