Roy Snell, executive director of the Society for Corporate Compliance and Ethics, is a great thought leader for the profession, blessed with a talent for expressing pretty complex concepts in a stripped down, evocative, and simple way that makes the point powerfully and simply. And with so many bloviators attempting to define the compliance profession in their own terms, the world needs that. Roy has often said many times that the compliance profession arose because “those who came before failed to detect, prevent and remediate the problems.” The premise is perfectly sound: If the general counsel and Legal profession had been successful gatekeepers in preventing corporate crime, then why would a separate profession of “ corporate compliance” be needed?

But it was needed.