Ethics & Compliance Initiative’s Senior Management

PATRICIA J. HARNED, Ph.D. – Chief Executive Officer

CEO Patricia Harned of the Ethics & Compliance Initiative

Patricia Harned is the CEO of ECI.

Patricia Harned is chief executive officer of the Ethics & Compliance Initiative (ECI), America’s oldest nonprofit in the ethics & compliance industry. ECI is a research and membership organization comprised by institutions across every sector, each dedicated to promoting the highest levels of integrity in their operations.

For nearly two decades as CEO, Dr. Harned has overseen all of ECI’s strategy and operations. In that time ECI has become the leading provider of independent research about workplace integrity, the drivers of organizational culture, and effective compliance programs. Dr. Harned is a recognized expert on culture change, ethical leadership, and workplace reporting/retaliation. She leads ECI’s advisory service practice. Clients have included 200+ prominent organizations, often working to regain stakeholder trust following significant matters of misconduct. Dr. Harned has participated as a member of several independent monitoring teams, imposed by federal enforcement agencies as a part of corporate settlement agreements.

Dr. Harned also directs outreach efforts to policymakers and federal enforcement agencies in Washington, DC. She has provided ethics & compliance briefings to officials in the US Department of Justice, testified before Congress and the U.S. Sentencing Commission, and she has personally briefed U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter, the OSHA Whistleblower Protection Advisory Committee, and the Federal Bar Council on strategies to increase effective reporting of suspected misconduct. Dr. Harned also regularly provides training to corporate boards of directors on topics related to governance, and she is chairing a Blue-Ribbon Commission to define effective corporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) programs.

Dr. Harned is a multi-year honoree as one of Ethisphere Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in Business Ethics. She is also a multi-year honoree as a Top Thought Leader in Trust; a recognition offered by Trust Across America. She was a member of the PCAOB Standing Advisory Group, and she currently serves on the board of the U.S. Center for SafeSport as well as the International Association of Independent Corporate Monitors (IAICM).

Dr. Harned holds a bachelor of science degree from Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania, a masters of education degree from Indiana University, and a doctorate from the University of Pittsburgh. 

DANA CLARK – Interim Director of Membership

Dana Clark is a results-driven nonprofit leader with a record of exceptional success in program management, multi-function project management, and community engagement.  Through her various roles over the last two decades, she has helped shape and grow programs from the start-up phase to full global scalable models.

Dana joined ECI this year and is the Interim Director of Membership where she leads the member support team that helps ECI Members access and use valuable resources and benefits included in with their ECI membership.  She also helps to connect ECI members with each other and the greater Ethics and Compliance Community by supporting many of the yearly ECI networking opportunities and events.

Prior to joining ECI Dana was at EL Education where she helped to manage their Partnership Support model.  She worked with School Leaders and Partnership Directors across the U.S. to grow the reach of EL Education programs and services.  EL Education is a national nonprofit partnering with K-12 educators to transform public schools and districts into hubs of opportunity for all students to achieve excellent equitable outcomes.

Before joining EL Education, Dana was a Senior Leader at FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) where she was responsible for leading the development of their youth serving program that was partnered with LEGO Education for children in preschool to 4th grade.  Dana worked directly with colleagues at LEGO to design, build, and scale the program to reach children in over 100 different countries over a decade.  Under her leadership, the STEM program experienced double digit growth year over year.  FIRST is known as the top leading global STEM youth serving organization.

EVREN ESEN – Vice President, Research & Analytics, LPEC, SHRM-SCP

Evren Essen - Director of Research

Evren has nearly two decades of experience conducting workplace research. She brings research leadership skills to ECI as head of the team that manages the implementation, analysis and reporting of ECI’s premier, longitudinal study on workplace integrity, the Global Business Ethics Survey®(GBES®).

Evren also oversees ECI’s Advisory Services, engaging with clients utilizing ECI’s tools to assist organizations in assessing, improving and strengthening their workplace culture.

Before joining ECI, Evren worked at the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) for 15 years. As director of workforce analytics, Evren led SHRM’s survey research projects on HR topics, including employee benefits, job satisfaction and engagement. She also served as the organization’s media spokesperson on workplace research.

Evren holds a bachelor of science in biology from Virginia Tech, a master’s of social work from Radford University and a graduate certificate in survey design and analysis from George Washington University.