Below is a message from Executive Vice President, Treasurer and COO Helen Bowman:
After a comprehensive national search, I am delighted to announce that Kim Upshaw, currently the Vice President, Compliance & Privacy Officer at TridentUSA Health Services, will be joining Drexel University on July 8 as Vice President and Chief Compliance, Privacy, and Internal Audit Officer. Kim succeeds Ed Longazel, who retired from this position in December 2017.
In her role as Vice President, Kim will lead both the Office of Corporate Compliance and Privacy and the Internal Audit Department, overseeing all ongoing activities related to the development, implementation, maintenance of, and adherence to Drexel’s policies and procedures covering the privacy of and access to sensitive information, including student information and patient information, in compliance with federal and state laws. She will also oversee the University’s adherence to federal, state, and local regulatory requirements and the University's policies and procedures, including the Code of Conduct, Conflict of Interest Program and the Whistleblower Hotline program.
Kim comes to Drexel with over 20 years of experience in health care compliance, privacy, and legal, regulatory and risk management. At Trident, a national bedside diagnostics company, Kim served as the organization’s first compliance and privacy officer and built the program there from the ground up; she also served as the company’s first Chief Diversity Officer. Kim previously served as a privacy director at Johnson & Johnson, as associate director of marketing compliance at Centocor Inc., as a compliance and privacy manager at PwC (where several academic medical institutions were among her clients), and as a risk management consultant for Princeton Insurance Company. Out of the candidates we interviewed, Kim stood out for her exceptionally strong project management and leadership skills, as well as her experience building compliance programs and implementing policies, controls and trainings.
Through her work with the International Association of Privacy Professionals, Kim helped develop a Higher Education Privacy Section, and as a member of its faculty, she trains candidates on the key elements of higher education laws. Kim has served as an adjunct professor at Widener University School of Law and continues to mentor and teach J.D. candidates as a guest lecturer and member of the Health Law Program’s Board of Advisors at Drexel’s Kline School of Law.
I want to thank the search committee, chaired by Senior Vice President and General Counsel Mike Exler, for their efforts in evaluating and interviewing candidates for this position. I truly appreciate the time and commitment they dedicated to this process. I also want to acknowledge the teams in the Office of Corporate Compliance and Privacy and the Internal Audit Department for their hard work, leadership and commitment to Drexel during this time of transition.
Please join me in welcoming our new Vice President and Chief Compliance, Privacy, and Internal Audit Officer, Kim Upshaw, to Drexel when she joins us in July.