This is a transcript of the podcast Deborah Ben-Canaan outlines hiring and compensation trends for CCOs and GCs. She tells GRIP’s US Content Manager Julie DiMauro about salary rates and fluctuations, new candidate skill sets desired, how to best work with a recruiter, and a lot more.
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Julie DiMauro: Greetings, everyone, and welcome to a Global Relay Intelligence and Practice, or GRIP, podcast. I am Julie DiMauro, the US Content Manager for GRIP, talking to you from New York City.
GRIP is a service that features a daily website of articles on a variety of compliance and regulatory topics, plus podcasts and other deep dives into compliance trends and best practices. You can find the service at grip.globalrelay.com, and we hope you’ll connect with GRIP on LinkedIn.
I am so pleased to announce that today’s podcast session features Deborah Ben-Canaan, Partner and Global Practice Leader at the in-house legal recruiting firm Major, Lindsey & Africa in Washington, DC. I’m going to ask Deborah to please introduce herself and describe her background before we kick off the program. Over to you, Deborah.
Deborah Ben-Canaan: Thank you, and thank you so much for having me, my first podcast. So I’m Deborah Ben-Canaan. I go by Deb or Deborah. I am a recovering litigator and an executive search consultant with Major, Lindsey & Africa, where I’ve been for the past almost 24 years. And my focus is on corporate in-house placement. So, anything from general counsel and chief compliance officers on down to senior counsel, for corporations, big and small and nonprofits.
Julie DiMauro: I want to start out by asking you about your in-house compensation counsel report. So Major, Lindsey & Africa put out a 2024 one, and it noted that general counsels and other attorneys at public companies are significantly out-earning their colleagues at private firms – 2024 bonus targets are 53% higher for GCs at public companies.
Has this been the case for a while, and what do you attribute for the difference?
Deborah Ben-Canaan: We’ve been doing this survey for quite a while now, but this isn’t a breakout that we’ve looked at specifically in previous reports. But you’re right, it’s an interesting piece of data that we’re going to want to keep tracking.
I think it also makes sense, though. Public companies tend to be larger by nature. They often have more resources to draw upon. It makes sense that they’ll devote those resources to compensation in order to bring in and keep the best talent they can find. Public companies also have a number of legal needs that private companies aren’t subject to and will pay top dollar to see those needs met.
And finally, private companies, like especially private equity, tend to front-load compensation in potential future equity upon exit.
Julie DiMauro: All of that makes sense. Thank you. Back to the report. General counsel and chief legal officer comp fell for the first time since MLA began collecting in-house compensation data. And the report was that the total actual cash comp has decreased by 3% since 2022 to an average of $556,794. Now, how do you interpret this data? And should we not really read too much into a 3% decrease?
Deborah Ben-Canaan: Yeah, I think you’re right that 3% is nothing to panic about. Coming out of the pandemic, we saw an incredibly competitive legal talent market and compensation rose commensurate with that level of competition. So I think what we’re seeing now in the 2024 report is probably better characterized as stabilization rather than a drop.
We also see that much of the change stems from a decrease in bonuses more than in the base salary. Many companies in the past few years have been leaning more and more heavily on variable compensation as a more cost-effective, lower risk means of attracting and retaining talent. So much of the variable comp is at least in part tied to company performance. So we’ve seen some economic speed bumps in the past few years and when company performance is suffering, it makes sense that we’re going to see a drop in variable compensation.
Julie DiMauro: Can you define variable compensation for our audience?
Deborah Ben-Canaan: Yeah, so our survey measures base and bonus. And so the bonus is the variable compensation. We haven’t yet found exactly the right way to measure equity because it is so very different from organization to organization. Then in contrast, this is like my personal experience, I’ve been seeing companies offering top tier general counsel and chief compliance officers some of the largest comp packages that I’ve ever seen, which taken in combination with the survey data, that indicates it’s actually a really good moment to invest in new and upcoming leaders for legal and compliance needs.
Compensation is highly competitive. It’s still very strong, and any way you slice it, top talent is expensive.
Julie DiMauro: Your report lists chief compliance officers as out-earning all of the legal officer roles that you list from chief legal officer and GC to senior counsel and just counsel. You list CCOs as earning on average $693,000 a year. Now why is this a new phenomenon and do you expect it to continue?
Deborah Ben-Canaan: So, this is the second year we really pushed to include chief compliance officers in our data collection and their inclusion represents the rising role of the CCOs in the C suite. Their remits are growing larger and more complex. And so we feel that the rise in compensation reflects companies realizing what a crucial piece of the puzzle they are, as well as the costs of not getting compliance right, which can be huge. We also see so much crossover in legal and compliance.
The latest guidance we’ve seen is to keep these functions separate where possible, but we still see so many lawyer leaders still wearing both hats as companies grow and evolve. Their compensation naturally reflects how much lawyers are doing and what they’re worth to the company. So, we expect their compensation to continue to be in line with other members of the C suite, as it should be.
Julie DiMauro: I am interested though in the piece that you just mentioned about that there is a lot of kind of cross pollination between legal and the compliance departments and that people are dually hatted. I kind of pictured more midsize or smaller firms to have the dually hatted CCO GC, but you’re finding that in the larger organizations as well.
Deborah Ben-Canaan: I read somewhere that I think it’s 50% of companies still have the GC as the CCO as well.
Julie DiMauro: It’s a high percentage. OK. Now for the gender-specific breakdown. The report talks about a gender pay discrepancy. In terms of the report for CCOs, it comes out to $78,251 a year as a total comp package amount. Now that’s a truly significant amount. How has the gender pay difference changed in recent years and why does it persist?
Deborah Ben-Canaan: I mean, looking at the legal and compliance industries taken as a whole, we see the gender pay gap decreasing slowly but steadily year over year. We’re not there yet. It’s interesting that you mentioned women making up for the gap with bonuses.
For chief compliance officers in particular, our women respondents reported higher base salaries than men, but significantly lower bonus targets.
And that’s where I think the progress can be made quickly by companies, not just looking at equity and salary bans, but also in the variable compensation incentives that they use. There are some bright spots, right?
Looking at US-specific data, women chief compliance officers and chief legal officers actually outperform men by 4% in terms of actual cash compensation. The C-suite acts as a leveling factor, I think. We also see mid-level roles in legal departments like assistant general counsels and deputy general counsels moving closer to parity as more and more women enter those roles.
I don’t think we have enough data for compliance-specific roles below the chief compliance officer position, but my gut feeling is we probably see the same progress there.
Julie DiMauro: I also think you said at the start that this gap is narrowing.
Deborah Ben-Canaan: It narrows every year. We’re not there. We’re not there yet. And we’re not going to be there until we don’t have to talk about this anymore.
Julie DiMauro: Exactly. I mean, you know, $78,000. That’s a very significant amount of money. Okay, so we have work to do and they could be looking at different forms of compensation, variable in particular, but narrowing nonetheless, we have work to do.
Let’s think about skill sets, the evolving nature of skill sets. What would you recommend compliance officers trying to move up the ladder in terms of learning new skills in technology, maybe cybersecurity, other areas? What are hot skill sets that you’re looking for, clients are looking for?
Deborah Ben-Canaan: So, from my perspective, in our hiring trends, compliance doesn’t tend to overlap with cyber. So, we typically see cybersecurity under the CISO who may also have privacy, right? Or cyber under privacy under the general counsel. But that said, while compliance doesn’t necessarily overlap with cybersecurity, it could have a role in things like training on cybersecurity.
We do see chief compliance officers who have a role in privacy. AI and privacy are two skill sets that CCOs should focus on if they’re looking to develop in other areas, obviously generalizing, but I don’t know that CCOs are going to want to get up to speed on cybersecurity.
To your question about climbing the ladder, I think for CCOs, the typical step up is general counsel, or maybe staying CCO but also taking on risk or internal audit. But once you start taking on audit or risk, you’re not really at arm’s length anymore as you have a compliance responsibility to them.
I had a former chief compliance officer tell me it’s like having the coyote guard the hen house, not the best practice. And you know, look, climbing the corporate ladder for CCOs, for general counsels, I know it can be slow going. So, if I can offer any encouragement, don’t stop trying, right? Sometimes there’s an internal promotion, but sometimes you have to actually make a job move to move up in title or compensation.
And I know that that tends to be scary in particular for lawyers who tend to be a little bit more risk averse. But I do think if you want to move up, you have to think about either expanding out currently or expanding up, you know, in your company or elsewhere, and you have to be not afraid to make that move.
Julie DiMauro: Absolutely. And maybe move from one highly regulated industry sector to another.
Deborah Ben Canaan: Exactly. So, you’re not typically going from a completely unregulated industry to a heavily regulated industry or vice versa.
Julie DiMauro: Deborah, I’m wondering about the dual-hatted CCO and GC, the person who’s wearing both hats. Once again, you touched on it a little bit earlier, but are you often seeing it at the businesses that you’re working with?
Deborah Ben Canaan: We’re seeing, and you touched, you said this a little bit earlier, we’re seeing GC serve as the chief compliance officer in only some of the companies, sometimes the smaller companies, sometimes general counsel will keep the role of the title of CCO, but then someone is doing the day-to-day running of compliance, we’ll see a lot of chief compliance officers reporting to general counsel. And sometimes they’re okay with that reporting structure.
And sometimes it’s a no-go, right? In a perfect world, the chief compliance officer reports to the board or second best to the CEO. Here’s the nuance, right? A chief compliance officer is about doing the right thing. A general counsel is about mitigating risk.
And so sometimes those rules have different viewpoints on things, but if the chief compliance officer does report to the general counsel, they need to have a path and access to the board. And the board should expect and welcome that access if they need be with escalation points along the way.
Julie DiMauro: Now, if we’re talking about percentages, I know we’re giving rough estimates, but would you say maybe about half of the clients that you’ve worked with, those CCOs report to a CEO or the board and the other half report to a general counsel? It’s about split?
Deborah Ben Canaan: No, interestingly, I see a lot, like most of my chief compliance officer searches are reporting to the general counsel.
Julie DiMauro: Ah, OK.
Deborah Ben-Canaan: It’s very interesting because when I go out to look for that candidate, for the most part, people are, chief compliance officers are okay with it. But once in a while I get somebody who says, no, if it’s not reporting to the board, I’m not interested in the role.
Julie DiMauro: Yeah, maybe that’s what they’re used to and certainly prefer.
Deborah Ben-Canaan: Yeah. And then the other nuance that we see with our clients is whether or not they want a law degree for the role of a chief compliance officer. We see both JD and non-JD candidates and our clients are the ones who sort of tell us how important the law degree is and we’ll counsel them in accordance with their needs.
I’ve seen that JD requirement be like a non-starter. Some clients only want that. Some clients will consider both. For the non-lawyer candidates, they tend to have super strong finance or accounting backgrounds or come from internal audit or risk. At the end of the day, most companies’ problems come from legal or money, right? So, it makes sense.
Julie DiMauro: Absolutely. Now, has that changed over time where you’ve seen like it be a little bit more of an optional thing? Like there’s a little more flexibility on the law degree or no?
Deborah Ben-Canaan: I think maybe a little bit, but for the most part, a JD is preferred. I did work with one company that was super process-oriented and data analytical in the way they came about compliance. And so if it was a JD, they wanted someone who understood all the software and understood how you could use data to help inform the compliance program. It was really fascinating. They ended up with a non-JD in the role.
Julie DiMauro: kay. Perfect. Well, let’s get to the topic of workplace culture, if we can. I want to know how you make the determination that this is the right candidate for this firm based on other things besides skill sets and experience, but actually that they’re going to fit into the culture of the firm and how do you assist the culture of the firm? Can you tell us about that?
Deborah Ben-Canaan: Absolutely. Reading a resume is sort of the easy part of my job, right? Looking at the hard skills. I don’t think that’s why companies tend to come to a search firm to look for a position. I think it’s a lot about the soft skills and making sure that the person is going to be long lasting in the organization.
I think workplace culture is a really hard topic because candidly, not all workplaces can be warm and collaborative and some of them are harder to break into and have tough clients that push back constantly and you need a thick skin to work there.
The first thing that we do is listen to what our clients tell us and we talk to various stakeholders in the organization and we look for consistency and themes, right? And then if we don’t have consistency, we know that there’s something amiss, right?
And when we hear consistently, this is what we’re looking for, then we know where to push back in order to get a true sense of the environment. And then we have a better sense of what type of person we’re looking for, which allows us more success in the placement. So, once we have like a good sense of the culture, then we’re able to tailor our outreach and our interviewing for the search.
And we do a lot of behavioral interviewing. In one kind of company, we may interview the candidate about their nimbleness and then another their ability to push back. But we tailor these interviews for each search. Each interview is different.
Each client is different. And so we expect honesty from the clients in where are the issues and what are the challenges that they face in their culture. And we expect honesty from the candidates when we interview them in terms of what they’re looking for, because not all jobs are the right fit for all candidates.
And so we don’t want to mismatch. We do our best on the front end to ask those types of questions. I think the most fun I have is building out a team for my client, because every historical data point, every person I place helps me better understand what they’re looking for and what type of person is going to work there. And then I think the other piece to that is the assessments. A lot of the Hogan assessment or MLA has its own proprietary assessment to help us hone in.
Those assessments are not inclusionary or exclusionary, but they help with data points in terms of where to ask questions or things to watch out for.
Julie DiMauro: And do certain clients actually have their own kind of personality tests or gauges?
Deborah Ben-Canaan: Yes. They’ll use various assessments. Some of them have proprietary ones. Some of them use some of the more popular ones in the market. And usually they’ll do that with the finalists. And again, not exclusionary, but able to give them data points. So if this is the person we hire, we need to watch out for this or this or get them training on that so that they’re successful.
Julie DiMauro: Additional information that they might need to hone in on the right candidate. Now, artificial intelligence, everybody’s talking about it. How often are your clients discussing AI as an issue, even hiring with AI skill sets in mind?
Deborah Ben-Canaan: For me, surprisingly, I’m not seeing it come up as often as you think it would come up. Maybe at this point, it’s because it’s not coming up under legal, but more under the CISO or under risk. But general counsel needs to be thinking about artificial intelligence. The reality is it cuts costs. It creates efficiencies.
That said, there’s a compliance and legal aspect to using AI in the right way. So general counsel do need to get on board. I’m not sure why it’s not being raised more with me. Nobody’s adding it to my job descriptions or saying we need a specialist in this.
Now, earlier, I got on the phone with one of my colleagues in the Bay Area and they have a different experience. A number of the Bay Area GC clients when hiring in compliance or IP or privacy or transactional attorneys have recently required experience using AI.
So we have a biotechnology company general counsel who was hiring a senior compliance attorney and asked the three finalists to prepare a provision of a compliance policy using AI. The same general counsel when hiring a transactions attorney asked the finalists to review and analyze the contract using AI. So we’re seeing it, I think more in the tech sector, but I’ve been sort of shocked that I haven’t seen more of it.
Julie DiMauro: Yeah, I am too. But given what you said, I wonder if it’s coming.
Deborah Ben-Canaan: It has to be coming. I’m pushing myself to try to use it and it scares me, right? Create this whole unknown thing. And again, going back to risk aversion that lawyers tend to share, I think that it’s new and scary, but it’s coming.
Julie DiMauro: Absolutely. And be able to manage its output, right? The governance around it, safeguards.
Deborah Ben-Canaan: Recognize that independent judgment and thought is still tantamount and paramount to the way a compliance officer does their work. It might help you get part of the way there, but it’s definitely not getting you all the way there.
Julie DiMauro: Deborah, I would love to turn to your own career trajectory here, ask you about how your legal training has informed your work and the rewarding and challenging aspects of your career at Major, Lindsey & Africa.
Deborah Ben-Canaan: Well, as you know, I graduated from law school, what feels like a thousand years ago. I moved to California. I was a litigator for five years, two awesome firms, two awesome mentors. I loved being in court. I loved working with my clients, but I did not love the writing or the research or the unnecessary bickering that comes with litigation.
And while nobody ever starts out as a child saying, I want to be a legal recruiter when I grow up, I was a marketing major in college and an industrial psychology minor.
Like it’s almost like it was shaping for me. Major, Lindsey & Africa was expanding its presence. I was an associate in a law firm and they cold called one of my dear friends to see if she wanted to switch law firms. And she said, no, but are you hiring? And I started at MLA almost 24 years ago, my first 11 years in San Diego and then the last 13 in Washington, DC.
The job comes with a lot of rewards in that one of our sayings that Major, Lindsey & Africa is that we change lives. And I’ve seen it, right? We do change lives and watching somebody that you’ve placed in a role develop and blossom and become something incredible is just it’s so rewarding. So rewarding.
The challenges are mostly related to the economy and the market. We are a luxury item in that, you know, you hire us, but if the economy is bad, you’re probably not hiring and you’re not paying a fee to hire.
Julie DiMauro: I have a question though about stories. Do you get any feedback later on from the corporate client or even the individual that you’ve placed that, you know, maybe is rewarding in and of itself about the good fit?
Deborah Ben-Canaan: Yeah, all the time we get those stories hearing about how this person came in and helped transform a legal department that maybe wasn’t functioning as well right before the general counsel came on board or took them to the next level in their business because this person had a different strategic vision. Or from candidates, this is kind of a touching one. I had an in-house role for an in-house litigator. They wanted a baby litigator.
And when they hired me, and it’s a big company, I told them, you don’t need me, right? You’re going to have thousands of people that are going to want this job. And they said, no, no, we want to know the A candidate from the A+ candidate and we want the A plus candidate.
And I found them a third-year litigator came from a tiny little law firm. Not a big, well-known law firm. And if I tell you that 15 years later, he’s the general counsel of a big, huge technology company. And he tells me to this day how transformative that was for him. So yeah, there’s so many stories that are so gratifying.
Julie DiMauro: That’s amazing. It’s like you all took a chance on him and he proved more-than worthy of that opportunity.
Deborah Ben-Canaan: He’s a rockstar
Julie DiMauro: I love that story. That’s fantastic. I want to talk to you about the approach that you take or that you would recommend actually your clients to take with you. I think I’ll phrase it that way so that they can have an effective relationship with you, get the most out of their money that they’re putting into it in their time. What do you recommend that they do?
Deborah Ben-Canaan: It’s interesting. I could do like an hour on just how to work with a recruiter as a client or as a candidate. But as a client, I mean, I think you have to first have trust. They’re going to take the worry off of your plate because that’s my job, right? Once you hire me, my job is to find you what you’re looking for and not just one, but like 10 of what you’re looking for. So it’s to trust the process, right? It’s to understand the value add that we bring.
Major Lindsay’s been around for 40-plus years. We have known lawyers since they were baby associates all the way on up to Fortune 500 General Counsel. All we do all day long is talk to lawyers. We have all the extra information that you’re never going to see on a resume, right? So I tell clients all the time, why work with us?
Well, you might look at a resume and think it looks amazing. And I can tell you that that person’s looking for a job every six months because I get their resume. They’re never happy. That’s not the person you want to hire.
We have a lot of information about people that I think is really impactful. I could hear that John Smith is the best M&A lawyer in the entire world from two people that I’m just talking to randomly. And those recommendations and references are so valuable because nobody had any obligation to say anything they just did.
So trusting in the process, being candid and honest with the recruiter about what you’re looking for, what you’re not looking for, what the bumps are in the company, the challenges that somebody’s going to face so that I can go out and find you the best possible person I think is critical in terms of working with the search firm.
Also making sure that everybody is aligned in what they want and helping me move things forward. One of the biggest challenges we have is that we lose people sometimes because of the timing, right?
So clients are not going fast enough and valuable candidates are in three or four processes, right? So making sure that you are listening and moving forward and being a real partner to the search firm I think is really critical.
On the in-house side, looking for an in-house role, there are a lot of things that I think candidates can do effectively and successfully. So before actually being in a process, the first thing to realize is that executive recruiters work on behalf of the client and not the candidate, not the job seeker. So it’s unrealistic to expect that an executive recruiter is going to be your agent in the marketplace.
Our clients come to us to find what they need and it’s my job to give them that and I’m highly (incentivized) to do that.
So if I think you’re right, I’m going to make sure that you’re involved in the process. All that said, it’s great for me to know great candidates. So for candidates that are looking, get on my radar, right? Understand that it might just be by email because if I talk to everyone who’s looking for a job, I’ll have no jobs for them to be hired into.
And let me know the basics, right? Why are you looking? Will you relocate? That’s a big one, right? We’re post-COVID now and we’re going back to in-office. Will you go into an office every day or hybrid or remote?
I can’t tell you how many people are still telling me they will only consider remote roles. That’s not what the clients are looking for. What kind of job? What kind of industry? What kind of level? What are your salary expectations? Your compensation expectations are super important. And then from there, if there’s a match, I’m going to be in touch with you. And then the other thing is, and I hate saying this, but it’s true, every search firm has different opportunities on the in-house side.
So if you’re a job seeker, you should be talking to a lot of different search firms. I’m going to have jobs A, B, and C. Someone’s going to have D, E, and F. But if you want to cover the market, you should be talking to more than one search firm. And then if you’re in a search process with us, critical that you’re honest, right? If you’re interviewing elsewhere, let me know, right?
I can help you with timing and things like that. If you’re not fully committed to relocating, let me know, right? The more I know about what you need and want, the better advocate I can be for you along the way. And also, recruiters have really long memories. So if you’re not honest with us, we’re going to remember that. We are the client’s representative. We’re the gatekeeper.
So how you treat us, how you treat our administrative staff, how responsive you are, that’s all part of the interview process. And so every time you have a touch point with me, that’s part of the interview process. And so just remembering that along the way. And I mean, I can sum it all up with saying, this isn’t transactional for me.
I want to know somebody for years. My candidate becomes my client, right? And someday maybe my candidate again, I joke, it’s the circle of life. So we’re a relationship driven business. And so I am looking for relationships with my clients and my candidates that transcend the transaction.
Julie DiMauro: Deborah, I was wondering another trend that we’ve seen at a variety of different firms from Amazon to Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan. There’s been a push toward going back to the office. What have you seen with regard to your clients?
Deborah Ben-Canaan: I have seen that with regard to my clients as well. More and more jobs are at a minimum hybrid three days a week in office. The higher sort of up the corporate ladder you go to the GC and the CCO roles, there’s more of a push to have them in office every day because they want people working and strategizing with the rest of the C-suite. I’ve seen much more of that. The remote roles are fewer and fewer.
So we have sort of a disconnect between the client’s needs and the candidates that are still wanting to work fully remote, which they’re having a harder and harder time finding. And I also think there is something to be said. I understand the value in remote work and I understand the value in hybrid work.
But if you happen to be in the office when the CEO is in the office and a deal comes in or something comes in, you have tremendous opportunities. And I think especially people that have come up in COVID and started in COVID, they don’t get to see the benefit of that because they didn’t live it pre-COVID.
Julie DiMauro: And do you communicate that to candidates — that it might be an opportunity for you?
Deborah Ben-Canaan: I do. If somebody has their hearts set on remote work, then they do. And there are still opportunities out there for that. There’s not as many and not at the highest levels.
Julie DiMauro: And you just ask them to be honest about that point.
Deborah Ben-Canaan: Yes, because you’re not going to say, “I’ll go into the office five days a week,” and then they love you and then they give you the job. And then you say, “Just kidding. I want to work remotely.” That’s not going to work.
Julie DiMauro: Deborah, thank you for sharing these incredibly useful insights with all of us and being on our GRIP podcast program.
I want to thank our listeners for tuning in today as ever. Please explore our articles and other podcasts at grip.globalRelay.com. Tell your colleagues about us and we will see you back here for another podcast session soon.
Deborah Ben-Canaan: Thank you so much for having me.
