Anthony O’Reilly has held roles as a partner in PricewaterhouseCoopers, the head of Professional Practices at Siemens, AG and as the first-ever chief ethics officer at State Street Corporation, a global ‘too-big-to-fail’ bank. With a foundation in financial accounting and internal controls, built over an extensive public accounting career, Professor O’Reilly was brought into two major global organizations to help rebuild their legal and public reputations. Professor O’Reilly has lived and worked in Germany, the UK, and Hong Kong and has consulted with or worked for global companies throughout his career in manufacturing, financial services and life science industries.
Building on his foundational career as a partner in PricewaterhouseCoopers, Professor O’Reilly helped to steer two global giants through reputational crises by bringing fundamental control concepts to ethical and culture change. Professor O’Reilly has used these skills to navigate through ethical transitions brought about by mergers and acquisitions, serious compliance failure and at the request of a CEO. Professor O’Reilly teams with CEOs and CHROs to bring and sustain business conduct and culture. He has experience navigating this change in times of extensive corporate stress, including through two Department of Justice monitorships.
Professor O’Reilly’s specific executive accomplishments include: fixing the quality of a global internal audit function that failed to address systematic and widespread bribery; partnering with the CEO and executive team to turn-around an anemic speak-up environment; executing thematic reviews of long-term projects and auditing extra-territorial operational and compliance risks such as export controls and procurement practices; working with a CEO to deliver sustainable culture change throughout the organization.
Professor O’Reilly holds a BA degree in Medieval and Modern History, from the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom. He is a senior advisor to the Ethics and Compliance Initiative, a member of the Private Directors Association and an advisory board member at the Hoffman Center for Business Ethics.