Compliance Director

Clayco; Chicago, Northern (IL, KY); Hybrid; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Clayco, a leading real estate, architecture, engineering and construction firm, seeks a Compliance Director for the Chicago or St. Louis offices to lead ethics, compliance and risk programs across multiple entities. You will own training, investigations, and vendor compliance reviews.

The role emphasizes cross-functional collaboration, quarterly EMT reporting, and risk assessment, with travel required. This fast-paced, client-focused environment rewards clear judgment and proactive policy

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree required; a compliance certification (e.g., CCEP or CFE) preferred.
• 7+ years of experience in compliance, ethics, legal, or risk management.
• Working familiarity with antitrust law, anti-bribery/corruption requirements, and public procurement or government contracting rules.
• Comfortable designing and delivering live training, not just distributing e-learning modules.
• Strong investigative and cross-functional communication skills.

Responsibilities

• Execute enterprise-wide compliance policies across entities.
• Own vendor and procurement compliance reviews end-to-end.
• Investigate reports and coordinate remediation.
• Administer conflict-of-interest disclosures.
• Maintain compliance files and audit-ready records.
• Conduct periodic compliance risk assessments.
• Report quarterly to Enterprise Compliance Team.

Skills

Training delivery

Investigative skills

Cross-functional communication

Compliance knowledge

Education

Bachelor's degree

CCEP or CFE certification preferred

Job description

About Us

Clayco is a leading, fully integrated real estate, architecture, engineering, and construction firm that defines its core methodology as the "Art & Science of Building," pairing structural precision and cutting-edge technology with creative ingenuity and careful human collaboration. Specializing in turnkey, providing fast track, efficient solutions for mission-critical, industrial, life sciences, power & energy, aviation, commercial, institutional, residential and sports & entertainment-related building projects. Grounded in its signature mantra, "Beyond These Walls," Clayco shifts the focus of construction from basic physical concrete to the long-term impact on the building's users, driving community workforce development, deep inclusion efforts, and robust environmental sustainability.

Clayco’s Values & Commitment

Our approach is very simple: treat others as we would want to be treated.

It means employing the best and brightest in our industry and embracing their passion, creativity and ideas—and arming them with the latest technology to help them do their jobs. It means forging real partnerships with suppliers and subcontractors that start with better project management and fair bidding practices and extends to a zero-tolerance hard-hat policy, industry-leading safety practices and one of the first contractor-led insurance programs. And it means thinking about the communities in which we build as our own projects that enhance them, sustainability practices that reduce waste and programs that give back to the people that share them.

And it’s what makes Clayco one of our clients’ most valued partners.

The Role We Want You For

The Compliance Director is the day-to-day compliance owner for an assigned group of Clayco enterprise entities, executing the standard set by the Executive Management Team above. This role builds directly on CDC's existing Director of Ethics and Compliance function — including ownership of CDC's eight-part vendor compliance review process authority on CDC's Designation of Authority — extended to cover SEI, CSI, and Ventana.

• Policy Execution: Execute the enterprise-wide priority of flowing down prime contract liability obligations through the supply chain; Execute the enterprise-wide Code of Conduct and compliance policies consistently across every entity in the assigned group, adapting execution — not principles — to each entity's actual regulatory exposure.
• Compliance Review Ownership: Own each entity's vendor and procurement compliance review process end to end — for the enterprise, this is the formal Compliance Review Process defined in the enterprise’s Governance & Compliance policy, an eight-part vendor check (licensing, statutory compliance, exclusion and sanctions screening, antitrust, Executive Orders, and tariffs) that must be completed and documented before any purchase order is issued, regardless of dollar value. Set the standard for how reviews are performed, ensure reviewers apply the process consistently across divisions, hold the required approval position on the entity's Designation of Authority, and report findings and exceptions to leadership
• Investigations: Investigate reports within the assigned group's entities, document findings, and coordinate remediation, escalating serious matters to the EMT.
• Conflict of Interest Oversight: Administer conflict-of-interest disclosures (e.g., familial relationship disclosures) within the assigned entities, ensuring recusal and reassignment to an alternate reviewer whenever a conflict is identified.
• Recordkeeping: Maintain compliance files and evidence of review for every vendor, PO, and disclosure within the assigned group, ready for periodic audits.
• Risk Assessment: Conduct periodic compliance risk assessments across the assigned entities, directing training, monitoring, and review resources toward the highest-risk activities and functions.
• Reporting to the EMT: Report at least quarterly to the Enterprise Compliance Team on compliance metrics, exceptions, training completion, and audit findings within the assigned group.

The Specifics of the Role

Training & Education Program

The Compliance Director will manage the enterprise’s training curriculum to ensure it remains compliant and will ensure every employee within the assigned group of entities completes it, adapting examples to that group's specific risk profile without changing the underlying content.

What Gets Delivered

• Antitrust & Fair Competition: Deliver training on recognizing and avoiding bid rigging, price fixing, market and customer allocation, and improper competitor conversations, using examples specific to the assigned entities (e.g., steel and materials procurement for CDC, brokerage relationships for CRG).
• Anti-Bribery & Corruption: Deliver training on recognizing bribery and improper payments, third-party and vendor risk, and gift/entertainment limits, calibrated to each entity's actual vendor and client relationships.
• Working with Public Entities: Deliver training on procurement integrity, gifts and gratuities restrictions involving public officials, conflicts of interest, and prevailing-wage/labor-law obligations for any entity in the assigned group that performs government-funded work.
• Reporting Obligations: Reinforce the ethics hotline, no-retaliation protection, and each employee's obligation to report suspected violations at every training session.

Delivery & Tracking

• Cadence: Schedule and deliver baseline annual training for every employee in the assigned group, plus onboarding training for new hires within 30 days of start.
• High-Risk Roles: Run supplemental live sessions or workshops for high-risk roles within the assigned group — e.g., buyers, Account Managers, and project teams bidding on public-sector work.
• Tracking: Track completion within the assigned group and report gaps to the EMT; follow up directly with any employee or team that misses a required session.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree required; a compliance certification (e.g., Certified Compliance & Ethics Professional (CCEP) or Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE)) preferred.
• 7+ years of experience in compliance, ethics, legal, or risk management, ideally within construction, engineering, or a related industry.
• Working familiarity with antitrust law, anti-bribery/corruption requirements, and public procurement or government contracting rules.
• Comfortable designing and delivering live training, not just distributing e-learning modules.
• Strong investigative and cross-functional communication skills; able to work across multiple entities with different operating cultures.

Some Things You Should Know

This position is a St. Louis or Chicago office-based role.

Regular travel will be required.

No other builder can offer the collaborative design-build approach that Clayco does.

We work on creative, complex, award-winning, high-profile jobs.

The pace is fast!

Why Clayco?

At Clayco, we don't just build world-class structures; we build thriving careers. Grounded in our mantra, "Beyond These Walls," we are consistently recognized as an industry leader and a premier employer across North America. Our recent accolades include:

• Consistently Named a "Best Place to Work" across major metropolitan hubs, including Chicago, St. Louis, Los Angeles, and Phoenix.
• Top-Tier National Contractor: Annually ranked by ENR as a Top 3 Data Center Contractor, a Top 5 Design-Build Firm, and a Top 5 Green Contractor.
• Regional Industry Leader: Regularly named the #1 Midwest Contractor by ENR.

Compensation and Benefits

The salary range for this position considers a wide range of factors in making compensation decisions including but not limited to: Education, qualifications, skills, training, experience, certifications, internal equity, and location. It is not typical for an individual to be hired at or near the top of the range for the role and compensation decisions are dependent on the facts and circumstances of each case

Discretionary Annual Bonus: Subject to company and individual performance.

Comprehensive Benefits Package Including: Medical, dental and vision plans, 401k, generous PTO and paid company holidays, employee assistance program, flexible spending accounts, life insurance, disability coverage, learning & development programs and more!