Debbie Hennelly

Debbie Hennelly (a US citizen, based in New Jersey) has spent more than 25 years developing and implementing compliance and ethics programs for organizations, ranging from small organizations to some of the largest multinationals. Using her legal expertise in combination with her engineering background, Debbie guides organizations and their senior leadership teams with dynamic risk assessment and management and creating a culture of integrity. Her innovative approaches help strengthen competitive resilience by integrating risk and cultural insights into an organization’s strategic planning, operations and leadership framework. Debbie has broad experience engaging internal and external stakeholders to build trust and protect reputational value.

Debbie founded Resiliti LLC (formerly Compliance & Ethics Solutions), a boutique consulting firm, in 2004. She has more recently served as general counsel and chief compliance officer for two privately-held chemical companies, Sonneborn and PeroxyChem, during transitional periods for both companies, reporting directly to their CEOs and meeting quarterly with their Boards of Directors. She has also served as adjunct faculty for BP, facilitating small-group workshops in ethical leadership, as well as facilitating focus groups and training for other publicly-traded and privately-held organizations.

Earlier in her career, Debbie spent more than ten years in legal and compliance roles at AT&T, Lucent Technologies, Avaya, BP and Avon Products, with responsibilities ranging from implementing environmental and safety management systems to leading global compliance and ethics programs. Her experience holding senior in-house roles in public and private companies, as well as her work in two compliance service providers, has enabled her to acquire an uncommon perspective from both sides of the client/vendor relationship.

Prior to her in-house roles, Debbie spent five years practicing environmental law in Washington, DC, and New Jersey. Before earning her law degree, she was a civil/environmental engineer and supervised construction for Exxon Company, USA. Debbie earned a B.S.E. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Duke University, and a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law.